Hello

Thinking of doing a perhaps long overdue update on my mac but I need some advice... All my production software is running perfectly but there are some things like apps and other newer pieces of software which require a newer OS. I'm running 10.8, newest Ableton, mainly use arturia plugs, sound toys and a few other things, all k'd. I'm afraid if I update then all this will go to shit and i won't be able to open my projects anyone have any advice? Going to time machine backup of course.

Thanks in advance.

 

Backup to TM first and then just go for Sierra. I haven't really had any problems with it, but if it looks like a lot of your plugs and VIs have suddenly go AWOL, you can always go back. Chances are high you won't have any problems, though.

 

do not upgrade and just pray , thats never a good idea!

complete backup and keep the backup for at least a month, potential issues don't all show up the first day.
or if you have enough space create a fresh partition and try everything out there without messing with your current one.
you can delete that one afterwards and melt them together again, no problem.
copy everything you wanna try to your new installation, do not open stuff from your current one in the new install.


10.8 is really old now (2012), in one week 10.13 high sierra is officially released

working soundtoy releases are from that time as well, so you probably have to
say goodbye to them (correct me if im wrong folks),
arturia should work, but don't nail me on that, you have to try it first.
theres always a risk to loose plugins.


depending how far you need to raise your OS for the things you want,
you could just try small OS increments as a fresh install on a new partition and see if you can get your rig running there
i have no idea at which point ST stopped working

or if your things arent related to DAW's you could dualboot into a newer OS and use it there while keeping your working environment intact.


"All my production software is running perfectly" is a good value to have,
may just stay where you are and keep on making music

ask yourself how important is the "newer" Software you wanna use.
are there alternatives available maybe?

of course there are alternatives to Soundtoys as-well, you could render all your current channels to Audio to still be able to work on them to some degree, and look for alternatives.


Good luck

 

I'm on mavericks 10.9.5, my MBP is from 2010 I've only do a few RAM and HD upgrade ( 2 SSD ) since it was originally with snow leopard.

didn't lose much, I think, even after 2 migrations of the main OS with Carbon Copy Cloner ( first from HDD to SSD, then from SSD to a bigger one )

I upgraded logic from 9 to X, no issues.
I have the "old" soundtoys suite, but 32 lives is necessary to make it work, such as other plugs.

one of the only thing I've lost was the EWQL word builder, and maybe a few plugs or app, but nothing crucial or noticeable.

this said, I don't think I will upgrade it more until my next mac. I'm even thinking of buying and 2nd hand mac pro (multi-thread) and keep it like it is ( if anyone has advice on this by the way )

I think you're safe up to Sierra, I wouldn't update more than El Capitan, people started to mention issues with plugins and other stuff at this point

good luck & let us know

 

It used to be safe to upgrade to the latest version of OSX as long as it was compatible with your hardware and with your most critical software. Nowadays, however, OSX is increasingly engineered for obsolescence, the way IOS has always been. That is, your older hardware will run slower on the new OS than it did before you upgraded. There are OS updates every year now, and it's not because there's a spectacular new set of breathtaking features. It's because they want the older machines to run slower - they're trying to drive hardware sales.

My advice is to avoid upgrading more than twice from the OS your CPU shipped with. Beyond that you're just asking for frustration.

 

i went from snow leopard all the steps till sierra on 2 macs, and hadn't any major problems really.
i don't think they want older hardware to run slower, thats just the nature of progress.
many things are way faster and better, while other new features need more resources and slow down.
all in all every update felt like a big improvement

a quick overview

10.9 OS X Mavericks

awesome multi monitor handling
Apple maps
Notification Center gained several new features, quick-reply for emails and messages
iCloud Keychain for securely syncing passwords and other confidential information among all Apple devices.
Airplay turns any TV into a full-fledged secondary wireless display in addition to simply mirroring the primary display via apple tv
significantly expanded the Accessibility options for users with disabilities

10.10 OS X Yosemite

Continuity, a collection of features that integrated OS X and iOS more tightly
The biggest of these features, Handoff, allows a user to begin a task on one device and automatically continue that task on another.
first major design overhaul
Continuity also made it possible for any Apple device to make and receive calls through a user's iPhone (and to hand off those calls to the iPhone) and made tethering a Mac (or iPad) to an iPhone or cellular iPad for Internet easy and automatic without doing anything, you open the lid of your book in the park and your online instantly
Airdrop, drag and drop content with nearby iOS devices as well as Macs.
major Spotlight upgrade, center stage for searching content on a Mac, on the Web, for local businesses and for movie times via Maps, iBooks, iTunes, the Mac App Store, Wikipedia and various news sources. cmd+spacebar brings you everywhere within a split second
Introduction of Swift, a new programming language

