Future of Logic Pro and Cubase on Mac

[Tronam]

There is a native build of Reaper now in beta. Haven't seen any side by side tests yet.

I totally forgot about Reaper. Good call out. Considering how quickly and frequently it gets updated, this makes total sense.

[Tronam]

Apple's in-house application was already working significantly better than 3rd party before M1.

Logic didn't really.
And in any case, "NewLogicBenchmark" results are impressive.
Mini i7: 82 tracks
13" i7:~40 tracks
M1 native: 99 tracks
M1 rosetta: 70 tracks

That’s actually kind of incredible in retrospect. My 2017 15” MBP couldn’t manage more than about 40 tracks in that benchmark and the fans always ramped up noisily with that strip above the keyboard getting nearly too hot to touch. My 2019 8c/16t i9-9900K iMac can get 120 tracks before overload. Seeing a 10 watt SoC pulling off close to that level of performance at nearly 1/3 the system cost seems difficult to believe.

[jonljacobi]

I think we can safely say that the M1 rocks, but some software will have issues that will be eventually resolved. It seems remarkable that software is as solid as it is.

After seeing what can be done, I think ARM may start encroaching on x86 territory in the Windows and Linux world. All the pieces are in place.

[wpostma]

Cubase and Logic are both very good DAWs and will continue to be popular on Macs after and during the apple silicon transition.

What is going to hold you up is not the DAWs those will be native soon. What is going to hold you up is more likely issues about vst plugins.

[EdgarRothermich]

If you keep your Mac and your macOS lagging behind (don't fix it if it is not broken), then you won't like Apple's "pushy" agenda to always update to the latest macOS. Logic only allows one OS version back, and GarageBand and Final Cut Pro only runs on the most recent macOS, so you have to stay up-to-date.

However, if you want to have the best integration with your computer and operating system, then there is no question, Logic Pro. Apple now owns the entire chain, Chip - Hardware - Software. You will know that Logic always runs on the system at the moment it comes out.

[Ploki]

If you keep your Mac and your macOS lagging behind (don't fix it if it is not broken), then you won't like Apple's "pushy" agenda to always update to the latest macOS. Logic only allows one OS version back, and GarageBand and Final Cut Pro only runs on the most recent macOS, so you have to stay up-to-date.

That's been the case for 10.6 only.

Logic 10.0 - Mac OS X 10.8
Logic 10.1 - Mac OS X 10.9
Logic 10.2 - Mac OS X 10.9
Logic 10.3 - Mac OS X 10.11 (Logic in 2017, El Capitan 2015)
Logic 10.4 - macOS 10.12 (Logic in 2018, Sierra in 2016)
Logic 10.5 - macOS 10.14 (Logic in 2020, Mojave in 2018)
Logic 10.6 - macOS 10.15 (Logic in 2020, Catalina in 2019)

Moreover, FCPX 10.5 runs on Catalina which is by now one year old and effectively not most recent macOS.

Also there's no agenda, Apple is streamlining things behind the scenes so old dependencies get tossed, they always did.

[jens]

It may be a win, depending on what your definition of "faster" is. I can't see their graphics competing with nVidia Quadro, for example, which means they will be hopeless for the most important things I use a laptop for.

Huh? If you rely on a high end GPU for professional work then you can purchase an eGPU and connect it to an M1 powered machine (via Thunderbolt - which my similarly-priced Win-Laptop doesn't have btw.) as I am sure you are well aware of, if you are such a professional. And what kinf of laptop ships with some Quadro built-in anyway?

And about your other point regarding battery-life: I would love my Ice-Lake (i.e. very low power-consumption amongst Intel CPUs) equipped laptop to have a much longer battery-life, even though it certainly ain't bad compared to what I was using before. And my wife certainly would love it if the fan wouldn't keep spinning all that much when I am still doing some work in bed in the evening while she wants to sleep already.
So it's totally obvious that these news M1 powered laptops are a complete win in all regards. More CPU-power, less power-consumption, less-fan noise, yadda yadda. Even for an Apple hater like me it's impossible to be a nay-sayer here, agenda-driven fantasy-induced nonsense-arguments aside, that is. But then again I am not much of a religious kind of guy - I always by far prefer facts over fiction.

[Tronam]

So it's totally obvious that these news M1 powered laptops are a complete win in all regards. More CPU-power, less power-consumption, less-fan noise, yadda yadda. Even for an Apple hater like me it's impossible to be a nay-sayer here, agenda-driven fantasy-induced nonsense-arguments aside, that is. But then again I am not much of a religious kind of guy - I always by far prefer facts over fiction.

They are definitely one of the biggest leaps forward in performance-per-watt we’ve seen in many years for the desktop, but these are Apple’s entry level systems for mainstream consumers. As good as the M1 SoC and Rosetta 2 are at x86>ARM64 translation, I think we’re still 1-2 years away from their true “professional” systems, so I can completely understand a healthy level of skepticism from certain types of users.

It’s a sound release strategy though because most average consumers will be perfectly fine with Rosetta, but this gives pro app and plug-in developers time to port and optimize their code for the upcoming higher end laptops, iMacs and eventual Mac Pro. Hopefully by then we’ll also have proper Windows virtualization (which requires Microsoft’s approval) and eGPU support.

[jens]

I've read that Rosetta 2 is significantly faster than MS translation to ARM and also most software companies seem really eager to natively support the M1 swiftly... and those who'd been building for IOS for a while already anyway (Eventide, Toneboosters, Fabfilter, Audio Damage, etc. come to mind), will probably have relatively little issues succeeding if they've haven't already.

