Did anyone buy an M1 Max and regret not getting the Ultra?

[R3k]

No matter how large your projects are, when the project is not playing the CPU should be idle.

If you have a software track selected Logic drops you into "Live Mode" for that instrument. This helps minimize the latency of that instrument so you can play it better. This does use CPU and is why you will see the processor being utilized even when nothing is playing. This can be tested by checking the CPU meter and switching between instrument and audio tracks.

For that and other reasons, such as tempo synced affects and that Logic needs to engage the processor continually to perform, I find Logic more often than not is using CPU cycles when its stopped.

 

[R3k]

The Rosetta AU manager task seems to be a real RAM hog.

I hope the optimisations keep coming and things improve further. I'm keen to move away from all non-ARM native plugins ASAP.... but it's expensive!

Im constantly updating to M1 versions of plugins as they come out. Actually just yesterday Native Instruments released M1 versions of all their Audio FX plugins (Though I think only Kontakt is M1 native for their software instruments, but don't quote me)

Question- Do you know of any way to see what AU plugging are Apple Silicone native or Intel Rosetta? That would be great functionality in the AU manager, but alas, no. Imo just going my the developers website notes.

 

[mikeka]

Im constantly updating to M1 versions of plugins as they come out. Actually just yesterday Native Instruments released M1 versions of all their Audio FX plugins (Though I think only Kontakt is M1 native for their software instruments, but don't quote me)

Question- Do you know of any way to see what AU plugging are Apple Silicone native or Intel Rosetta? That would be great functionality in the AU manager, but alas, no. Imo just going my the developers website notes.

PlugInfo. A great app. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/pluginfo/id1626412949?mt=12

 

[R3k]

PlugInfo. A great app. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/pluginfo/id1626412949?mt=12

Excellent! Thank you.

 

[kofman13]

Hi,

Mainly a Logic Pro user here, with huge projects @ 24/96KHz, lots of audio and some Kontakt instruments, often hundreds of tracks, lots of tape emulation, flex time/pitch and a 'live', full mastering chain. My projects are much bigger than most, and I do this all day, every day.

I'm coming from a 5,1 Mac Pro 12x 3.46GHz, 48GB RAM, AMD rx580 8GB, running Big Sur (via OpenCore).

I do also use FCPX and Capture One 'professionally' (meaning to generate income), but I have gotten by OK with the above system (merging RAW photos into HDR in Capture One is a bit tedious, but I don't do it that often). It's Logic that I use most of the time, for many hours a day, and it's so tedious having to wait 3 seconds for the song to play back after pressing the space bar, towards at the end of a mix. It's driving me insane - both the track count, but also the responsiveness (or lack thereof). Everything is running a second or two behind my clicks, once the project starts getting busy.

I'm trying to afford a base Ultra, but it's very expensive. I'm wondering if the Max would be enough 'for now'. There are a couple of Logic benchmarks to go off, but they aren't very realistic and in fact, the jump from my machine to the M1 Max isn't as big as I'd hoped. I want the power of the Ultra, but I have no real experience on the jump from my computer to an M1 Max (or any M1).

So my question is - has anyone purchased an M1 Max and regretted it, or realised that they actually needed more power?

Thanks!

Hi there, im a professional music producer and audio engineer and i do many high profile projects (dance music). im in ableton and also thinking which Studio to get. in all my career, ive never had to worry about oversampling anything or going higher than 44.1khz. Im curious and wondering what is your use case where you need to oversample (which many think most people cant hear the difference. with plugins like Cytomic the Glue or Soothe2, which have 2x, 4x, up to 12x oversampling I literally cant hear a difference and i do this for a living) and use something high like 96khz?
dont mean to sound stand offish just really curious. Also good luck! I wish ableton was as optimized as Logic

 

[memo90061]

I wonder if I should buy a Max or an Ultra for photoshop, video premiere pro, and virtual windows.

 

[ColdCase]

What do you mean by virtual windows.... some require x86 architecture which the M1 chipset doesn't provide.