10.11 OS X El Capitan

focused largely on under-the-hood improvements to performance, stability and security.
better window handling in Mission Control
introduction of metal, GPU accelerated Interface
introduction of iCloud drive
split-screen view for viewing two full-screen apps side by side
tagging

10.12 macOS Sierra

Siri comes to mac
Apple pay on mac
Universal clipboard among macs and iOS, sharing cut, copy and paste including text and rich content, such as pictures or videos
Tabs everywhere, allowing the user to keep windows organized like in Safari.
Picture in Picture, double right-click videos and bring them in a floating resizable movable window that follows the user across the system
Auto unlock your mac if you wear the watch
Night Shift reduces blue light at night to aid sleep

10.13 macOS high Sierra

release date 25 September

 

Last edited by a moderator: Sep 18, 2017

Apparently Sierra has a change in the USB-stack that might be positive for latency and reliability of USB soundcards.

Heres an old quote from the RME-forum by the driver developer himself (Matthias Carstens):

So if you use a RME USB interface you might find Sierra the way to go. I don't know if there are other soundcards that take advantage of this new USB-stack, maybe sombody else can fill in here.

Don't know about plugins etc though as I'm still on Mavericks. But I'm also interested in what is the way to go if I decide to upgrade.
El capitan or Sierra?

 

I would create a clone with CCC or Super rather than using Time Maschine.
That way you could even boot from the clone.

 

Dont you people have 2nd laptops/computers just for internet, gaming, etc? It amazes me how updating your system is a priority vs a stable DAW environment and potentially losing many great tools.

 

thats a good idea, carboncopycloner does a great job and can be used for free to do this

 

Don't make the mistake of giving Apple the benefit of the doubt:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...earches-iPhone-slow-spike-ahead-launches.html

 

we have many apple devices here, 60+
most of them are 6 years or older
i don't see any of this,

lets take an example from your link:

in 2012 Apple was sued in Brazil by the Brazilian Institute of Politics and Law Software over the launch of the iPad Air.

The organisation claimed that because it had the new retina screen it made the iPad 3 redundant and that Apple was changing its devices too quickly.

we have 3 iPad 3 here, 2 where bought on release day 5-6 years ago and one was bought used last year, and they all work well, ofc they struggle sometimes and are slower than newer devices, and newest games that demand performance are not playable, but thats natural after all this time.
its still usable for most tasks, actually most tasks even an iPad 1 can handle.

Apple does not need to slow down older products, their stuff sells like cake anyway.

 

Last edited by a moderator: Sep 18, 2017

I just registered so I can speak to this. I have a late 2012 Mini. I recently went from Mavericks to Sierra. My experience has been a virtual destruction of my system and software when plugging in a usb3 hub or any external usb3 drives (if the 4 new ones I bought are any indication). I bought and returned 2 hubs because merely plugging one in even without anything connected to the hub trashed my system.

The only stability I was able to achieve is by running my dongles and control devices through the usb ports in my 2 monitor setup. I believe they're working only because the monitors are connected via hdmi and MDP and not usb.

My recording drive is connected to FW800 port. What usb3 drives that are working thankfully are 2 bare western digital drives I use for samples plugged into an OWC 2 slot usb3 docking station. But OWC is generally known to be careful with using mac compatible chipsets

I will however place part blame on these external seagate drives because seagate enclosures are generally shit when it comes to mac compatibility. However that is no excuse as to how using one cripples my rig. It also fails to explain that usb hubs weren't working either.
I did not have these issues with Mavericks!

Things that happened. Kernal panics. System crashed booting up. Audio interface failing to connect. Mouse & keyboard failing to connect. DAW software behaving erratically.

I searched for this and have found that indeed it seems OSX back to Yosemite had usb3 issues and really bad under Sierra.

YMMV, but this has been my experience

 

Last edited: Sep 18, 2017

i can only tell you that capitan and sierra are both more taxing on gpu.

and el capitan is the last version that really offers any real advantages worth updating for. so if you are using an older machine stay with either the latest before capitan or update to el capitan.

sierra is a total waste for audio and so far as i know so is this "high sierra". it contains absolutely nothing worth the update and will demand more from your machine.

