Will you be moving to Apple Silicon hardware?

[antic604]

I was just thinking that for a small dev team like Bitwig's extending the code-base to provide compatibility with Apple Silicon has to be an enormous task, taking away resources from actual DAW work.

So I wonder how important this is for the user base? How many of you genuinely want to switch to Apple Silicon - not necessarily the 1st iteration - hardware? And by "want" I really mean plan to. I appreciate that many of us try to stay current with tech and are following recent developments with curiosity and will at least consider moving to ARM down the lane if it's really much faster & more power efficient. It's not about that, though. Please vote one of "yes" options if you're genuinely sure you want or even need to do that.

Please leave your votes. Thanks!

EDIT: Oh, and I voted for Windows despite my recent drive to leave it for Linux. I'm too stupid for Linux, which I can say with certaintity after 4th clean install because I've f**ked it up somehow

[wvshpr]

Supposedly x86 compatible software just runs as it is translated on the fly and not emulated. How well this works is still unknown, but early tests seem to indicate it runs even faster in some cases. The M1 is a beast and if successful will move the industry to ARM processors.

[antic604]

Supposedly x86 compatible software just runs as it is translated on the fly and not emulated. How well this works is still unknown, but early tests seem to indicate it runs even faster in some cases.

I don't think this will be the case for realtime audio software.

[wvshpr]

I don't think this will be the case for realtime audio software.

The only audio dev that commented on that is Chris Randall of Audio Damage. He said the x86 stuff just runs.

Having said that, it should be noted that our testing has shown that native Apple Silicon hosts don't really seem to care whether the plugin is Intel or ARM. In our testing so far, our own products are indistinguishable in the Apple Silicon native versions of Logic and Mainstage, as are the other plugins we have tried from our friends in the industry.


https://www.audiodamage.com/blogs/news/ ... le-silicon

I guess we will have to see when these machines are in the wild. Which will be next Tuesday.

[don_looney]

Iam on windows but bitwig on ARM Mac could also indicate Bitwig on iPad in the future. Thats the only thing which iam interested in.

[pdxindy]

Affinity just updated its apps for Apple Silicon and is reporting a major speed increase using the M1 and affinity apps (Photo, Designer and Publisher)... especially for complex documents with lots of layers, etc. because the M1 graphics are really fast.

So yeah, as a Mac user I will certainly be moving to Apple Silicon. Also, with significantly better battery life, that means more efficiency and less heat and less fan noise. The M1 seems like a big step forward for Apple and it is just the first generation.

And yes, Bitwig on Apple Silicon means an iPad version of Bitwig would be possible and that I would really like to see!

[minortom]

A better poll would have been "as a Mac user will you move now or later", this one is odd. Most Mac users will eventually move to Apple Silicon, others won't leave their respective platforms.

All I know is I'm stuck on Catalina for a while as I have two Saffire Pro 40's and Focusrite is EOL'ing their drivers

[BobDog]

I have one of the M1 minis coming to do some porting work, I'll post here how bitwig runs, only 3.0 but should give you guys some idea...

Edit: just read the other thread, looks like it doesn't work

[antic604]

A better poll would have been "as a Mac user will you move now or later", this one is odd. Most Mac users will eventually move to Apple Silicon, others won't leave their respective platforms.

All I know is I'm stuck on Catalina for a while as I have two Saffire Pro 40's and Focusrite is EOL'ing their drivers

My interest was for the devs to gauge if they should focus on Apple Silicon transition now, or if it can wait. If all Apple people as well as Windows & Linux users were interested in going ARM, then obviously they should hurry up. If not, then I'd rather them working on adding workflow & DAW features instead.

[ihearanewworld]

Lots of people are going to buy these new Macs. It would be bad business for any software company to delay compatibility.

[machinesworking]

A better poll would have been "as a Mac user will you move now or later", this one is odd. Most Mac users will eventually move to Apple Silicon, others won't leave their respective platforms.