 

[picpoul]

I got my M1Max MacStudio in May. It arrived DOA (Dead on Arrival), faulty and I returned it. Took them 2 months to send me a replacement, with which I've had nothing but problems with since. Its the worst investment I've ever made. M1 Max with 10-core CPU, 32-core GPU and 16-core Neural Engine, 64gb RAM, 2TB drive. You would think this beast would be more than powerful enough right? I invested heavily to upgrade from my 2015 MacBook Pro (Which worked fine but was just becoming sluggish and frustrating workflow - having to constantly bounce and freeze tracks etc).

My new MacStudio will not work properly with Logic Pro X. I've updated it to 10.7.5, running on Monterey 12.6.1. I've used Logic for 10 years and know my way around it well enough to be able to figure out where problems are coming from - so you would think... but I literally cannot get it to work properly.

Massive latency issues - I have to use record buffer at 1024 to prevent glitches, pops, crackles. In transport it jumps back to the beginning mid track for no reason. CPU spikes non stop. System Overload messages... with this much RAM and processing power, it should be able to run 1000 channels with multiple plugins on each channel with ease. It can't even run 6 channels without problems.

I'm only running full native M1 compatible plugins and stock. I've run it in safe mode with only stock Logic plugins to make sure it's not an AU validation issue, and it still has CPU spikes, Activity Monitor going off the charts and terrible performance.

I've put in a formal complaint with Pro Apps support team at Logic, they are stumped, have done screen shares and all sorts of diagnostics and they cannot figure out what is wrong with it. If I have to send this 2nd one back I'm going to demand an M1 Ultra for my trouble! This is going on 6 months now and is slowing me down for completing tracks and some remixes!

Here's a piece of advice - if you use Logic, do NOT buy an M1Max because they clearly are not compatible with each other. There are lots of other people on forums having identical issues to me with the same configuration. It's an absolute shambles and tbh Logic has always been dismissed by Apple, they only do bi annual updates and clearly don't care!

 

[picpoul]

I got my M1Max MacStudio in May. It arrived DOA (Dead on Arrival), faulty and I returned it. Took them 2 months to send me a replacement, with which I've had nothing but problems with since. Its the worst investment I've ever made. M1 Max with 10-core CPU, 32-core GPU and 16-core Neural Engine, 64gb RAM, 2TB drive. You would think this beast would be more than powerful enough right? I invested heavily to upgrade from my 2015 MacBook Pro (Which worked fine but was just becoming sluggish and frustrating workflow - having to constantly bounce and freeze tracks etc).

My new MacStudio will not work properly with Logic Pro X. I've updated it to 10.7.5, running on Monterey 12.6.1. I've used Logic for 10 years and know my way around it well enough to be able to figure out where problems are coming from - so you would think... but I literally cannot get it to work properly.

Massive latency issues - I have to use record buffer at 1024 to prevent glitches, pops, crackles. In transport it jumps back to the beginning mid track for no reason. CPU spikes non stop. System Overload messages... with this much RAM and processing power, it should be able to run 1000 channels with multiple plugins on each channel with ease. It can't even run 6 channels without problems.

I'm only running full native M1 compatible plugins and stock. I've run it in safe mode with only stock Logic plugins to make sure it's not an AU validation issue, and it still has CPU spikes, Activity Monitor going off the charts and terrible performance.

I've put in a formal complaint with Pro Apps support team at Logic, they are stumped, have done screen shares and all sorts of diagnostics and they cannot figure out what is wrong with it. If I have to send this 2nd one back I'm going to demand an M1 Ultra for my trouble! This is going on 6 months now and is slowing me down for completing tracks and some remixes!

Here's a piece of advice - if you use Logic, do NOT buy an M1Max because they clearly are not compatible with each other. There are lots of other people on forums having identical issues to me with the same configuration. It's an absolute shambles and tbh Logic has always been dismissed by Apple, they only do bi annual updates and clearly don't care!

And yes I've even tried in Rosetta, and the performance is even worse. I've checked every single plugin on the machine for compatibility, there are none that are spurious or Intel architecture - everything is reputable brand and M1. And even in Rosetta with the stock plugins only, it still has problems.

