M1 Air Diva stress test, 5 DAW shootout!

For seeking technical help with Digital Performer and/or plug-ins on MacOS.

Moderator: James Steele

Forum rules
This forum is for seeking solutions to technical problems involving Digital Performer and/or plug-ins on MacOS, as well as feature requests, criticisms, comparison to other DAWs.
Post Reply
User avatar
Michael Canavan
Posts: 3853
Joined: Fri Jul 15, 2005 10:01 pm
Primary DAW OS: MacOS
Location: seattle

M1 Air Diva stress test, 5 DAW shootout!

Post by Michael Canavan »

OK all of this is subject to change, especially the results I'm getting for Logic and R*****r.
The DAWs I own that have native M1 versions with the native M1 version of Diva in AU format. [except Bitwig of course, but native Bitwig VSTi anyway]

Quick breakdown, stress test for software instrument use in the M1 MacBook Air using Diva initial patch, simple 120bpm 8th note 4 bar run followed by a two bar pause and three note chord, 6 bars in total. 48khz, 256 buffer. M1 MacBook Air 16GB, 1 TB SSD, Big Sur 11.6.

Logic 10.7-21 instances before audio engine System Overload warning. 16 with only the Performance Cores turned on in Logics Preferences.

Bitwig 4.07- 21 instances before audio starts crackling etc.

Ableton Live 11.1b6 2021 10-29- 20 instances before audio crackles

DP11.02 - 43 instances before overload window pops up. 20 with DP11's "Live Performance Mode" turned on.

R*****r 6.40 Arm64 rev 021leaf- 24 instances before audio crackling.


Pretty crazy, I don't know what's going on with Logic and R*****r here? Normally Logic, R*****r and DP on Intel anyway are in the ballpark of each other with beating Live and Bitwig, which fair enough do not do any sort of buffering of unarmed tracks, but in this case Logic looks no better than the "uninterrupted audio engine" DAWs. R*****r usually has a one or two plug in advantage over DP11, not right now. whereas DP11 only drops to that level when put into it's version of Bitwig and Lives smoother real time operation with "Live Performance Mode". It's crazy how similar they all are when that's the case, and how much more CPU efficient DP11 is than all of them, with roughly twice as many tracks.

I have no idea how DP11 is beating Logic and R*****r with track count, R*****r having it's super slim code, and Logic having "home field advantage" with the new chips, but somehow MOTU's NextGen PreGen™ as they somewhat cheekily call their audio buffering on unarmed tracks etc. plays very nicely with Apples new M1 chips. :woohoo:

Side note, Logic being the only DAW that turns off "Efficiency Core" support, you can see the percentage gain with them on being around 25% per core, so basically these earlier 8 core M1's are essentially 5 core machines, with the new 10 core Max and Pro being 8.5 core machines, which all fits into the x1.7 gain the new chips give.

Anyway, bragging rights for MOTU right now.

( apologies to James for posting the DAW That Cannot Be Named™ by using only it's first and last letters here, but the results are unique and I don't feel it serves as advertisement for it, since it's this time around anyway it's being beaten so badly by DP11! :) )
M2 Studio Ultra, RME Babyface FS, Slate Raven Mti2, NI SL88 MKII, Linnstrument, MPC Live II, Launchpad MK3. Hundreds of plug ins.
User avatar
HCMarkus
Posts: 10378
Joined: Tue Jan 10, 2006 9:01 am
Primary DAW OS: MacOS
Location: Rancho Bohemia, California
Contact:

Re: M1 Air Diva stress test, 5 DAW shootout!

Post by HCMarkus »

Thanks Michael!

Can you give us the results for the same test with DP on your 12 core Mac Pro? Love to see how the M1 and 5,1 stack up.
User avatar
monkey man
Posts: 14072
Joined: Fri Apr 22, 2005 10:01 pm
Primary DAW OS: MacOS
Location: Melbourne, Australia

Re: M1 Air Diva stress test, 5 DAW shootout!

Post by monkey man »

Thank you Michael.

I too would like to see a comparison between my machine (same as Sir Markus') and the M1 with this test.

Mac 2012 12C Cheese Grater, OSX 10.13.6
MOTU DP8.07, MachFive 3.2.1, MIDI Express XT, 24I/O
Novation, Yamaha & Roland Synths, Guitar & Bass, Kemper Rack

Pretend I've placed your favourite quote here
dix
Posts: 3097
Joined: Fri Oct 15, 2004 10:01 pm
Primary DAW OS: MacOS
Location: San Francisco
Contact:

Re: M1 Air Diva stress test, 5 DAW shootout!

Post by dix »

Thanks for this Micael!