 

Last edited: Sep 18, 2017

thats not true, theres a lot going on in high sierra for many use cases, hackintosh community is excited as well.

windows.server is a really demanding process and handing that over to the GPU, should lead to a noticeable overall performance increase.
especially for multi monitor systems. = demanding less from your system

its not a total waste for audio, the APFS File system should bring many benefits, one of them prolonged Life for HDD and SSD's.
Faster loading times all over the place and more. = demanding less from your system

pro-tools-expert had an article about high sierra and Audio, there are many things still unclear but theres a lot going on.

i expect a lot of issues this time compared to other releases, this is a major one.
well, lets see how it turns out

 

We all have had good and bad experiences with each version of the OS. My point isn't that Apple products are bad. I actually think the OS is pretty good (Snow Leopard was much better, but that's beside the point), and their hardware is decent, if wildly overpriced. My point is that Apple has begun systematically rendering old hardware useless by ensuring that basic functions like directory indexing and internet callouts make use of CPU components that are significantly slower in Macs whose firmware was designed for an OS version that was more than a couple of updates back. These functions worked smoothly and quickly until you updated to the newer OS, now you wonder if it was always slow. No, it wasn't.

 

nice line of "should"s and suppositions..

But, Capitan and Sierra are heavier on graphics on older machines, that is not a bunch of nonsense speculations. you WILL notice and feel it as soon as you update to capitan on an older or lighter macbook pro, and sierra will too increase that weight on your system. its not catastrophic but you will notice it and gain NOTHING for audio. and now with the new high sierra encryption will increase it even a bit more.

On a new machine, high end or stationary then you will most probably not notice the heavier demand and with a brand new model maybe even gain something indirectly for audio.

But, on an older machines specially on an older laptop you WILL notice the heavier graphics.
and you will not gain anything updating on such a machine when it comes to audio work.

capitan is the reasonable compromise.

 

Last edited: Sep 18, 2017

should's because its not out yet
i never said its a bunch of nonsense speculations, and yes i agree, they are heavier on graphics, slowing down your machine, and you will notice that. but thats not planned Obsolescence, thats the nature of progress.

its just nonsense to state you wont gain anything, theres always something to gain and something to loose.
gaining access to Software thats not available for older OS's is just one of them.

you said Capitan and Sierra are more taxing on gpu, thats not fully true.
this stuff is mostly handled by the Window.Server process -> taxing your CPU

in the case of high sierra they move that last part to the GPU, which will free up processing power to use for your DAW, thats another gain, and you will notice that.

 

I updated to Sierra recently from Yosemite, on a hackintosh, and it was a painless experience. It also, without any other changes aside from the OS, made my Geekbench score go UP. I haven't noticed any slow downs, and have has zero problems with Studio One and every plug-in I have. I am using Openssh plugs, but, I did abandon everything that was 32 bit. I just didn't seem to have the need (only miss soundtoys) and there are so many plug-ins out that do exactly the same thing, that finding a replacement was not an issue. I remember having some issues back with Yosemite even with 32 Lives, and on my MBP (older model 3,1 updated as far as it can El Cap) I experienced more issues, so, that helped make the no more 32 bit decision too. So, it seems there has been some sort of optimizations to the code to have the benchmark score go up, and from what I understand, Sierra is just a more polished El Cap, with the new High Sierra being an even more optimized Sierra. I certainly won't be an early adopter of High Sierra, but, look forward to switching as soon as everything chills, maybe by the .2. The new file system, and the some of the new under the hood things are what is tempting me the most.
I have zero problems with USB...that includes USB2, and USB3. I also have built a few hackintoshes for other people using it as their main studio machine with the Skylake platform and Sierra, and those machines are superb. USB3.1 works flawlessly on those machines too.
I was very hesitant to update, but, I am glad I did. The overall experience just seems a bit snappier.

 

Wouldn't doubt usb would work perfectly fine on a hackintosh. I'm assuming the components used to build such a machine are different from Apples hardware though in that respect.

I think I may go back to Mavericks. I've been getting the impression that there's been much moaning about OSX since Yosemite. Only thing stopping me is I'd have to reinstall a bunch of software I bought since 'upgrading'.

 

Last edited: Sep 19, 2017