Interesting Mac DAW comparison.

[CSeye]

Greetings,

I think you folks will find these results very interesting.

The results surprised me as they were counter to my impression of how these DAWs performed.

Hopefully the coming of Snow Leopard will increase cpu efficiency for all Mac users.

Best.

http://members.cox.net/biloxiblues/CPU_ ... ced_IO.pdf

http://members.cox.net/biloxiblues/Mac_ ... arison.pdf

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Well that sure warms my cockles! Thanks, I needed that. Go DP, go!

[kassonica]

Thanks for that.

I've run both L8 and DP 6 and in my experience DP runs a lot better than logic.

[Mr_Clifford]

Not exactly a realistic test, testing the CPU load with FX Pre-Gen turned on, considering that it's effectively a trade off of RAM for CPU. You'd need to have it turned off to get a realistic idea of how much CPU the plug-ins use.

Still, kudos to DP for offering Pre-Gen while none of the other DAW's are offering it yet.

[CSeye]

Not exactly a realistic test, testing the CPU load with FX Pre-Gen turned on, considering that it's effectively a trade off of RAM for CPU. You'd need to have it turned off to get a realistic idea of how much CPU the plug-ins use.

Still, kudos to DP for offering Pre-Gen while none of the other DAW's are offering it yet.

You make a valid point regarding Pre-Gen. However it's a very unique feature so I felt that it was fair game to use it.

Both Logic and and Cubase have functions to disable plug-ins during high cpu stress but neither offer a pre-gen feature.

So it seems pretty clear to me that DP is a better mixing environment for projects with huge track counts.

[steinstein]

That is completly un-true , i use LP9 [ yes ! Logic pro 9 ] DP6.02 sTEIN gui mod and Ableton live 8 , and DP is the most demanding CPU Daw, of the 3 by far! it is a really good program is different , all are diferent , thats why i use the 3 of them all the time for different songs , but if you use in a daily basis this 3 or more progs. you will know what i am talking about , that graffic with 90 instances in DP6 , jajajajaja and 30 something with LP8 jaja , so un-true!! i use lots of virual inst. and i can add like 12 nice heavy virtuals plus 40 audios with plugs and a ozone in the master in LP8 , and in DP6.02 the same 40 audios , ozone in the master but....... 4 or 6 virtuals at the most with DP6, and getting lots of CPU spikes [ MBP 2.16 / 2 ram / 200 hd 7200 ] [ 512 buffer ]

[jlaudon]

Maybe with pre-gen the results might be great, but unfortunately it's turned off on my projects, as most of my VIs use samples (Kontakt, Omnisphere, etc..), which makes DP really unstable in pre-gen mode.

[James Steele]

Maybe with pre-gen the results might be great, but unfortunately it's turned off on my projects, as most of my VIs use samples (Kontakt, Omnisphere, etc..), which makes DP really unstable in pre-gen mode.

Are you using latest Kontakt 3.5? I've found it's not too bad in pre-gen mode, but I leave it in realtime if I'm still arranging or changing MIDI data on tracks that target it. Once your part is pretty much nailed down you can switch it to pre-gen and close the GUI (otherwise it's in real-time mode) and it seems to work fine for me.

[synchro]

Do you have all these DAWs installed on the same machine?

If so, wow! You must have a gigantic startup drive. Or do you have them installed elsewhere or on a collection of drives? Does OS X 'behave' going back and forth between DAWs? Do you usually restart your Mac prior to moving from one DAW to the next?

That is completly un-true , i use LP9 [ yes ! Logic pro 9 ] DP6.02 sTEIN gui mod and Ableton live 8 , and DP is the most demanding CPU Daw, of the 3 by far! it is a really good program is different , all are diferent , thats why i use the 3 of them all the time for different songs , but if you use in a daily basis this 3 or more progs. you will know what i am talking about , that graffic with 90 instances in DP6 , jajajajaja and 30 something with LP8 jaja , so un-true!! i use lots of virual inst. and i can add like 12 nice heavy virtuals plus 40 audios with plugs and a ozone in the master in LP8 , and in DP6.02 the same 40 audios , ozone in the master but....... 4 or 6 virtuals at the most with DP6, and getting lots of CPU spikes [ MBP 2.16 / 2 ram / 200 hd 7200 ] [ 512 buffer ]

[steinstein]

Not really , my hd. is 500 gigs with 3 partitions , in the 60 gig i have the OSX.5.8 in journaled mode, 250 gig for Samples and extras in extended mode , and 160 gigs, for Audio, in extended mode, in the OSX partition drive i have a bunch of software of audio and video , and everything work's super, maybe more than super , my macs are Imac intel 2.4/4 ram/ 500 hd. and MBP 2.16/2 ram/ 200 h.d. 7200 rpm, and to honest i read a lot from here , from logic pro forums and from ableton forums, and i know there's a lot of people having Lots of problems and complaining about the setup , the machine or the software they use, and i don't know if i laught or i feel sorry for them, because i dont have any problems at all, i know my installation system '' perfect '' sometimes i use the 3 all together , not in rewire mode , means that i am working with 3 songs in the 6 ''spaces'' that i assign , and i switch from one to other song when i got board of let's say.. the song that is in space 1, and in space 5 i have Safari going on, and in space 6 another window hook'ed to a certain server, so i still have space 4 , for whatever i need, all at the same time ! [ not in the MBP, it is a slower machine, but 2 DAW's and Safari, for shure] plugins?? •••• yeah, i use lots of plugins ,and i think i know how to use them,and i know wich ones are heavy'er , so i decide to useit or not i dont use more than 2 reverbs per song i rather put them in a aux track,but i use lots of channel strips, flangers, blah , blah , and i use like 6 or 8 virtual instruments, like 9 MIDI channels for the real synths [ Waldorf Q, Viris b, and Nord Lead 2x ] i use 8 tracks for real drums , 6 for guitars , 2 for bass , like 8, but depends on the song for vocals , and like 12 or 16 audio tracks for imported samples , noises , wierd noises, [24 bit , 44.1] or whatever, i am not saying that i still have pleny of prossesor, the prossesor is in 85 or 90% , but remember that when you press stop in Logic pro 9 or in Ableton , you are not using the prossesor, so that way i can switch from DAW to DAW, i repair permissions every week , and i clone my system every month , i have in other drive another SAVE setup , so i can experiment in the CLONE , what works, or what will conflicts.....