And then of course both Mainstage and Logic are unbelievable value-for-money so in the light of this the new M1-powered machines are even a much better deal.

[jens]

It may be a win, depending on what your definition of "faster" is. I can't see their graphics competing with nVidia Quadro, for example, which means they will be hopeless for the most important things I use a laptop for.

Huh? If you rely on a high end GPU for professional work then you can purchase an eGPU and connect it to an M1 powered machine (via Thunderbolt - which my similarly-priced Win-Laptop doesn't have btw.) as I am sure you are well aware of, if you are such a professional. And what kinf of laptop ships with some Quadro built-in anyway?

Hopefully by then we’ll also have proper Windows virtualization (which requires Microsoft’s approval) and eGPU support.

My bad - I had somehow missed that Apple cut eGPU support for the M1 machines, so I guess that's what Bones was referring to, which means the following shall be aimed at myself:




(I acidentally edited my post (reply to Bones) above instead of quoting it, so I edited it again in order to change it back to how it originally was)

[Tronam]

One narrative I don’t really agree with is the idea that these new Macs are some kind of gen 1 beta product. All three models are based on proven, pre-existing hardware designs and Apple’s custom silicon expertise is quite mature and well developed after 8 years of custom microarchitecture refinement and optimization. As drivers, apps, and plugins are properly ported, the performance and capability is only going to get better moving forward. It does surprise me though to see “professionals” try to replace their primary systems with them before most developers have even updated their applications yet.

[BONES]

Huh? If you rely on a high end GPU for professional work then you can purchase an eGPU and connect it to an M1 powered machine (via Thunderbolt - which my similarly-priced Win-Laptop doesn't have btw.)

Yeah why spend $3k on a good laptop when you can waste $6k or more on something less useful. Plenty of PC laptops have Thunderbolt, it's an Intel standard that's been built-into their processors for years. That means it likely works better on Intel-based systems than on ARM-based. But the thing with Thunderbolt is that PC users don't need it because we can have our uber-graphics built-in.

And what kinf of laptop ships with some Quadro built-in anyway?

Dell Precision mobile workstations, HP Z Series laptops and whatever Lenovo's high-end equivalent is. A canny shopper can get a "refurbished" Dell Precision, current model, for less than half what you'll pay for your stupid Mac, with Dell's on-site, next day service warranty.

I would love my Ice-Lake (i.e. very low power-consumption amongst Intel CPUs) equipped laptop to have a much longer battery-life

Why?

And my wife certainly would love it if the fan wouldn't keep spinning all that much when I am still doing some work in bed in the evening while she wants to sleep already.

So buy a water-cooled Acer. Mind you, I don't think I've ever had a laptop fan that was louder than a person's breathing so I think your missus is being overly-sensitive. I'm sure her real complain is that you a such a thoughtless pig that you'd rather be on your laptop in bed than engaging with your wife.

More CPU-power, less power-consumption, less-fan noise, yadda yadda.

Except you don't get that. The benchmarks I've seen all put the M1's CPU power at about the same level as a current Gen Core i7 and well below that of a Core i9. The single thread scores are very good but their multi-threading scores are nothing to write home about. That means you'll get great performance on simple things but not so much on more complex, multi-threaded applications like a DAW or 3D renderer.

[pdxindy]

One narrative I don’t really agree with is the idea that these new Macs are some kind of gen 1 beta product. All three models are based on proven, pre-existing hardware designs and Apple’s custom silicon expertise is quite mature and well developed after 8 years of custom microarchitecture refinement and optimization. As drivers, apps, and plugins are properly ported, the performance and capability is only going to get better moving forward. It does surprise me though to see “professionals” try to replace their primary systems with them before most developers have even updated their applications yet.

The peeps I know who have purchased an M1 Mac, did so as a step to switching later, not trying to switch today. I can see though why someone would be excited to get one ASAP.

U-he did a test with the new 13" MBP with the AS version of Reaper and Diva running in Rosetta and they had 20 instances of Diva each with 6 voices without CPU problem. That is 120 total voices and Diva is still in Rosetta, not even native yet!

That is exceptional performance! A lot of people will be buying these new Mac laptops. Cool quiet and powerful plus great battery life.

[Ploki]

Yeah why spend $3k on a good laptop when you can waste $6k or more on something less useful. Plenty of PC laptops have Thunderbolt, it's an Intel standard that's been built-into their processors for years. That means it likely works better on Intel-based systems than on ARM-based. But the thing with Thunderbolt is that PC users don't need it because we can have our uber-graphics built-in.

it was co-developed by apple and intel, and there's absolutely no truth to what you wrote here.

some pointless platform war drivel and personal attacks

weren't you just banned?

Except you don't get that. The benchmarks I've seen all put the M1's CPU power at about the same level as a current Gen Core i7 and well below that of a Core i9. The single thread scores are very good but their multi-threading scores are nothing to write home about. That means you'll get great performance on simple things but not so much on more complex, multi-threaded applications like a DAW or 3D renderer.

it's an entry level machine and natively it smokes any mobile i9.
Yes, native score ARE BETTER than a mobile 8-core i9.
in a passively cooled 13" macbook air.

now here's the thread title: Future of Logic Pro and Cubase on Mac

[revvy]

stupid Mac

You in the wrong thread, bruh?