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Philip OKeefe

MPN Advisory Board
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Everything posted by Philip OKeefe

  1. Parts of Nevada might offer faster ground shipping to the northwest states, but there's always air, and the new Phoenix area Sweetwater warehouse will have Sky Harbor international airport nearby. And as you said, Arizona may provide other benefits from a business standpoint that Sweetwater thinks makes it a better choice for them. Even for the northwest states, I imagine it's going to cut down the shipping times compared to sending something from Indiana.
  2. I've lived in Arizona - it's also capable of getting surprisingly cold in the winter. But from a guitar perspective, it's all academic. They're not going to be shipping any guitars from there. At least that's what they told me. I have spoken to people who have seen the new facility in Fort Wayne, and it's apparently gigantic, and rather impressive. I'm sure the Arizona facility will be pretty nice, too. And if it provides shorter shipping times to west coast folks like me, it's going to help even the paying field (vs. Amazon) for Sweetwater for a lot of potential customers.
  3. A warehouse without any climate control in Arizona might be a less than ideal place to store guitars... but I don't know if the new facility will have climate control or not. It would be a pretty brutal working environment for people without any kind of AC.
  4. Nicely done! That's one of my favorite songs of all time, and the original recording is an absolutely fantastic example of the creative application of available technology (16 track analog) to do something rather unique. The way they recorded that song was brilliant, and the end result is rather spectacular IMO. It still holds up today, even in an era where we have samplers and other tools that would make the production far easier to pull off.
  5. Yes, but it won't be for all of the products that they sell. I was just talking with my Sweetwater Engineer (sales rep) on Friday (I purchased a guitar amp cover online and she called me to say thanks) and she told me about the new facility in Arizona and how it will decrease shipping times. But she said they won't warehouse all product types there - for example, they'll be keeping all the guitars in Indiana so they can continue to do the photos of individual guitars for the website. But for the majority of the products they carry, the new facility will mean those of us on the west coast will no longer have to wait four or five days for them to arrive. In an era where many people have become used to the next day / 2nd day shipping times and near-instant gratification that Amazon Prime and some other vendors now deliver (double entendre intended), I think this is a smart move on Sweetwater's part.
  6. That's certainly possible, Craig. I've heard similar things about the GPU cores for the M1 series; they're the same SoC, but the ones with a bad core or two are utilized for the lower-level product and the "extra" cores are disabled. That probably explains the 7 GPU core versions of the original M1 SoCs. They're just 8 core versions with one bad (or intentionally disabled) GPU core. As I understand it, my M1 Max with 24 GPU cores is the same as the M1 Max with 32 GPU cores, except the eight extra cores are turned off. That way, Apple can still use the SoCs with a couple of "bad" GPU cores and sell them for a lower price instead of having to throw them out. And since the new M2's will almost certainly have higher-end versions (Pro, Max, Ultra, etc.) eventually, it makes sense that they'd do the same thing for that series of SoCs. It seems like a smart idea to me. Certainly more cost-effective than having to toss out stuff with just one bad GPU.
  7. Well, we know what the M2's are now... https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2022/06/apple-unveils-m2-with-breakthrough-performance-and-capabilities/ They're in the new MacBook Pro and MacBook Air that were just announced today. 8 core SoC with 10 core GPUs. Some enhanced video capabilities, too. Apple is claiming they're 1.4x faster than an M1. There's a new 24 GB RAM option now, too. And remember - the M1 was the baseline SoC, and everything else in the M1 line used that as a building block. I have no doubt Apple will do the same sort of thing with the M2 series. So the upper-end M2 models may very well have even more RAM as an option than the current M1 Pro, Max, and Ultra do. Still no new Mac Pro - I suspect we'll see that in the fall. I imagine the progression of the M2 line will proceed similarly to the M1 lineup. We'll no doubt see M2 Pro, Max, and Ultra models eventually. Probably in a similar cadence to the original M1 line's introduction. What will be interesting to see is whether the next Mac Pro will have an M2 Ultra, or something new that we haven't seen before, like two M2 Ultras connected together - similar to what Apple did when they announced the "dual M1 Max" (M1 Ultra) with the Mac Studio introduction.
