KVR Audio

Daags · Post by **Daags** » Thu Nov 26, 2020 3:44 pm

agharta wrote: Fri Nov 20, 2020 7:26 pm Apple know what they are doing.

Cinebient · Post by **Cinebient** » Thu Nov 26, 2020 5:47 pm

Some more tests and while a lot things works there are also problems with some of my favorite tools like Precedence (2CAudio) f.e. that you can just open the GUI once and at second attempt it hangs and never open the GUI.
Also some plug-ins seems to work but then Logic says there is a non-function AU and it has to restart.
So yeah, as expected, the third party software is still not good to go in many cases here, at least the tools I use the most. So I am not sure yet how long I can wait or if i return it and wait a few months (maybe also for the 16").
Or I use just Logic and the stuff which works. Not sure yet.
These things seems mainly GUI related since problems just appear if I open the GUI.

Ploki · Post by **Ploki** » Thu Nov 26, 2020 6:59 pm

Cinebient wrote: Thu Nov 26, 2020 5:47 pm Some more tests and while a lot things works there are also problems with some of my favorite tools like Precedence (2CAudio) f.e. that you can just open the GUI once and at second attempt it hangs and never open the GUI.
Also some plug-ins seems to work but then Logic says there is a non-function AU and it has to restart.
So yeah, as expected, the third party software is still not good to go in many cases here, at least the tools I use the most. So I am not sure yet how long I can wait or if i return it and wait a few months (maybe also for the 16").
Or I use just Logic and the stuff which works. Not sure yet.
These things seems mainly GUI related since problems just appear if I open the GUI.

tbh a lot of GUI issues are on Big Sur intel as well.

Cinebient · Post by **Cinebient** » Thu Nov 26, 2020 7:27 pm

Someone pointed me to a tip to load Logic under Rosetta, that solved some trouble.

Bombadil · Post by **Bombadil** » Fri Nov 27, 2020 1:24 pm

This looks, at first glances, like a serious bit of tech that will only mature and improve. Running LPX on a €779 Mini??????? Once everything gets coded for apple silicon, I expect I'll see something I never thought possible.

ericj23 · Post by **ericj23** » Fri Nov 27, 2020 1:32 pm

I was very interested in this as I was looking for a new pooter. The problem I can see is that there are almost no audio cards properly working for this at the moment. I know this will get resolved, but I guess I am waiting to jump on this, or not.

Ploki · Post by **Ploki** » Fri Nov 27, 2020 1:48 pm

i'm gonna try to sell my Intel 13" and buy an M1 if someone will buy it.

Bombadil · Post by **Bombadil** » Fri Nov 27, 2020 1:55 pm

Yeah, it's wait and see, but my 2015 iMac is still going strong, but I expect I'll be paying a lot less than the iMac. My AI is RME 802, and I don't know where they are at the moment in this change, and it's USB 1(?) so I don't know what adapters I'll need for my interface and other peripherals.

Ploki · Post by **Ploki** » Fri Nov 27, 2020 1:59 pm

https://forum.rme-audio.de/viewtopic.php?id=31781
they had ARM version ready before M1 were out.

I love RME so much, i don't think i'll buy any other interface in this life.

tq · Post by tq » Fri Nov 27, 2020 2:00 pm

Mac Mini ordered here.

This should outperform my 15 inch Macbook Pro late 2016 i7 by far - just checked, and my machine has half the numbers of the Mini in all benchmarks. Not worried about incompatibilities in the beginning, as the old machine is still sitting here. What I am looking forward most - beyond double the computing power for a fraction of the price - is a near-silent environment. The Macbook's fan noise under heavy load is crazy, and anything more than a browser seems to be "heavy load" for this machine... (Zoom sessions with it are especially annoying, as the mic picks up the fan noise.) Apogee interface should work, according to their website. We will see...

Cinebient · Post by **Cinebient** » Fri Nov 27, 2020 3:40 pm

tq wrote: Fri Nov 27, 2020 2:00 pm Mac Mini ordered here. This should outperform my 15 inch Macbook Pro late 2016 i7 by far - just checked, and my machine has half the numbers of the Mini in all benchmarks. Not worried about incompatibilities in the beginning, as the old machine is still sitting here. What I am looking forward most - beyond double the computing power for a fraction of the price - is a near-silent environment. The Macbook's fan noise under heavy load is crazy, and anything more than a browser seems to be "heavy load" for this machine... (Zoom sessions with it are especially annoying, as the mic picks up the fan noise.) Apogee interface should work, according to their website. We will see...

