MacPro HDX OMNI to MacStudio M2 Carbon?

[SD2]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

We really don't know what you are doing or what config Mac you have now so how would folks be able to offer detailed advice?

As I said before, I work on documentaries, shorts and animated films/feature films (sometimes). 5.1 and stereo mix, no ATMOS for now.
I already gave my setup (Mac Pro 2012/PT Ultimate 2020/ HDX1..........).

I understand my demands can annoy you but after years of being an uptodate/"technically aware" user, I got a little bore of it and decided to keep my setup as it is as long as I could without following everything that was happening, so, yes, I'm "a little" lost today.
I've helped others in the past, a lot, in similar cases, and just hoped I could be helped back in return.
So thanks for the help and sorry if I sound vague or imprecise.
I'm just trying to get back on track properly without wasting money on useless investments.
Anyway, thanks for the heads-up.

[Darryl Ramm]

Can you provide clear info, I read all your posts, and would not be asking if you had provided clear info, is that a 4 core 2012 Mac Pro or a 12 core 2012 Mac Pro? And how much memory is in it? And how much workload are you actually putting on your Mac's CPUs today? That is at least a clue to how much native CPU use you'll need. If you are largely running on the HDX1 then this is likely not that interesting, you need little CPU.

You are doing basic editing? voice-over? Redording ADR? (so want low latency or small buffer monitoring?) I assume you are not doing music composition/scoring? or would have said so, but folks often talk about this video stuff and that sometimes turns out to be scoring/some VIs work. If you are mostly basic editing on the HDX1 then anything here is going to blow that away.

You had a problem with the Mac... if that was all faulty GPU related then great, but was any of it caused by your Mac Pro running out of CPU power/getting CPU related errors?

I hope you have something like the 14 days USA Apple store time to return the Mac (maybe even better in France?). If you are thinking of higher-end systems, then getting a Mac Studio Ultra and testing with it and if it looks like more system than you need, that might be obvious, and/or you can get a better feel by testing it by de-configuring CPU and memory.

[smurfyou]

Originally Posted by SD2

As I said before, I work on documentaries, shorts and animated films/feature films (sometimes). 5.1 and stereo mix, no ATMOS for now.

I do all of that as well.

I've had a Studio M2 Max for a few weeks now and it's been solid. I didn't feel like springing for the Ultra. If it had been available as a refurb maybe. I went with 64GB RAM and 1TB storage. I like to keep all of my projects and libraries on external drives so I'm not too worried about space. I've done a few on the internal drive just for kicks. But I did create another APFS volume so it looks like another drive to my pea brain.

[SD2]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

Can you provide clear info, I read all your posts, and would not be asking if you had provided clear info, is that a 4 core 2012 Mac Pro or a 12 core 2012 Mac Pro? And how much memory is in it? And how much workload are you actually putting on your Mac's CPUs today? That is at least a clue to how much native CPU use you'll need. If you are largely running on the HDX1 then this is likely not that interesting, you need little CPU.

You're gonna laugh at me again but I'm not sure which model I have (bought it more than 10 years ago) and, since the graphic card is dead, I can't look at the infos until I receive the new (used) one...
I'm guessing it's a 4 Core and I think the RAM is 16Go.
As said before, I'm using a lot of native plugs (FabFilter ProQ3 on every tracks) and some DSPs (Sonnox, Revibe) on Auxs.

You are doing basic editing? voice-over? Redording ADR? (so want low latency or small buffer monitoring?) I assume you are not doing music composition/scoring? or would have said so, but folks often talk about this video stuff and that sometimes turns out to be scoring/some VIs work. If you are mostly basic editing on the HDX1 then anything here is going to blow that away.

I'm not into music (anymore) except for some Reaktor/Kontakt stuff sometimes.
I do sound editing/design and mixing, but I'm I'm quite thrifty when it comes to track count (Not too much into the "tracks war" with those 200-300 tracks sessions.....).

You had a problem with the Mac... if that was all faulty GPU related then great, but was any of it caused by your Mac Pro running out of CPU power/getting CPU related errors?

I haven't experienced CPU related errors but processing (denoise, converting videos, etc...) is slow...

I hope you have something like the 14 days USA Apple store time to return the Mac (maybe even better in France?). If you are thinking of higher-end systems, then getting a Mac Studio Ultra and testing with it and if it looks like more system than you need, that might be obvious, and/or you can get a better feel by testing it by de-configuring CPU and memory.

Yes we also have that in France, I could do that indeed.

Thanks for your time.

[SD2]

Originally Posted by smurfyou

I do all of that as well.

I've had a Studio M2 Max for a few weeks now and it's been solid. I didn't feel like springing for the Ultra. If it had been available as a refurb maybe. I went with 64GB RAM and 1TB storage. I like to keep all of my projects and libraries on external drives so I'm not too worried about space. I've done a few on the internal drive just for kicks. But I did create another APFS volume so it looks like another drive to my pea brain.

Thanks a lot for the constructive feedback Will!

[LDS]

Originally Posted by SD2

You're gonna laugh at me again but I'm not sure which model I have (bought it more than 10 years ago) and, since the graphic card is dead, I can't look at the infos until I receive the new (used) one...
I'm guessing it's a 4 Core and I think the RAM is 16Go.
As said before, I'm using a lot of native plugs (FabFilter ProQ3 on every tracks) and some DSPs (Sonnox, Revibe) on Auxs.

I'm not into music (anymore) except for some Reaktor/Kontakt stuff sometimes.
I do sound editing/design and mixing, but I'm I'm quite thrifty when it comes to track count (Not too much into the "tracks war" with those 200-300 tracks sessions.....).


I haven't experienced CPU related errors but processing (denoise, converting videos, etc...) is slow...


Yes we also have that in France, I could do that indeed.

Thanks for your time.

If you don't do any tracking of live inputs, you can 100% ditch the HDX card and a Mac Studio M2 Max will be plenty of power for you (though you might want to wait for the Mac Studio M3 Max which is probably only a couple of months away).

I don't really know anyone using HDX1 for surround mixing. Good for you if you have managed to pull it off. Even with simple mixes that included the bussing for various deliverables (5.1, Stems, 2.0, Web, OP59, etc), a handful of reverbs per food group and some dedicated LFE bussing, I always ended up one native plugin or one new bus assignment away from hitting a wall with 256 voices. The good news is that life without HDX has 2048 voices. Not that I ever need that remote many, but it is a massive time saver having one big template that does everything I need from the get-go.

[SD2]

Thanks for sharing!