I'm thinking of getting an Apple silicon computer but am concerned with how much content will be available on sister site for M1 and similar chips and corresponding OS. I mostly use soft synths and guitar fx and amp modelers. Is there as much content on Apple Silicon architecture as there is for Windows and/or Apple Intel architecture?

 

It's been fine for me.

Of course it's lagging behind due to dev's getting it done, and the base of those who provide and do the heavy lifting wanting to address it....

but believe me, if you can't get it done with what's available now for apple silicon on the sister site, you can't get it done period.

 

A lot of the guitar related plugins people like are iLok. You can run them using virtualization methods. An Apple Silicon mac will have plenty of CPU for it, but 8gb RAM is low for audio production anyway. 16GB is usually the minimum advisable if you are going to have big projects in your DAW. You may want even more than that, and RAM upgrades are not cheap. If both machines have ethernet ports, you can connect them and use both in the same DAW sessions.

 

be sure to use latest os upgrades ...

 

You can do nearby anything with Apple Logics Stock plugin and they are incredible CPU effective

 

M1, Air [Ableton]

These work fine

https://audiosex.pro/threads/plugins-megalist.74331/

 

id say a majority of them work.

 

Sure, if you buy them. Not all (modern) iLok plugins will work via Crossgridder. They may have VMprotect or other reasons. They have to be run inside an "actual Windows" via Parallels Desktop. You can use a smaller Windows ISO like Oprekin or other; but as I mentioned 8gb or 16gb RAM may be enough for all your production work, until you try to run a full Windows ISO VM at the same time. A workaround for that would be to bounce the project to 1 wave file, load that into DAW, use VM plugins to do that work, and then bring the results into the real DAW session as more wavs/stems.

If you are used to running any R2R release you want and happen to play guitar, you will be missing quite a bit on Mac. The newest DDMF Metaplugin version is another workaround for running Windows plugins on Mac, but I do not know if R2R iLok releases will work that way.

 

DDMF Metaplugin lets you run windows VST's?

 

that is also news for me, not really specified on their site. If true, can def replace the crossgridder approach

 

If you're into guitar stuff and don't want to buy everything, there are many plugins not available for Apple silicon which are for Windows. And I would not recommend to try using solutions like Audio Gridder because the latency is too high to play through the plugins in real time. You still could play through any available plugin like Amplitube or Guitar Rig and later on use any plugin over network or virtualization while mixing.

 

I have a question ryu_shiro, I assume with the M1 Air you don't have a crap ton of ram correct? (pardon me if I'm wrong)...

I know your proclivities for those larger/keyswitch/articulation libraries etc, how has the ram swapping or management been working for you? I was able to work pretty well with some of those orchestral libraries even when I had far less ram when I first got my 5,1 or 4,1 back in 2009/10ish etc, and granted, the really heavy spitfire libraries and whatnot had not really appeared at that time, or were "as" heavy as now.. and I didn't have much trouble with them coming off 7200 spinners even with just 8GB of ram at the time...

also Kontakt had their memory server back then, and I forget exactly how that worked, if it just kept particular things in active and performed some sort of dynamic swap or whatnot... I'm fuzzy as early in my day....

But the tl/dr is, I know what you have spoken about with what work you are doing now and endeavoring on, and basically was wondering how smooth it was with less ram (again, I'm assuming here, perhaps incorrectly)... or how you have adjusted your workflow?

thanks!

 

Ram Swap is pretty good. I get load upto 7-8 gigs of samples. Yeah, it's quite limiting & needs an upgrade but I'm fine by rendering to audio. Moving stuff to a new system is too much of a hassle. No problems with any plugins at all though...people say acustica stuff is heavy on cpu, but I can load 10s of them & they surprisingly work very well. [there are some exceptions but that's the plugin problem not system like Azure2]

I mostly work in Dorico [w/ noteperformer 4]. It's too good to just give convincing results in a very short time to finalize the composition. Then one by one I orchestrate in Ableton. It's quite a relief to just render the stems. Just autistically tinkering with midi, expression & dymamic maps is too much a waste of time, after certain time [15-20 minutes] the cost-performance is too low.

Also, people say template saves time, but I have all instrument & articulations saved as .als in the sidebar, I just drag the stuff I need with all the processing applied [turned off as default for latency].

I'll probably upgrade the system this Christmas.

 

Last edited: Apr 29, 2024

Oh that's great!, obviously not 'ideal' in terms of having everything available at once, (but hell, actually not, as you pretty much do with your great organization and saving of instruments and articulations with fx off sitting right there as you present! Well done.) ... it sounds like you have developed a good system for yourself absolutely. Are there many libraries (if I remember your list, it didn't seem too Kontakt heavy, but there were some like Berlin and whatnot that I know are pretty big), that you just have a tough time loading/playing at a certain point? Or like I remember reading about you thinning out your Ableton library and whatnot, have you thinned those down as well to suit your needs?

And great to about the Acoustica stuff, that's pretty impressive atop the rest...

I'm just interested, as pretty impressed myself with the relatively new Apple silicon... as I just made the upgrade myself after a loooong time, and I had put it off for so long, but just had to... and it hasn't disappointed yet. I'm still setting up my system as I had a load of stuff on my old systems, and with new macOS and different things being unavailable, it hasn't been a problem to find other solutions at all, I'm just taking my time and trying to do it right... and I've got over 60TB's of assets (but that's including previous work and whatnot so certainly not all libraries and plugs etc lol)... and just trying to replace certain instruments either no longer available as companies are gone, or not native yet, or 32bit as the brilliant SoundRadix 32Lives obviously unfortunately doesn't work for me anymore on M chips and OS, and it won't unless there is something I don't know coming, and I don't feel like getting into Crossgridder or VEM or having a second system to rely on as would defeat my purpose or intent in remaining somewhat "portable".....

But thanks for sharing your workflow!

 

Yeah, I bought T7 SSD & it's been great for the Kontakt Stuff. It's now mostly Kontakt as all the Orchestral stuff is through it with exceptions like Garritan or SD3 or Spectrasonics stuff.

 

I bet, that's a nice drive... sigh, it's too bad SSD prices are spiking right at the time I want to get more myself! ;)

Ever figure out your Ableton/keyswitching/articulation issue? I know it's such a pita on the daw for that kinda thing, and has bothered me for years as well... and I even get more frustrated when I am stuck with a less then 61 key controller!

 

I got used to using single articulations as Pacific stuff doesn't have multi patches & Berlin's Multi's are very limited too. Took me forever to get hold of Berlin from the rutracker. It's the largest library I now possess & seeders are active very rarely. But, once you figure out the technical stuff, it's not like you do it every single time. People complain about mixing but in the digital realm where it's mostly samples now [for orchestral especially], you can get it right & good once & then you can just make stuff.

Have a good one man & happy music making.

 

That is kinda what I ended up doing as well lol... Yeah, I don't do as much orchestral composing as you do, but I have, and written for real orchestras to perform, but it has been a few years since that, and it was a little slow going on Ableton to do mockups for sure!

And you have a great day too!

 

This is great information, thanks everyone. I mostly use my DAW (Reaper) as VST Host for live performance so I assume RAM is going to be critical??