 

[Wando64]

There are lots of other people on forums having identical issues to me with the same configuration.

You are the first one I hear with this type and level of problems.

 

[pshufd]

What do you mean by virtual windows.... some require x86 architecture which the M1 chipset doesn't provide.

Windows 11 ARM works surprisingly well on M1 Macs with Windows doing the x86 to ARM translation. I tried Parallels and it was a good experience, particularly with graphics. I then went to UTM and it works fine for me. I no longer need an x86 system though I still have a number of them.

 

[AfterglowMP]

Have to say my now two month old MS Max 10 core 32gb Ram has been a huge disappointment with video editing in Adobe Premiere. Whether it's 4K (from Sony FX6 and A7SIII) or proxies, Premiere just stops regularly to 'think'. It's not that different to editing on my 2010 cMP (12 core, 3.33ghz, 32gb ram) which is still running and going okay.

You make a small change in Lumetri colour grading and four out of five times the visual change will take 5-10 seconds to appear with the sequence image freezing for that time. I've written to Adobe and the responses have all stressed how 'hard' it is to process footage from those cameras. Was hoping the recent Premiere update to version 23 would fix this but sadly no.

Now waiting for a colleague to test edit similar footage on her Mac Studio Ultra. If that works out, I'll sell the MS Max and upgrade.

 

[rorysky]

m1 max and ultra has the same single-core performance,

and very little programs leverage the multi cores of ultra.

 

[Kimmo]

m1 max and ultra has the same single-core performance,

and very little programs leverage the multi cores of ultra.

Yep, that's my frustration with the Studio lineup and why I haven't bought one (yet).

My much-used Adobe applications won't do much with the additional cores of the Ultra, but they are absolute RAM hogs and probably need the extra memory you can only get with the Ultra.

The price delta to get to a 128GB machine is pretty harsh, so I'm on the sidelines. Will the Apple Silicon Mac Pro could provide more options and a path to future expandability by users? I'm not getting my hopes up, but that would be nice.

 

[Pressure]

Yep, that's my frustration with the Studio lineup and why I haven't bought one (yet).

My much-used Adobe applications won't do much with the additional cores of the Ultra, but they are absolute RAM hogs and probably need the extra memory you can only get with the Ultra.

The price delta to get to a 128GB machine is pretty harsh, so I'm on the sidelines. Will the Apple Silicon Mac Pro could provide more options and a path to future expandability by users? I'm not getting my hopes up, but that would be nice.

If you actually do need 128GB of RAM to use Creative Suite you wouldn't blink twice and buy it.

 

[Kimmo]

If you actually do need 128GB of RAM to use Creative Suite you wouldn't blink twice and buy it.

Here's Lloyd Chambers' comment from his Mac Performance Guide review of the Studio:

"The most important advice I can give is this: do not skimp on memory. That Adobe Lightroom was a memory pig to the tune of 74GB just to process 600 files should give pause to anyone contemplating only 64GB (or less)."

2022 Mac Studio M1 Ultra: Recommended Models and Accessories

macperformanceguide.com

The use case that I'm concerned about involves stacking large sets of high resolution image files (sometimes in the hundreds) and the resulting memory pressure when using Adobe (really bad), Zerene (not great) or Helicon (better, but still not a walk in the park).

I'm sure the 128GB RAM Ultra would be nice to use, but to get that level of memory, and the storage I'd want, we're talking a $7,000 machine. Putting that kind of money down on a non-upgradable computer when the Apple Silicon Mac Pro is somewhere on the horizon leaves me blinking quite a lot.

 

[Pressure]

Here's Lloyd Chambers' comment from his Mac Performance Guide review of the Studio:

"The most important advice I can give is this: do not skimp on memory. That Adobe Lightroom was a memory pig to the tune of 74GB just to process 600 files should give pause to anyone contemplating only 64GB (or less)."

