32 Channel - Apple Silicon - Pro Tools Rig in 2023 ?

[huzzam]

just chiming in to reiterate support for RME. just picked up a fireface ucx ii (obviously much smaller than what you'd be aiming for). İt's the most rock solid interface I've had in my 17 years, including Apogee (x2), Focusrite Clarett Thunderbolt, Steinberg, Avid, and Sound Devices. I full expect to keep this thing forever.

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by T-Low

I had terrible CPU spikes on all buffer settings with PT 12.8 on the HDN card.
Very often a session opened with all plug ins greyed out . Maybe just a bad release, but i sold it and went back to TDM

I can't recall what might cause greyed out plugins, but for CPU errors...

There is always the possibility of buggy plugins, or something missed in optimizations, but yes there have been problems. There have been specific problems fixed at times, but one big general improvement came in 2019.5 where AAX plugin processing was improved, and that and/or other changes seemed to make good improvements for people having CPU errors, I am pretty sure in some cases where plugin load was definitely not heavy.

[T-Low]

I´ve been in touch with the Avid support ( for the first time ever ) and there was no solution for the CPU spikes at this time.
Problems with " Dynamic Plug In processing "

My PT licence ended with PT12.8, so i decided to go back to TDM

[Darryl Ramm]

Dynamic Plugin Processing could contribute to instability, many of us found out things were more stable with earlier AAX versions of Pro Tools to just disable Dynamic Plugin Processing. I ran that way for several years. Changes that have happened several years ago (including maybe the one I mentioned) have improved this. I now leave Dynamic Plugin Processing enabled.

Personally I think you are wasting time/taking too big a risk unless on a version of Pro Tools after 2019.5. Yes I know that may not be an option on your current Mac.

You will need to think through the reasons for changing this and your entire budget: new Mac purchase, possibly a Thunderbolt expansion chassis purchase, macOS upgrades, other app compatibility, interface costs, disruption of learning something new, possibility of needing to replace some plugins, studio downtime costs etc, and how to de-risk a transition. As I already mentioned you can at least simulate latency with no extra money spend now and see how much of of an issue that might be for you.

And FWIW, you might be using Pro Tools HD only or mainly for the TDM/Digilink capabilities. With CoreAudio interfaces on current Pro Tools Studio versions you can get 64x64 IO so may not need Pro Tools Ultimate and can save money using Pro Tools Studio. As long as you are not using some of the advanced automation etc. features of Pro Tools Ultimate.

[JFreak]

^ what he said. There used to be a time Pro Tools and limiters worked the same way -- 3 consecutive overs meant stop playback (or overs warning in case of limiters). Nowadays you can hear all kinds of buzzes and whatever if you allow it to happen.

[LDS]

Originally Posted by T-Low

I had terrible CPU spikes on all buffer settings with PT 12.8 on the HDN card.
Very often a session opened with all plug ins greyed out . Maybe just a bad release, but i sold it and went back to TDM

I think everyone had terrible CPU spikes on 12.8. It seemed to stretch from 12.6 through to 2018.something. I remember making a video about it for Avid support - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRlZRDguJvo They were some of the worst Pro Tool releases I can remember. I don't know if it was poor quality by Avid, or the death march of 32-bit components which were all tossed to the curb with 2019.5.

There has been four years worth of software updates since then, though. I haven't used 2022.12, but 2022.7 and 2022.9 work very well in terms of low latency performance. I am experiencing a few weird GUI bugs, but nothing particularly significant. Given the intention to move to Apple Silicon, the first Pro Tools release in 2023 is probably the one that should interest you the most in terms of performance. It will be the first with finalised native Apple silicon support. I'm sure plenty of users will be sharing their experiences on the DUC about it.