Bug-free Mac DAW?

[Cinebient]

Not for me, but I'm not on Catalina. You?

The only crashes I've experienced with Logic have occurred due to plugins. It's quite stable for what I do.

I even have now ghost GUIs in the midi FX channel.
First time i also get Alchemy to crash Logic.
Yeah, maybe another sign to leave my mac as soon as possible but i´m still undecided if i wait for the mysterious ARM macbooks or go full iOS with the next iPad.
Plug-ins and major DAWs getting boring here and more unstable
This is also maybe the longest time without a major update for Logic.
I will see how Logic 10.5. will work. If it ever comes.....

[machinesworking]

Yeah it's weird reading this thread to me? I'm not saying I never have glitches, bugs or crashes, but they're really uncommon.

Recently Reaper will sometimes hard crash with certain VST3's. An older version of Synthex and DP10 seem to have decided on being an issue. The latest version of Synthex is just fine. DP10 fails most VST3's in it's plug in tests. I run something like 140 VSTs, at this point I run mostly VST2, don't see that changing anytime soon, VST3's on OS X in general are not that stable, but it's likely a Steinberg/DAW maker thing rather than a plug in developer issue.

I look forward to VST3 being stable, but VST2 is working, not really much to complain about.

[Cinebient]

Logic even freeze with some plug-ins and i cannot close it. So the only way is a hard reset then. WTF.

[Passing Bye]

Sorry folks, but many of you can't seem to stop updating Logic and OS, last few Logic and OS updates brought almost nothing but problems, but there you are, unhappy and still using them, if you cared one bit about stability, you would be still rocking last stable combo, priorities, stable or cutting edge, your choice.

Having said that, IMO best practice is, first you start with most stable DAW/OS combo and than just use best 3rd party stuff that works with it, stop there for some time and make music with it instead of changing all those variables all the time, new OS breaks half of the working plugins and new version of DAW bring new bugs on top of everything and by the time everything got sorted out, you update and start all of that again, it's crazy circle.

[Forgotten]

That might be your experience, but it hasn’t been mine. Latest MacOS and latest Logic and no problem with any updates of either in the 2 years I’ve had my current MacBook.

Also didn’t see anything broken by High Sierra, Mojave or Catalina updates. Sure, there CAN be problems with updating OS on any system, but issues get patched, and software with bugs gets updated.

Of all the OS updates I have ever done on any system, the only one I can think of that ever caused serious problems was Windows ME. In all the updates I have ever done, that’s pretty good going.

[Passing Bye]

That might be your experience, but it hasn’t been mine.

There's mixed experience across this board and my point was more than clear.

[Cinebient]

That might be your experience, but it hasn’t been mine.

There's mixed experience across this thread and my point was clear.

Yes, but sometimes you are more or less forced to upgrade if you "need" certain features or be it because of pure security since your machine is not only your music workhouse.
But in general you are right of course. But i never had too much trouble but now it is really not great and stable.
But that could be also since i do not made a fresh install but just upgraded on top which can make trouble.
But at least i know that it just happens with certain plug-ins or things i did. So i can prevent it.
Also i just do not use tools then in the future where i know developers cannot adopt. It just belongs to the market these days that we get every years hard- and software updates. If you cannot deliver, others can.
So its sometimes a decision between "do i want the new features for the price of loose something old i might love".

[Passing Bye]

Understand your point entirely, also there a chance one user don't even encounter some of the bugs with his way of working, also agree, stick with developers that deliver, they have developer builds few months before the release, it's their (plugin developers) business to ensure you have smooth ride or any new customer who will get his Mac with newest OS only.

[Cinebient]

Understand your point entirely, also there a chance one user don't even encounter some of the bugs with his way of working, also agree, stick with developers that deliver, they have developer builds few months before the release, it's their (plugin developers) business to ensure you have smooth ride or any new customer who will get his Mac with newest OS only.

Yes, this. I plan to buy a new macbook or going full iPad next (undecided yet where the future goes but i indeed tend to iOS and ARM for music creation) and here you are forced to use the latest and greatest anyway which is mostly not a problem at all.

[rod_zero]

MacOs can be very stable at some point, mostly before yearly update, keep it there another year.

Windows has other problems, specially in laptops where divers get messier and things wrong with something introducing latency.

But a desktop PC is the best choice for music production if you are not in the go, plenty of power, good parts and a clean installation of windows is very stable.

[machinesworking]

MacOs can be very stable at some point, mostly before yearly update, keep it there another year.

Windows has other problems, specially in laptops where divers get messier and things wrong with something introducing latency.

But a desktop PC is the best choice for music production if you are not in the go, plenty of power, good parts and a clean installation of windows is very stable.

I've been thinking for years really, that when this Mac Pro here dies, I'm getting a Windows desktop, but I'm not giving up OS X on laptops. The latest round of 16" macbook pros are amazing, and in general my experience with them has been great.

I've really enjoyed hot rodding out this 09 Mac Pro though, and doing the same to a PC means even more options etc.

[ghobii]

I recently decided to try out Bitwig, firstly because I was intrigued by the features and workflow, and secondly because Logic has seemed to become less and less stable the last few years. And I have to say the stability difference is rather dramatic. I had attributed a lot of the Logic crashes to plugins, but there has been almost no issues with Bitwig using these same plugins. Bitwig also sandboxes the plugins so they don't crash the program, and you can even choose to have all the plugins in their own individual sandbox, though that uses more resources.

I'm extremely happy with Bitwig so far, and also like that it's cross-platform, so I have the option to move off of Macs if I want in the future.

[jonljacobi]

High Sierra and Logic 10.4.4. I stopped there after trying Mojave and 10.4.5 which added nothing and wasn’t as stable. Mojave was actually fine with music, but gave me issues with Boot Camp. Logic 10.4.5 on the other hand had real issues.

Updating can be a bit of an addiction for some, but you’re much better off waiting and letting the impatient beta test for you.

Bitwig is very stable and apparently they’ve fixed the performance issues. I’ll be interested in what you think in a few weeks.

[spigmu]

Not only have I never had the need to update to the latest OS X just because it arrived, but any time I do update it's never without an easy return to the previous, either via Time Machine or CCC. Haven't had any OS X specific issues on my DAW computer in decades. I can't remember when, if ever, one needed to update OS X due to a currently installed DAWs need. If I really, really needed to have the latest for another app's sys requirement I'd put it on another Mac, or partition or startup drive. Apple has had their eye off the ball of OS X for a while now. If I wanted to lose whatever hair I have left before killing myself after fighting with the DAW 48 hours straight I'd install the latest.

[Michael L]

Thank you everyone for sharing your experiences I have learned from users, developers, and my tests that upgrades to Xcode, MacOS, DAW or plugins will interact to create unpredictable incompatibilities that developers will not fix. For example, iZotope's very simple (5 parameters) Vocal Doubler plugin uses a GUI framework that is officially incompatible with GarageBand but works with Logic. Go figure. So I must prioritize either a current DAW or current OS or all my new & old plugins. I always used older versions of both OS and DAW, and prayed for a way to Have It All but God uses Windows.