Big Sur on Intel Mac

[budster]

Hi all, I'm just wondering if anyone out there is successfully using Pro Tools Ultimate on an Intel Mac and any version of Big Sur?

Well this is obviously not recommended, many of our students upgraded to Big Sur and are now having issues with Pro Tools after being told verbally and in writing not to do that.

So if anyone is having success, please tell me your Pro Tools version and Big Sur OS version so that I can pass it along.

Thanks so much,

Buddy
PT Ult. 2020.11
OsCatalina
Intel i7

[JFreak]

Downgrading OS is also a possibility. At the very least do a clean install of Big Sur as OS upgrades can and will cause any kind of random problems Avid cannot reproduce.

With that said my educated guess would be next PT version supports Big Sur at least on Intel hardware, if not Apple Silicon natively. They don't have much time before The Next Great Place is introduced early june.

[Darryl Ramm]

You can search DUC for people reporting issues. If there were severe problems people would be screaming here.

With 2020.12 (and 2020.11 before that) with the exception of one very minor UI issue (in the new track dialog panel with the text in one field being partially obscured, and which does not appear for other users) I have seen no problems on Big Sur... but there might well be issues, I am doing light weight audio work, YMMV.

So what problems are your students seeing and what troubleshooting have you tried?

[EdgarRothermich]

Originally Posted by JFreak

Downgrading OS is also a possibility. At the very least do a clean install of Big Sur as OS upgrades can and will cause any kind of random problems Avid cannot reproduce.

Good luck telling a student to downgrade their macOS.

At the beginning of the semester, I have them fill out a questionnaire to list the details of their hardware and software. Luckily, everybody read the memo not to upgrade to BigSur, but the variety of age of their MacBooks and the version of the macOS they are running is all over the place.

Not much fun running Pro Tools on a 2012 Macbook with 8GB RAM.
I had to do several one-on-one "Genius bar sessions" to troubleshoot upgrade issues or Pro Tools issues because they didn't get a response back from AVID support.

What I always find surprising is that the younger generation (Highschool / College) grew up with all that technology, use it 24/7, but there is not much knowledge/understanding about that knowledge under the hood. When it comes to WiFi and network topics, it gets even scarier.

[Obsidian Dragon]

I've loaded Protools 2020.12 on Big Sur in an Intel Mac. It loads and runs. Unfortunately it was on a lowly 8GB M5 12" MacBook. I did not try any third party plugins. Take that for what it is worth. The best is to wait for Avid, but if you can't wait, try it at your own risk with a separate drive. If you run into issues, swap back to the old drive and you back to your current setup.

[JFreak]

Just remember what I told you, Big Sur support may not be a silver bullet, your students may still need to do clean install of either Catalina or Big Sur (their choice) but upgrading OS is always a bad idea when we are talking about PT. Random errors everywhere, and sluggish performance.

[EdgarRothermich]

Originally Posted by JFreak

Just remember what I told you, Big Sur support may not be a silver bullet, your students may still need to do clean install of either Catalina or Big Sur (their choice) but upgrading OS is always a bad idea when we are talking about PT. Random errors everywhere, and sluggish performance.

I agree that a clean OS install, in general, is always better than upgrading to get a clean and lean OS, regardless of whether it is Pro Tools or other software. But it seems a bit excessive, especially on a computer that runs other stuff.

Do you have any official AVID recommendation that backs up your suggestions regarding Pro Tools?

[JFreak]

Just google "site:avid.com os clean install" and you get a picture


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by EdgarRothermich

I agree that a clean OS install, in general, is always better than upgrading to get a clean and lean OS, regardless of whether it is Pro Tools or other software. But it seems a bit excessive, especially on a computer that runs other stuff.

Do you have any official AVID recommendation that backs up your suggestions regarding Pro Tools?

Your reasoning is the modern version of 'well all the other kids are doing it why can't I?' Along with the answer: 'if all the other kids jumped off a cliff would you?'

Originally Posted by JFreak

Just google "site:avid.com os clean install" and you get a picture


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Trust the wisdom of those who have been there/done that/regretted that.

[gives]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

You can search DUC for people reporting issues. If there were severe problems people would be screaming here.

With 2020.12 (and 2020.11 before that) with the exception of one very minor UI issue (in the new track dialog panel with the text in one field being partially obscured, and which does not appear for other users) I have seen no problems on Big Sur... but there might well be issues, I am doing light weight audio work, YMMV.

So what problems are your students seeing and what troubleshooting have you tried?

Thanks Darryl for the info-:).

G