I’d be curious what Logic does in Rosetta mode. I’m seeing reports that it actually, weirdly, performs better and is more stable in Rosetta than natively. ….for that matter I’d be curious about DP11 in Rosetta v native.

Also, is Diva particularly cpu hungry? ….I don’t own it.

Thx again
14-inch MBP M1 Max (2021), 13.6.x, 64GB RAM, UAD Quad Tb Satellite, 4 displays ::: 2009 4,1 > 5,1 MacPro 12-core 3.33 ghz , 10.14.x, 96GB RAM, GeForce GTX 770 , NewerTech eSATA/USB3 PCIe Host Adapter, UAD-2 Quad, ::: 15-inch MBP (2015) 10.14.x, 16GB RAM ::: Lynx Aurora (n) USB ::: DP (latest version), Vienna Ensemble Pro danwool.com
User avatar
Michael Canavan
Posts: 3853
Joined: Fri Jul 15, 2005 10:01 pm
Primary DAW OS: MacOS
Location: seattle

Re: M1 Air Diva stress test, 5 DAW shootout!

Post by Michael Canavan »

dix wrote: Sun Nov 07, 2021 8:46 pm Thanks for this Micael!

I’d be curious what Logic does in Rosetta mode. I’m seeing reports that it actually, weirdly, performs better and is more stable in Rosetta than natively. ….for that matter I’d be curious about DP11 in Rosetta v native.

Also, is Diva particularly cpu hungry? ….I don’t own it.

Thx again
Yeah Dive can be a real pig, IMO it's best to get in the 20-40 plug in range with stress tests as you want cores to end up with as little percentage of CPU left at the top as possible, with DP11 I'm getting full bars almost on all 8 cores for instance, it's using the cores to their fullest.
M2 Studio Ultra, RME Babyface FS, Slate Raven Mti2, NI SL88 MKII, Linnstrument, MPC Live II, Launchpad MK3. Hundreds of plug ins.
User avatar
Michael Canavan
Posts: 3853
Joined: Fri Jul 15, 2005 10:01 pm
Primary DAW OS: MacOS
Location: seattle

Re: M1 Air Diva stress test, 5 DAW shootout!

Post by Michael Canavan »

OK so I just packed up all the DAWs into one Zip on Google drive.
Test at will here. https://drive.google.com/file/d/12rWK1_ ... sp=sharing
M2 Studio Ultra, RME Babyface FS, Slate Raven Mti2, NI SL88 MKII, Linnstrument, MPC Live II, Launchpad MK3. Hundreds of plug ins.
dix
Posts: 3097
Joined: Fri Oct 15, 2004 10:01 pm
Primary DAW OS: MacOS
Location: San Francisco
Contact:

Re: M1 Air Diva stress test, 5 DAW shootout!

Post by dix »

Thanks for posting the link, but of course it could be awhile before anyone is able to corroborate these results, Michael. You’re likely only one around here with an M1 Mac, Diva, and all these DAWs.

Apart performance test results I’m also curious about responsiveness (aren’t you glad I didn’t say snappiness? :D) Logic has always been more responsive than DP by a wide margin. Has that gap been narrowed too between the AS native versions of each?
14-inch MBP M1 Max (2021), 13.6.x, 64GB RAM, UAD Quad Tb Satellite, 4 displays ::: 2009 4,1 > 5,1 MacPro 12-core 3.33 ghz , 10.14.x, 96GB RAM, GeForce GTX 770 , NewerTech eSATA/USB3 PCIe Host Adapter, UAD-2 Quad, ::: 15-inch MBP (2015) 10.14.x, 16GB RAM ::: Lynx Aurora (n) USB ::: DP (latest version), Vienna Ensemble Pro danwool.com
User avatar
James Steele
Site Administrator
Posts: 22789
Joined: Fri Oct 15, 2004 10:01 pm
Primary DAW OS: MacOS
Location: San Diego, CA - U.S.A.
Contact:

Re: M1 Air Diva stress test, 5 DAW shootout!

Post by James Steele »

Michael Canavan wrote: ( apologies to James for posting the DAW That Cannot Be NamedImage by using only it's first and last letters here, but the results are unique and I don't feel it serves as advertisement for it, since it's this time around anyway it's being beaten so badly by DP11! :) )
I actually removed the block last night. So it can be named now. ;)
JamesSteeleProject.com | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter

Mac Studio M1 Max, 64GB/2TB, macOS Sequoia 15.5 Public Beta 2, DP 11.34, MOTU 828es, MOTU 24Ai, MOTU MIDI Express XT, UAD-2 TB3 Satellite OCTO, Console 1 Mk2, Avid S3, NI Komplete Kontrol S88 Mk2, Red Type B, Millennia HV-3C, Warm Audio WA-2A, AudioScape 76F, Dean guitars, Marshall amps, etc., etc.!
User avatar
Michael Canavan
Posts: 3853
Joined: Fri Jul 15, 2005 10:01 pm
Primary DAW OS: MacOS
Location: seattle

Re: M1 Air Diva stress test, 5 DAW shootout!

