2023 Apple Silicon and Pro Tools

[Chevron]

My Hackintosh is down with a hardware issue and whilst I get it up and running again, I have been using my 2020 M1 13" Macbook Pro for mixing with Pro Tools under Rosetta.

Generally, it has been pretty solid - of course, it does not have the same power as my Hack but it is very usable. For a lot fo things it actually seems smoother, like freezing tracks for example - or using Bounce Factory.

I tried to run Pro Tools 2022.12 in ARM but was surprised how many of my plugins did not show up - so back to using Rosetta 2 and I am curious how much less CPU I can use for mixing. I know it is very complex with all the different plugins etc. just curious is all...

Seeing as the new M2 Macs have had a CPU increase, I can imagine they must be pretty cool machines - even under Rosetta.

Love to hear M2 with Pro Tools users report - the Mac Mini M2 Pro looks particularly cool and powerful.

[JFreak]

Originally Posted by Chevron

Mac Mini M2 Pro looks particularly cool and powerful.

Yes.

[Chevron]

Originally Posted by JFreak

Yes.

It sure does huh, especially at the price :)

[JFreak]

I "only" have fully loaded M1 mini (and fully loaded M2 air) and even that is enough (for now) until I try to get crazy with VI's. I'm very impressed that mini can now offer 8TB internal storage (32GB ram is also nice, but M2 with 24GB swaps zero bytes). Pro processor would be helpful too, but this 4+4 core standard M1 is not sluggish yet.

But sure, fully loaded mini is now +5000 euros -- yikes

[Ben Jenssen]

Originally Posted by Chevron

It sure does huh, especially at the price :)

Yes, the price is very good. But the processing power vs M1, well… I had a basic M1 Mini for a year, and swapped it for a M2 Mini a few weeks ago. And it's not like you notice much difference. Both base models, 16GB RAM, both 4 performance cores, 4 efficiency cores, the M2 two more GPU cores. So they're actually very similar chips, but the M1 runs at 3.2gHz, and the M2 at 3.5.

I definitely see a bit faster boot up, and a bit quicker app launch, plus a tiny bit extra snappiness and graphics flow (the two extra gpu cores?), but the M1 was so good, it's hard to see the difference. If I were forced back onto the M1 today, I wouldn't shed a tear. I did this just because I could do it almost without losing any money.

Both are very cool, and completely silent.

[blinches]

Originally Posted by Chevron

My Hackintosh is down with a hardware issue and whilst I get it up and running again, I have been using my 2020 M1 13" Macbook Pro for mixing with Pro Tools under Rosetta.

Generally, it has been pretty solid - of course, it does not have the same power as my Hack but it is very usable. For a lot fo things it actually seems smoother, like freezing tracks for example - or using Bounce Factory.

I tried to run Pro Tools 2022.12 in ARM but was surprised how many of my plugins did not show up - so back to using Rosetta 2 and I am curious how much less CPU I can use for mixing. I know it is very complex with all the different plugins etc. just curious is all...

Seeing as the new M2 Macs have had a CPU increase, I can imagine they must be pretty cool machines - even under Rosetta.

Love to hear M2 with Pro Tools users report - the Mac Mini M2 Pro looks particularly cool and powerful.

Hey, you might find this interesting because I have used a hackintosh for 4 years, 9900k based. I recently got the Mac Mini M2 Pro 12/19c version, 32gb, 4tb. Under Rosetta, it's in the ballpark of the same firepower of the hackintosh, with a slight edge to the hackintosh in my testing/workflow/plugins. But under Native conditions it's a 20-50% faster than the hackintosh depending on the plugins used. lmk if you wanna know anything specific

[Eric Lambert]

Originally Posted by Chevron

I tried to run Pro Tools 2022.12 in ARM but was surprised how many of my plugins did not show up

This game is moving quickly. It seems that there's an AAX Native update about once a day at this point. A lot has been updated over the past few weeks. In fact I'm so far along with having Native versions of my plugins that I'm on the fence about which version to use for my next project, Rosetta or Native. The big hold-out is Native Instruments, which I still use quite a lot. Beyond that, there are plenty of options in each category (eq, dynamics, etc.) to be productive. It's moving faster than I'd expected.

[Chevron]

Originally Posted by blinches

Hey, you might find this interesting because I have used a hackintosh for 4 years, 9900k based. I recently got the Mac Mini M2 Pro 12/19c version, 32gb, 4tb. Under Rosetta, it's in the ballpark of the same firepower of the hackintosh, with a slight edge to the hackintosh in my testing/workflow/plugins. But under Native conditions it's a 20-50% faster than the hackintosh depending on the plugins used. lmk if you wanna know anything specific

Awesome, and thanks for the info. I also have 9900k hacintosh. That is exactly the info I was looking for and very helpful - generally, I thought that under Rosetta there is a approx 30% loss compared to native.

Is the M2 Mini quiet? Do you generally feel the Mini is a snappier machine, or negligible compared to the hack?

Originally Posted by Eric Lambert

This game is moving quickly. It seems that there's an AAX Native update about once a day at this point. A lot has been updated over the past few weeks. In fact I'm so far along with having Native versions of my plugins that I'm on the fence about which version to use for my next project, Rosetta or Native. The big hold-out is Native Instruments, which I still use quite a lot. Beyond that, there are plenty of options in each category (eq, dynamics, etc.) to be productive. It's moving faster than I'd expected.

Thanks for the info Eric, that is good to know. Did you find that you had to pay for many updates when getting native versions. I think I will need ot pay at least Waves as I am out WUP :)

[Rich Breen]

Originally Posted by Eric Lambert

...The big hold-out is Native Instruments...

Izotope / Exponential is the big problem here - "planned" is all they're saying...

[JFreak]

Many who say "planned" may be ready to release the day after Avid releases non-beta native version. Not everyone want to play this public beta game. I certainly understand it.

With that said, assuming what we hear holds true, Avid public beta was/is 3mth and after 3mth from Avid release any decent plugin vendor should have native version available.