Apple MacBook Pro M1 Pro & M1 Max!

[JFreak]

I am pretty sure that enabling video engine is their first priority. It may however take native Apple Silicon build to happen, but it is Avid, PT without video engine is crippled.

[Obsidian Dragon]

Yesterday when Apple did their announcement, they mentioned that they were working with thousands of companies to provide compatibility for the MacOS and Apple Silicon (or something like that). These companies were given early access to develop and test their applications for compatibility. At that time, they showed an exploding graphic of company logos. I tried to see if I can see the Avid logo, but did not notice it. Did anyone else see one?

I am hopeful that Avid will release a native version for Apple Silicon and eventually Monterey, but I also know this takes time. Besides, I have time since I need to save up for one of these powerful machines. I realize that we all prefer the M1 Max since we know Protools is a power hungry program, but I'm wondering if we are overlooking the benefits of the the M1 Pro as a viable platform as it is still a big step up from M1 and supports up to 32 GB of Unity RAM, albeit with letters GPU cores.

One thing that I liked about the announcement is that the 14" model is available to be equal in performance to the 16" models. The only differences are number of pixel on the smaller screen and battery life. Therefore making a smaller form factor (also thinner and lighter) possible for those that want it.

[its2loud]

I have no doubt that the M1Pro will be a viable workhorse for most Pro Tools users. I base this off of my experience with the M1 Mac Mini.
My daily sessions are utilizing about 20-50% of the 16GB of Ram available. The CPU usage is in the 10-20% range. I’m only mixing for post so I cannot comment on music composition. And this is all under Rosetta 2.

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by noiseboyuk

Actually since I embraced the wonders of the Disabled VE Pro template, I've not gone anywhere close to 64gb in years. So when Steinberg / VSL finally do away with the need for their dongle, the all-in-one solution will finally be here.

You do know that VSL is investigating going to iLok right? They haven't advertised when though and an interesting thing is they're talking of initially having a dual-dongle capability where you can use either their dongle or iLok for a certain amount of time.


Oh yeah - 48 gig ram here with liberal use of VEPro.

[Eric Lambert]

Originally Posted by PasteEater

Unless Apple have recently changed their policies, you can't downgrade from the initially installed system. For instance, you can't run OS X Yosemite on a 2019 Intel Mac. The new machines will be able to run Monterey and above until support is eventually dropped.

I'm still waiting for clarification on this since it's a new thing for Macs. For decades you could buy a new machine and downgrade, as long as there weren't hardware or disk limitations. Some recent OSs have employed new disk architecture that make downgrading impossible, but since Big Sur and Monterey are so similar I'm curious to know if buying a new MBP will lock you into Monterey. I understand that Apple won't want Big Sur to be installed, just as they didn't want any new computer downgraded, but is it technically possible, or will the Mac not even allow the installation to run?

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by Eric Lambert

I'm still waiting for clarification on this since it's a new thing for Macs. For decades you could buy a new machine and downgrade, as long as there weren't hardware or disk limitations. Some recent OSs have employed new disk architecture that make downgrading impossible, but since Big Sur and Monterey are so similar I'm curious to know if buying a new MBP will lock you into Monterey. I understand that Apple won't want Big Sur to be installed, just as they didn't want any new computer downgraded, but is it technically possible, or will the Mac not even allow the installation to run?

The thing with downgrading depends on what was the OSX in use at the time the first machine in the family was released. An example is if you buy one of the current cheesegraters you can backdate to Catalina from Big Sur because the first of the new 'graters was released when Catalina was the OSX du jour at that time.

[SUFIX]

Originally Posted by JFreak

I am pretty sure that enabling video engine is their first priority. It may however take native Apple Silicon build to happen, but it is Avid, PT without video engine is crippled.

This would be great, do you have any insight into this? Any timeline?

Been using M1 16Gb MacBook for 6 months with Logic for writing and PT for Stem recording. All seems great apart from the lack of video in PT. Been running Video Slave when in PT but its not ideal in terms of the slight lock up latency.

Apart from that I'm loving the M1, I'll probably upgrade to the Max for the power headroom, but so far the M1 even with 16Gb has seem me through 2 big scoring projects using VI's for writing and running PT along side Logic on the same machine as a Stem overview. Pretty amazing. Its my main studio machine now, I retired my dustbin Mac Pro.

[JFreak]

Originally Posted by SUFIX

This would be great, do you have any insight into this? Any timeline?

I am not in the beta team any longer... and if I was, I would present even less so called educated guesses.

[K Roche]

Here is an interesting video on the performance of theses new M Pro and M max chips and some comparisons with M1 and Intel

One thing that struck me was the explanation on how much more efficient the unified memory (about 3:40 in the vid). and that perhaps we can rethink the amount of RAM necessary to what our specific work flows are

https://youtu.be/STzgIWf4BY0

[Eric Lambert]

Originally Posted by K Roche

One thing that struck me was the explanation on how much more efficient the unified memory (about 3:40 in the vid). and that perhaps we can rethink the amount of RAM necessary to what our specific work flows are

https://youtu.be/STzgIWf4BY0

Honestly, this guy does a better job of selling these new machines than Apple itself. I have no need for a new laptop, and certainly not one this powerful... but I want one now!