  8. I used to pay about $150 for a 2" reel of 3M 996 or Ampex 456, but I had a really good source in Orange County. This would have been in the late 80s and early to mid-90s.
  9. Pro Tools 2022.5 is, unfortunately, still running under Rosetta 2. I know, I know... it's been quite a while since the M1 was first released and Pro Tools is the only major DAW that still doesn't have a native Apple Silicon version. Hopefully they'll have that in their next release... but, who knows? 🤷‍♂️ From what I've read in the release notes over on Avid's website, this release appears to be focused more on bug fixes and less on new features. I don't mind a good bug fix-oriented release if it addresses significant issues or longtime problems, and the aux buss issue that was fixed was significant. There may be other bugs that were impacting performance and that have also been fixed... However, an optimized M1 native version would lead to even further performance improvements for the Mac Studio and all of the rest of the Apple Silicon-equipped computers, too. And Avid really needs to get that happening. Okay, griping over – for now. Back to the aux bus issue that was fixed. Let me start with an example of how the system performs using a reference that is available to all current PT users. Using the previous version of PT, I was able to run the current Pro Tools demo session song (Low Roar) just fine. I was even able to double everything in the session (audio files, tracks, busses, VIs, plugins, etc.) and run that without any issues. However, I started to see errors when I tried to triplicate everything. It started to play back fine, but I started seeing "running out of CPU" error messages about halfway through the song. With the current version of Pro Tools, the Mac Studio is able to play the same session back without any errors or issues. With the session tripled, it adds up to 159 tracks, several busses, a bunch of reverbs, several amp sims, three dozen virtual instruments (36), several channel strips, and various other plugins. Again, while it couldn't get through the song (tripled) using the previous version of PT, it now runs fine. The CPU Total meter in Pro Tools maxes out at 84% at one brief point in the song, but there are zero error messages or any other issues. The response is just as speedy and fluid as when you're running the original, unaltered song. Part of that performance difference/improvement is undoubtedly due to the aux bug issue that has been fixed in PT 2022.5. Basically, aux sends were gobbling up a lot of CPU for some reason, and now they're not. More on that shortly. I want to get the links to the threads over on the DUC so that anyone else who is interested can try opening the sessions and trying things out for themselves.
  10. For Pro Tools users, I definitely recommend updating to the latest version (2022.5), which was just released a few days ago. It fixes a bug that caused excessive CPU use when you used aux busses. I'll post more about the specifics of some tests I've run later tonight, but the latest version results in significant performance improvements over the earlier version of the software in terms of the size of sessions I have been able to run.
  11. Same here. The combination of the two works well for my needs.
  12. There IS a newer macOS version now - 12.4. I am now running it on both of my new Macs with no issues to report.
  13. Was there a trick to getting it to work, despite the error message?
  14. Knock on wood, but so far, mine hasn't had any issues with external drives or other peripherals disconnecting. It seems to charge pretty fast, and has much better battery life than my MacBook Pro does. I am running macOS 12.3.1 Monterey. If there's something newer, I haven't heard about it yet. If there is, unless it's an urgent, highly-recommended security-related update, I'll probably wait a bit before I install it since this OS seems to be pretty darned stable and is approved by Avid for use with Pro Tools 2022.4.
  15. I don't recall which one it was, but I had an application ask me to do the same the other day when I installed it on my M1 MacBook Air.