2022 Mac Studio M1 Ultra: Recommended Models and Accessories

macperformanceguide.com

The use case that I'm concerned about involves stacking large sets of high resolution image files (sometimes in the hundreds) and the resulting memory pressure when using Adobe (really bad), Zerene (not great) or Helicon (better, but still not a walk in the park).

I'm sure the 128GB RAM Ultra would be nice to use, but to get that level of memory, and the storage I'd want, we're talking a $7,000 machine. Putting that kind of money down on a non-upgradable computer when the Apple Silicon Mac Pro is somewhere on the horizon leaves me blinking quite a lot.

That's a valid use case and you will absolutely want all the memory you can get if you do focus stacking with RAW images.

You can skip on the storage and get an external TB connected drive for less if you can live with 3500 MBps read and 2800MBps write performance.

 

[pshufd]

The problem with fixed machines is that you have to test your workload and that can be difficult as you don't necessarily know the destination of your workload. If money is no object, then you can just upgrade when your current system hits its limits. Or you can use multiple systems, which I am doing now. I will probably stick with the multiple systems mode for a while as it works for me.

This would be less of an issue if Apple stocked the Ultras in the store and had floor models to test with or if it didn't take so long to order BTO systems. One other idea would be to have a lab space in the Apple Store where you could bring your workload to test on their systems.

 

[AfterglowMP]

Re RAM, a colleague is editing a project in Premiere with footage from my Sony FX6 camera on her MS Ultra with 64gb RAM and has encountered the same problems as me with only 32gb and it's basic cuts with one LUT on footage. And my Mac Air with 16gb is not noticeably slower. Davinci Resolve doesn't seem to struggle and a shift from Adobe for editing is on the cards.

 

[DeepIn2U]

Here's a mix that I started on my intel Mac, and I'm just bouncing it out now. You can see the CPU meter in the Logic arrange page screenshot.

On my maxed out old 5,1 Mac Pro, I had to freeze some of the tracks to get it to play back, however I don't consider this to be a 'huge' project by my standards. It's at 44.1KHz, and I often work at 96KHz (when I get the choice vs when I get a mix to send in). I had planned on upsampling songs I get sent in to 96KHz, too.

There are Intel based plugins running here, but that's going to have to be the case until I can run everything Native. the vast majority of plugins are ARM native though.

As you can see, there is not a lot of chance that an M1 Max would run this mix easily, and it's just at 44.1KHz. A fair bit of oversampling is enabled on the plugins, however.

I think things will get better when everything is ARM native and perhaps also when the project began life on an ARM system. Plus just because the plugins are ARM native, doesn't mean they're very optimised, hopefully things will improve then.

However if you need to get work done *today*, then hopefully this real world example offers a bit of realistic context for people who haven't switched yet and are wondering how much power they need. I do use a lot of heavy plugins FYI.

Cheers,

Ed

Not only directed to you but to others as well that upgraded from a Mac Pro to a Mac Studio.

Considering the backlash of the 2013-2016 Mac Pro trashcan, I’m fascinated that upgrading to the studio is more widely acceptable considering the lack of internal upgrade options being the same as the TrashCan (save for a slight gpu upgrade) and same TB external expandable options even if the bus is faster.

Has this are fed anyone’s external hardware kit setup?

 

[rkuo]

Not only directed to you but to others as well that upgraded from a Mac Pro to a Mac Studio.

Considering the backlash of the 2013-2016 Mac Pro trashcan, I’m fascinated that upgrading to the studio is more widely acceptable considering the lack of internal upgrade options being the same as the TrashCan (save for a slight gpu upgrade) and same TB external expandable options even if the bus is faster.

Has this are fed anyone’s external hardware kit setup?

First off, the studio doesn’t cost anywhere near what the Mac Pro 2013 cost, and it’s clearly not intended to be the top of the line. The Mac Pro as it exists today is very expandable, but we’re in the middle of a unique transition to Apple Silicon, so I think everyone is waiting for the new Mac Pro. If that lacks in options, we’ll be hearing about it from everyone.

Second, Apple burned off a lot of their users in this space already, so there might be less of them to complain!