Mac hardware question

[K Roche]

I would agree with Darryl
I don't think you will gain much (if anything) by going to a Trashcan Mac

If you have not done it already I would look into a dual adaptor for NVME SSD drives to get max lanes and speed out of the 5.1 which is what I did with my Mid 2010 5.1 machine

And think this is most important point to consider

As soon as I disable that plugin, everything is good.

Me I would forget Amplitude and figure out how to get close to the sound with other less problematic amp sims.

Because I don't think complicating your mixing life, for sake one emulated plugin sound, is objectively really the best work flow decision. YMMV

[protoolsuserman]

I was on Mac pro 5,1 with the dual 8 core chips. Still have it running an hd excel backup rig for mixing. Solid machine.

Switched my main Rig out to the MacPro 6,1 2013 model a year ago and haven't looked back. The 12 core is significantly faster than my old machine.

I plan to grab a few of the Intel cheese graters once they all go Arm based because I know the Intel stuff is solid.

Its just a pattern I guess, every few years something better and shinier comes out

l

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

Worrying about hardware is entirely the wrong place to focus. More cores will not help you is things are stuck in a single thread like might be the case here. And the Trashcan, yuk, what a non-expandable dead-end esp. given the world is going Apple silicon, so I’d wait to spend hardware $$ on that transition.

Explore every optimization for *Amplitude* as well as Pro Tools. Is Amplitude 5 officially supported on Pro Toole 12? 12.5.2 is not officially supported on Sierra so why you doing that? https://avid.secure.force.com/pkb/ar...tibility-Chart Trying to be cheap and staying pre-Pro Tools 12.6 and maybe burning yourself because of that is not saving money. Or just give up on Amplitude, there is no shortage of fantastic guitar plugins out there, and frankly Amplitude would not be top of my list anyhow. Maybe get on a recent macOS (do a full clean install) and recent Pro Tools versions, the 5,1 is very upgradeable and there were some improvements in plugin processing (in 2018/19 era? Can’t recall right now.)

And you can use the one month free trial to test out recent Pro Tools. Watch that compatibility table.

Amplitube 5 is 64 bit and supports AAX so it should work just fine in PT 12.x. Also minimum OSX is OSX 10.10 or later. AT5 is a pretty damned good amp sim as they've reshot all the cabs. I'd had various versions of Amplitube but got away from it because AT4 sucked. AT5 changed all that and it's one of my fav amp sims.

[Darryl Ramm]

Thanks Jack. My comments about Amplitube were from previous versions (including iOS products) so good to hear it has improved a lot. I also recalled a Mac optimization guide but can’t find it, there is an IK optimization KB article for Windows 10 optimization, so maybe I was confusing that with a different vendor/product. FWIW I mostly use a Fractal FM3, Eleven Rack, Eleven II plug-ins or Bias FX stuff (occasionally on iOS) etc. enough stuff there to waste endless hours with. And maybe that is why I like the Eleven Rack so much… know it so well, just quick less messing around.

[audiogamble]

Originally Posted by PabloB

This is more of a Mac hardware question, not an OS question.

Background: I have a fairly large session going and everything is working fine. I am using Neural DSP guitar plugins with no issues. I recently started using Amplitube 5 and I have to disable a lot of tracks and can only use Amplitube 5 on a couple tracks with latency set at 1028. Even opening a new session and only having a couple tracks and Amplitube 5 on one track at 128 latency, the System Usage meter will go to 100 and I get audio dropping out. This plugin is a huge CPU hog, for my computer anyway. As soon as I disable that plugin, everything is good.

I have a Mid 2010 Mac Pro 2.8 GHz Quad Core, 32 GB ram, 1 TB hard drive running Sierra 10.12.6. I use a Digi 003 Rack+ running Pro Tools 12.5.2. I dumped the preferences and already had everything set as suggested for optimization listed on the Avid site, but that hasn't helped.
Probably a stupid question, but will getting a new computer make a huge difference and make Amplitube 5 run smooth (anyone have experience with this plugin)? What I'm looking at is a Late 2013 Mac Pro 3 GHz 10 Core E5-2690v2 processor, 64 GB ram, 1TB had drive. Would this be a dramatic improvement or only marginal? I would plan to continue to use the Digi 003 Rack+ and the same Pro Tools version, unless a new version would be better.

Thank you so much for any assistance.

I can tell you as a long time Amplitube user with a new M1 mac that it doesn't get much better. This plugin is definitely a CPU hog. Even on great systems, you can't run more than a handful of instances of this in a busy session. I'm not sure if that version of PT has commit / freeze. I use those features often when I'm doing virtual guitar stuff in PT.

[JFreak]

Originally Posted by audiogamble

This plugin is definitely a CPU hog.

Once you are done with amplitube, go take a look at plugin-alliance.com offerings.

[protoolsuserman]

Originally Posted by JFreak

Once you are done with amplitube, go take a look at plugin-alliance.com offerings.

I second that! Their stuff rocks!

l