  16. Yes, you did mention that - my apologies for forgetting. How are you doing with that 32GB of RAM? Do you end up with stuff in a swap file a lot, or is that 32GB plenty for you? I don't think there's a lot in terms of moving parts in the Mac Studio to be concerned about outside of the fans, and they run at the lower end of their speed range, so I doubt very many of them will die early. The thing that I worry about a bit is SSD longevity, but I use redundant drives and multiple backups, so I feel fairly safe, especially now that I know the SSDs on the Mac Studio are socketed. I might not be able to expand the onboard storage, but I figure Apple has to be able to swap them out if they die. I have Apple Care, so if it dies in the next three years, it's on them. One big plus for you is the fact that all of your main programs are M1 native. I suspect you'd see a considerable performance improvement compared to your current iMac, regardless of which model and specifications you went with. I think one of the main considerations for someone who does serious video editing is going to be whether to get the Ultra or the Max. The Ultra is definitely faster, but the base model is twice as expensive as the base model M1 Max Mac Studio. Then again, you not only get the top of the line SoC with the Ultra (with 20 cores vs. 10 on the Max), but you also get 64GB of RAM and 48 GPU cores vs. the baseline Max's 32GB / 24 GPU cores. The base model SSD size is different, too - 512GB vs. 1TB. Going to 64GB of RAM on the Max costs an extra $400, and the 1TB SSD adds $200 to its price tag, so bringing those to parity does narrow the Max/Ultra price difference down to $1,400, but for that amount of money, you can get an Apple refurbished M1 MacBook Air with 16GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD to go along with your Mac Studio. Which is what I ended up doing. While Max Tech, Linus, and other YouTube Mac video folks have shown the M1 Max performing surprisingly close to the M1 Ultra in several real-world and stress tests, the Ultra is still faster, comes with more RAM, and can be upgraded to way more RAM. If you need a ton of RAM, you are probably well aware of that fact. If you're currently hitting the wall with 32GB, spending the extra money for 64GB on the Max might be a good option for the sake of future-proofing. I was doing fine with 32GB on Windows, so I figured 32GB would be fine for my needs on the Mac Studio, and so far, that's definitely been the case. If you need more than 64GB of RAM (and again, even 32GB does surprisingly well on Apple Silicon), then the Ultra is your only option. But I think that for the vast majority of folks (even professional audio engineers, studio owners, and other content creators), the M1 Max Mac Studio with a 1-2TB SSD and 32-64GB of RAM is going to provide plenty of power for their needs for at least the next 4-5 years, if not more.
  17. That's one nice thing about starting with fresh installs of everything on the new computer vs using Time Machine or copying everything over from your previous Mac. It gives you the opportunity to get rid of (or more accurately, choose not to reinstall) everything that you don't use and that's just been taking up space on your drive and crowding your plugin list. Low latency / low buffer settings seems to be where the Mac Studio prefers to run. I don't really see any huge improvements with larger buffer settings, and in some cases, the performance seems to be worse. I leave it at 32 samples. I never really feel the need to change it. Everything just "works" at that setting. While the lack of significant CPU/SoC performance improvement at higher buffer settings is a bit perplexing, being able to leave it at the lowest available setting is a huge plus. It beats the heck out of having to juggle the settings as the project grows. It also beats losing the ability to do low latency tracking late in the production process because you have so many tracks and plugins that you can't use the low buffer setting anymore. While that wouldn't be an issue for me anyway (since I have Carbon and HDX DSP/plugins for low-latency tracking), I've done enough testing now without DSP running to understand that even with 100 tracks and a bunch of plugins, it's still no problem to record multiple additional tracks, and to do so with such a low buffer setting that DSP just isn't necessary. Yes, it would appear that the days of DSP are numbered. I can still see their usefulness for some people and situations, and I'm certainly glad to have it, but it's just not necessary for the vast majority of small and mid-sized studios anymore. The Mac Studio is proof positive that computers are fast enough to easily handle a lot of tracks, plugins, and VIs, and still have enough power left so you can lay down a whole rhythm section's worth of new tracks on top of all of that without having to worry about latency. It's pretty impressive. And as a longtime computer audio geek, I must say it's about damn time! So true! Interfaces (audio and MIDI) are going to need new drivers to run on Monterey. I know the old Mbox interfaces (1, 2, and 3) won't work with Monterey. My old MIDISport 4x4 USB interface wouldn't work, and it wasn't looking like M-Audio was going to release any drivers for it, but I found an open source / third-party driver (https://github.com/leighsmith/midisport-macos) that's working for me. That's probably more the exception than the rule in terms of a lot of the older non-plug and play audio/midi hardware, unfortunately.
