Anyone tried Protools on an M1 mac yet?

[tclash]

Originally Posted by Emi

Great to hear. Thank you!

I guess I should say I didn't test recording with it at all. But based on the overall performance I'd be surprised if it struggled with it.

[EGS]

Originally Posted by tclash

I just got an M1 MBP (8gb ram, running Big Sur 11.1) and installed and opened up 2020.11 and started throwing stuff at it. I only had the stock plugs to work with. Started with 16 stereo tracks and put channel strip, 1176, EQ7, Massey Tapehead and 2 D-Verbs on every track, plus some mod delays here and there. Added edits w/crossfades on all tracks. Then I just started duplicating those tracks to push it. Got up to 112 tracks before it started choking (9173), and that was mostly if I swiped windows during playback.

Was this a full 16 Stereo track simultaneous recording, or playback? Buffer size? VIs?

[tclash]

Originally Posted by EGS

Was this a full 16 Stereo track simultaneous recording, or playback? Buffer size? VIs?

I did not do any recording, only playback. I imported 8 stereo stems and duplicated. Plugins as listed. Buffer size was set to 32!

[Carl Lie]

Once they get to 64GB of RAM I'm in..

[Jcalla]

Originally Posted by Emi

I want to know if 8gb of ram is enough.

Apparently the 8GB RAM is as efficient as 16GB on Intel and the 16GB as efficient as 32GB, which is why almost no one is having issues with the 8GB models.

[Jcalla]

Originally Posted by tclash

I just got an M1 MBP (8gb ram, running Big Sur 11.1) and installed and opened up 2020.11 and started throwing stuff at it. I only had the stock plugs to work with. Started with 16 stereo tracks and put channel strip, 1176, EQ7, Massey Tapehead and 2 D-Verbs on every track, plus some mod delays here and there. Added edits w/crossfades on all tracks. Then I just started duplicating those tracks to push it. Got up to 112 tracks before it started choking (9173), and that was mostly if I swiped windows during playback.

Could you try a Bounce test? I saw a video of REAPER performing great up until the bounce test where it gave a 0.0x speed with 7 hours of waiting time for a normal song.

[Emi]

Originally Posted by Jcalla

Apparently the 8GB RAM is as efficient as 16GB on Intel and the 16GB as efficient as 32GB, which is why almost no one is having issues with the 8GB models.

Yeah, that’s why I wanted to see what’s the ram in the activity monitor while pro tools is running.

[tclash]

Originally Posted by Emi

Yeah, that’s why I wanted to see what’s the ram in the activity monitor while pro tools is running.

ok, did some more testing.
Macbook Pro M1 8gb ram, Big Sur 11.1; PT Vanilla 2020.11 running through Rosetta 2
44.1, 24-bit session; buffer 256 samples

Started with 8 stereo audio tracks with edits, xfades, and continuous volume automation. Each track had Channel Strip, EQ7, Massey CT5, Tapehead, BF76, Air Reverb, and 2 aux sends. Added an Xpand piano track with random MIDI notes drawn in and same plug-ins as audio tracks. Then started duplicating(I changed the Xpand sounds as I duplicated).

Got to my max 128 audio tracks and kept duplicating xpands until there were 31 of them. Then added 32 stereo aux returns (8 Massey TD5, 8 D-verb, 8 Mod Delay III, 8 Air reverb) and finally a master fader with Massey CT5, Golden Master, and L2007 for good measure.

Did an offline bounce to WAV that ran about 1.5x speed. I'm not sure if maybe Massey plugs are keeping that slow?

So, 128 audio tracks + 31 Xpands + 32 returns with tons of plugs before I started hitting 100% CPU occasionally. GUI stayed fluid except when I would make a big change, when it would be choppy for the first few seconds of PB and then smooth out again.

PT memory usage is about 3.5GB. 1.75GB swap used.

So to reiterate, this is running on unsupported CPU and through emulation. Pretty impressive! I wonder if Avid will have an M1 release before my plan runs out in June.

Edited to add: removing all Massey plugs and replacing with PT stock/AIR plus increased bounce speed slightly (1.9x). Also noticed that PT system usage says memory is at 85%, so I guess it's limited to 4gb out of the machine's total 8. Memory pressure in Activity Monitor never got above 50%.

Also, stepping the HW buffer down to 32 samples didn't have any noticeable effect on how well it is playing back this session.
Then I put the first 32 racks into record (still at 32 buffer) and recorded for a minute. No problems.

[Emi]

Wow!

[Jcalla]

Originally Posted by tclash

ok, did some more testing.
Macbook Pro M1 8gb ram, Big Sur 11.1; PT Vanilla 2020.11 running through Rosetta 2
44.1, 24-bit session; buffer 256 samples

Started with 8 stereo audio tracks with edits, xfades, and continuous volume automation. Each track had Channel Strip, EQ7, Massey CT5, Tapehead, BF76, Air Reverb, and 2 aux sends. Added an Xpand piano track with random MIDI notes drawn in and same plug-ins as audio tracks. Then started duplicating(I changed the Xpand sounds as I duplicated).

Got to my max 128 audio tracks and kept duplicating xpands until there were 31 of them. Then added 32 stereo aux returns (8 Massey TD5, 8 D-verb, 8 Mod Delay III, 8 Air reverb) and finally a master fader with Massey CT5, Golden Master, and L2007 for good measure.

Did an offline bounce to WAV that ran about 1.5x speed. I'm not sure if maybe Massey plugs are keeping that slow?

So, 128 audio tracks + 31 Xpands + 32 returns with tons of plugs before I started hitting 100% CPU occasionally. GUI stayed fluid except when I would make a big change, when it would be choppy for the first few seconds of PB and then smooth out again.

PT memory usage is about 3.5GB. 1.75GB swap used.

So to reiterate, this is running on unsupported CPU and through emulation. Pretty impressive! I wonder if Avid will have an M1 release before my plan runs out in June.

Edited to add: removing all Massey plugs and replacing with PT stock/AIR plus increased bounce speed slightly (1.9x). Also noticed that PT system usage says memory is at 85%, so I guess it's limited to 4gb out of the machine's total 8. Memory pressure in Activity Monitor never got above 50%.

Also, stepping the HW buffer down to 32 samples didn't have any noticeable effect on how well it is playing back this session.
Then I put the first 32 racks into record (still at 32 buffer) and recorded for a minute. No problems.

Very impressive! Did the Mac/trackpad get hot? Were the fans running at audible speeds?