All I know is I'm stuck on Catalina for a while as I have two Saffire Pro 40's and Focusrite is EOL'ing their drivers

My interest was for the devs to gauge if they should focus on Apple Silicon transition now, or if it can wait. If all Apple people as well as Windows & Linux users were interested in going ARM, then obviously they should hurry up. If not, then I'd rather them working on adding workflow & DAW features instead.

I think it's a moot point. Bitwig have dedicated themselves to three platforms, they no doubt have done a ton of work to make sure almost all the code is eminently portable. I'm not saying it will be trivial for them but I fully expect Bitwig, Reaper and probably Cubase to be the first three behind Logic in porting to Apple Silicon. I would be pretty surprised if they weren't already working on it as we chat.

Plus, because of this portability they can crush Ablteton a bit, along with everyone else besides Logic really. I seriously doubt Live Suite ports anytime soon.

On a third point, I really don't have any doubt about the success of this port to Apple Silicon, there are some crazy results coming in for what is the bottom row performance wise line up Apple makes in the the three they released so far. Like matching the mobile i9 8 core in performance type stuff.

[docbot]

I'll guess I will switch next winter once they have redesigned Macbook Pros that will likely feature a touch screen (now that iOS and macOS are almost one thing, this is bound to happen). The Machine Learning integration is exciting, I think we'll see a lot cool new AI apps and even audio plugins optimized for M1.

The Performance by these chips is really exciting and will only get better. If you're a Laptop Intel just really hasn't much to offer for you. I am still on a late 2013 macbook pro with quadcore i7 and 16 gb of ram and still don't really see a reason to upgrade to a new macbook on the x86 platform.

It's a bit sad to wave goodbye to a lot of old plugins that surely will never work, but I'm ready for something new

[docbot]

Supposedly x86 compatible software just runs as it is translated on the fly and not emulated. How well this works is still unknown, but early tests seem to indicate it runs even faster in some cases.

I don't think this will be the case for realtime audio software.

Steve from Xfer / Serum said it's running like a champ under rosetta2. Apparently rosetta2 is really capable.

[dakkra]

Supposedly x86 compatible software just runs as it is translated on the fly and not emulated. How well this works is still unknown, but early tests seem to indicate it runs even faster in some cases.

I don't think this will be the case for realtime audio software.

Steve from Xfer / Serum said it's running like a champ under rosetta2. Apparently rosetta2 is really capable.

It seems to be hit and miss. Some devs report good results, some say their x86 builds don't work well. I'm definitely skeptical about it, but we'l see how it goes. I'm especially wondering about things like SSE/AVX -> NEON conversions. Also seems like the universal binary compiler is more of a JIT compiler for x86 and ARM, meaning it's likely a standard language runtime like what Windows has done with the visual languages.

[pdxindy]

I'll guess I will switch next winter once they have redesigned Macbook Pros that will likely feature a touch screen (now that iOS and macOS are almost one thing, this is bound to happen). The Machine Learning integration is exciting, I think we'll see a lot cool new AI apps and even audio plugins optimized for M1.

The Performance by these chips is really exciting and will only get better. If you're a Laptop Intel just really hasn't much to offer for you. I am still on a late 2013 macbook pro with quadcore i7 and 16 gb of ram and still don't really see a reason to upgrade to a new macbook on the x86 platform.

It's a bit sad to wave goodbye to a lot of old plugins that surely will never work, but I'm ready for something new

Apple continues to say they are not planning a touchscreen Mac... I think you are right that they will eventually, but my guess is not for a few years. I really doubt the next MBP will be.

I'll be moving to Apple Silicon... likely with the release of a 16" MBP. My current MBP works well, but it gets hotter than I would prefer even when I am not taxing it. By contrast my iPad Pro has no fan and stays cool even for doing similar stuff like browsing, watching a video and so on.

The Machine Learning is impressive on the iPhone... realtime processing of photos and video... so I also imagine some cool stuff for audio as well.