  18. Let's talk about software compatibility for a minute. As of today, most DAW programs are Apple Silicon native. Pro Tools Expert has a really handy chart on their site that shows what is, and what isn't Apple Silicon native. https://www.pro-tools-expert.com/production-expert-1/apple-silicon-the-ultimate-pro-audio-guide-2022 The one major holdout to that is Avid's Pro Tools, which is M1 compatible via Rosetta 2, but still doesn't offer an M1 native version. While I have other programs, Pro Tools is my main DAW. I've been using it for over twenty years now. As much as I like the program, and am very familiar with it, I may have to rethink that... It's been a year and a half since Apple launched the first M1 computers, and a lot of people were pretty disappointed with Avid's latest announcement and version release since not only did they discontinue sales of perpetual licenses (with several confusing caveats...), but they didn't provide M1 native compatibility with the latest Pro Tools release, either. Why does that matter? Well, from what I'm seeing in various tests online, it appears that there's about a 20% CPU hit (on average) for apps running under Rosetta 2 vs native. Applications that are fine-tuned for Apple Silicon are showing significant performance increases compared to x86 versions running under Rosetta. While the Apple M1 CPUs are so fast that many people won't notice, it does make a difference insofar as the maximum performance the computer can deliver. For power users (and most people who are considering a Mac Studio are, if not power users, then at least headed in that direction), that means the Mac Studio won't perform as well as it's capable of - you'll get better performance if your DAW has been optimized for Apple Silicon. But it's not just the DAW that you need to be concerned with. Your plugins will also need to be optimized for Apple Silicon. If there's one incompatible / non-Apple Silicon plugin that you absolutely need to run, you will need to run the DAW, and all of your plugins, under Rosetta 2, or it won't work. Fortunately, Pro Tools Expert also has a list of most of the major plugin companies, and whether or not they're Apple Silicon native. https://www.pro-tools-expert.com/apple-silicon-audio-compatibility-guide One of my must-have plugins is Antares Autotune Pro. Unfortunately, it's currently not compatible with macOS Monterey, even using Rosetta 2. While I also have Melodyne Assistant, and it does run under Monterey, the lack of a working version of Autotune is a real bummer and is hindering me from completing a few projects. The moral here is to make sure everything you need is available and compatible before you jump into a new system, and/or be ready to deal with some delays while everyone gets their programs optimized for the new OS and new hardware. Personally, I'd recommend not upgrading anything in mid-job. Finish whatever you're working on, keep your old computer system in service (if possible), and only upgrade your hardware when you have plenty of time to get everything settled and optimized. While things are definitely getting better on the compatibility front, don't make any assumptions. Check into things and make sure the programs and plugins you need to run are compatible and ready to go, or be willing to wait for an indeterminate length of time for everyone to get their $#!t together.
  19. If you really need a super-fast external drive, then consider opting for an external Thunderbolt 4 enclosure and a PCIe Gen 4 NVMe. The Crucial P5's (and WD Blue SN550) are PCIe Gen 3 x4, which is plenty fast for what I'm using them for, which is primarily audio. If you're planning on using the Mac Studio to regularly edit 4K or 8K video, you might be able to justify the extra cost of the newer PCIe Gen 4 NVMe SSDs and Thunderbolt 4 external enclosures, but for audio recording and virtual instrument sample libraries, that's going to be overkill for most people, and a heck of a lot more expensive.