Not sure if you will get double the performance for audio but i get mostly here about double the performance (or more sometimes) than my macbook pro i7 quadcore. But it is an old one from late 2013 and just the basic 2.0 Ghz.
But then i have right now about double the performance and more but even when everything runs under Rosetta. So it might get to 3X performance upgrade for me indeed with optimized tools.
And yes, finally i succeed to make my M1 macbook pro warm....but not really hot and the fan is still silent.
I need to install some really CPU-killer to which makes my old one cry and see how it works after longer time.
There is still some trouble here and there but there are also some workarounds and i guess 2 years is much time for most developers.
The one thing which is bad for me is still that N.I. is the only joy killer and even do not let me try it. So this will be not forgotten.....

Otherwise i just can repeat that these little machines run silent and get not extreme hot, they perform really well and the first time i do not need to load the battery 2 times a day. Indeed it came with 80% and after 3 days and some hours here and there of playing around i still have over 50%.
I still have to test how far i can go with the 16GB shared memory.

tq · Post by tq » Fri Nov 27, 2020 4:43 pm

Lovely. The benchmarks point at 2x the power in all tests, but even with less, I'd be happy. Also, the single core power is something that will make a difference for plug ins that do not use multi core. It's rare, but I sometimes get overloads with some plug ins, so I am hoping for less of these issues in the future (as the single core results for these are exceptional when compared to the Intels). It's just insane that this Mini now offers more power without heat issues that my cheese grater had a few years ago. For Mac users, I guess this is really a quantum leap.

(And yes, I know that for some PC guys, this may sound like the typical Apple fanboy stuff. But hey, we have been suffering from beautiful, but expensive machines for years - and now it's the time that these machines drop in price and give us the power we need. So give us a break and let us party for a while...

).

Jolaff · Post by **Jolaff** » Sat Nov 28, 2020 3:49 am

Cinebient wrote: Thu Nov 26, 2020 7:27 pm Someone pointed me to a tip to load Logic under Rosetta, that solved some trouble.

...and how do you load LP under Rosetta ?

Cinebient · Post by **Cinebient** » Sat Nov 28, 2020 8:24 am

Jolaff wrote: Sat Nov 28, 2020 3:49 am
Cinebient wrote: Thu Nov 26, 2020 7:27 pm Someone pointed me to a tip to load Logic under Rosetta, that solved some trouble.
...and how do you load LP under Rosetta ?

Open the app/program folder and search for Logic, then right click, then go to information. Then there is a window where you can check/uncheck a box that it should start under Rosetta.
In this case it seems to work everything which does not before (mostly) but in this mode you cannot use iOS AUv3.
The performance seems to be the same in both version so it does not matter if you use intel tools inside the ARM Logic or you just use the Rosetta version. I just think that ARM optimized tools (as the iOS apps) will just work with the ARM version.
Its a bit of mixed bag but that was to be expected and so far a lot things working better than i was scared for.
At least so far I got everything running (beside that N.I. stuff) I need.
Also nice is you also can install your iOS apps via a workaround which are not in the Mac app store.
Not sure if developers are happy since I could now use the much cheaper iOS versions inside Logic as well.

Cinebient · Post by **Cinebient** » Sat Nov 28, 2020 10:11 am

Time for some more real-life tests (at least what i do mostly). And beware i only compare it to my current old late 2013 macbook pro retina 15" with just the base 2.0 Ghz i7 quadcore and 8 GB RAM.
My M1 macbook pro has 16 GB RAM.
I wanted to test some more cpu heavy things and Kaleidoscope is a good one. And beware on both there seems to be some GUI issues slowing all down when open the Kaleidoscope GUI (must be something with Big Sur since it is on both my machines now).
I took just a ES2 string patch and send it trough a heavy Kaleidoscope preset to see how much i can layer and play in real-time. Well even at 1024 sample buffer 2 is the max on my old and fans and heat kicking in very fast and after 5 minute even the 2 give me some overload issues here and there.
On the M1 i could run 5 (Logic running in Rosetta mode) instances while it gets warm but i hear still no fan noise. 6 is too much here but at 512 sample buffer i still can run 5.
So i guess with optimized tools and maybe a coming M1X whatever in a 16" with maybe double the performance cores it should handle 3-4 times more of everything which is way beyond any intel machine of this size.
Another test was to run a more heavy pluck sound with large shimmer reverb from Dune 3 synth at 32 sample buffer playing in real-time. Here i could get 9 instances with my old but after a while it throttle down and i was able for 7 stable instances.
On the M1 i got at least 3X more and it does not seem to suffer from throttle after a while. Again it gets a bit warm but still no noise from a fan.
But beware, i saw (no use of an audio interface here) the old one has less latency mostly about 2-3ms less in every setting.

Apple announces new Mac Mini, Air + 13" MBP featuring their own M1 chip.