  20. And I'm back. Sorry for my prolonged absence - I really had a bad case of the flu that put me under for nearly three weeks. Doing much better now... Anyway, I want to cover a couple more drive-related things before moving on to other aspects of the M1 Max Mac Studio. I purchased two OWC Envoy Express Thunderbolt 3 enclosures and put a 2TB Crucial P5 NVMe SSD into each one of them. I have one Envoy Express connected directly to one of the Thunderbolt ports on the Mac Studio. Here's a screenshot of its speed, as tested with Blackmagic Design's Disk Speed Test app: At about 1,380 MB/s, it's nowhere near the speed of the Mac Studio's internal drive, but it's definitely faster than the ~945 MB/s I get with my USB 3.1 Gen 2 NVMe SSDs. The second Envoy Express is the second (last) device on a Thunderbolt chain; it's connected the second Thunderbolt port on my Universal Audio UAD-2 Satellite Thunderbolt 3 Octo. Here's the speed test results for that drive: For comparison, that's about the same speed as a USB 3.1 Gen 2 NVMe SSDs (see my earlier post for the screen shot of that). Again, these are identical, speedy NVMe SSDs in identical Thunderbolt 3 enclosures. I ended up paying a LOT more for the OWC Envoy Express ($79) than I did for the USB 3.1 Gen 2 case (~$20), so if you don't need the extra speed, and especially if you are going to daisy chain it off of another Thunderbolt device, you may want to save yourself $60 and just get a USB 3.1 Gen 2 case for your external NVMe SSD.
  21. Why did I decide to get the M1 Air now instead of waiting for the M2-equipped version? The M1 Air is available now... who knows what the supply chain and chip situation will be in six months? And it's kind of up in the air (no pun intended) whether or not they'll launch the new models in June, or even in the fall. While I suspect the M2 MBA will be ~10-20% faster, have a couple of extra GPU cores, and may have a redesigned case and new color options, the M1 still has more than enough horsepower for my mobile needs. If I need anything faster, I have the M1 Max Mac Studio. Plus, I really like the design of the current M1 MBA. And because I saw a refurb with the exact specs I wanted, I was able to get it for less than what an equivalently spec'ed-out M2 is likely to cost. Even if they don't go up in price (a big "if", considering the current state of inflation in the world), I doubt I'd find anything similar in terms of a refurb for several months after they finally launch the new M2 MBA's. So I went ahead and bought the M1 MBA and saved myself some waiting and some money.
  22. The warranty on Apple refurbished computers is the same as it is on their brand-new computers - 1 year, with 90 days of tech support. You can also purchase up to three years of Apple Care for them, just as if they were brand-new computers. https://www.apple.com/shop/refurbished/about My 2012 MacBook Pro was a refurb. I recently purchased an M1 MacBook Air 16GB/1TB, and it is a refurb too. Both came with full warranties, and both looked identical to brand new computers when they arrived. If the boxes didn't have refurb stickers on them, and if I didn't purchase them from the refurb section of the Apple Store, I would have no way of knowing that they weren't brand new machines. I think I saved $200-$250 on each of those computers just by getting refurbished models. As long as you're lucky enough to find exactly what you want (in terms of model and features/specs) it's a very good way to go, IMHO.
  23. Also, don't forget that everything in Pro Tools land is still operating under Rosetta 2, so there's that overhead taxing the system, too. I suspect an M1 native version of Pro Tools would perform noticeably better. My understanding is that Logic, Studio One, Reaper, and probably some other DAWs are already M1 native, so if you use one of those apps, your performance may differ from what I am seeing with Pro Tools and a Carbon interface.
  24. As far as virtual instruments go, I have a relatively limited amount - Miroslav Philharmonik 2, the latest release of the Arturia V Collection, the AIR virtual instruments, EZ Drummer, some Kontakt libraries, and a few others. The ones used in the Pro Tools demo song are all the AIR VIs that come with Pro Tools - Boom, Xpand 2, Mini Grand, etc. None of those put the kind of heavy streaming demand on a drive the way that some of the large sample libraries do (Miroslav, Spitfire, etc.) but they do impact the CPU. I do plan on loading up some of my more demanding VIs and seeing how well they do when I focus on using a lot of those at once. Stay tuned.
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