Post by Michael Canavan »

dix wrote: Mon Nov 08, 2021 4:45 pm Thanks for posting the link, but of course it could be awhile before anyone is able to corroborate these results, Michael. You’re likely only one around here with an M1 Mac, Diva, and all these DAWs.
So I feel like I have to explain myself here.. :oops: I got all excited about MPE support, and at the time Live 10 and DP9 did not support it. So I worked Mike H's deal he talks about where if you're a student of any kind Apple will cut you a $199 deal on a FCP and Logic bundle, and I happened to be taking guitar lessons for soloing etc.

Logic didn't have a clips window at the time so I started messing around with Bitwig, and found a copy used for cheap. R*****r I've always had a copy of so I spent a year deciding I almost like it. In the mean time Live and DP both upgraded and got MPE support, so I'm back in that saddle again. IMO they compliment each other well, just wish DP could use the Push 2 here. Anyway it's a hassle to sell DAWs, hardly worth it if you've done any work in them IMO, so here I am. :x
Apart performance test results I’m also curious about responsiveness (aren’t you glad I didn’t say snappiness? :D) Logic has always been more responsive than DP by a wide margin. Has that gap been narrowed too between the AS native versions of each?
Yes, very much so. There's a thread on V-Control where people are complaining about 500 track projects turning unusable with their setups. I can load it and it takes 7 seconds to switch to the Mixer and Sequence window, but it's workable. It's almost impossible to use on the Mac Pro here.
This begs a question I'm going to hit Matt with this Friday if I can, are there workarounds for this? People use DP with massive VEP setups so this has had to come up before? What worked for me with the Sequence editor was packing 500 tracks into 5 folders, closing 4 etc.

Anyway yeah it's snappy! :koolaid:
M2 Studio Ultra, RME Babyface FS, Slate Raven Mti2, NI SL88 MKII, Linnstrument, MPC Live II, Launchpad MK3. Hundreds of plug ins.
User avatar
Michael Canavan
Posts: 3853
Joined: Fri Jul 15, 2005 10:01 pm
Primary DAW OS: MacOS
Location: seattle

Re: M1 Air Diva stress test, 5 DAW shootout!

Post by Michael Canavan »

James Steele wrote: Mon Nov 08, 2021 10:09 pm
Michael Canavan wrote: ( apologies to James for posting the DAW That Cannot Be NamedImage by using only it's first and last letters here, but the results are unique and I don't feel it serves as advertisement for it, since it's this time around anyway it's being beaten so badly by DP11! :) )
I actually removed the block last night. So it can be named now. ;)
8) Cool, Reaper is not a bad DAW, the main issue is it's more or less a roll your own DAW, takes forever to setup like you want it, and some things are just What the heck? moments. The user base is super set in their ways and if you mention how horrible the GUI is even when skinned, or how haphazard the whole UX is, they get bit riled up! :lol:

It's always beaten DP by a few plug ins in stress tests I've done in the past, so it's pretty crazy seeing the M1 version of DP solidly trash it!
M2 Studio Ultra, RME Babyface FS, Slate Raven Mti2, NI SL88 MKII, Linnstrument, MPC Live II, Launchpad MK3. Hundreds of plug ins.
User avatar
monkey man
Posts: 14072
Joined: Fri Apr 22, 2005 10:01 pm
Primary DAW OS: MacOS
Location: Melbourne, Australia

Re: M1 Air Diva stress test, 5 DAW shootout!

Post by monkey man »

James Steele wrote: Mon Nov 08, 2021 10:09 pmI actually removed the block last night. So it can be named now. ;)
:lol:

Mac 2012 12C Cheese Grater, OSX 10.13.6
MOTU DP8.07, MachFive 3.2.1, MIDI Express XT, 24I/O
Novation, Yamaha & Roland Synths, Guitar & Bass, Kemper Rack

Pretend I've placed your favourite quote here
dix
Posts: 3097
Joined: Fri Oct 15, 2004 10:01 pm
Primary DAW OS: MacOS
Location: San Francisco
Contact:

Re: M1 Air Diva stress test, 5 DAW shootout!

Post by dix »

Michael Canavan wrote: Mon Nov 08, 2021 10:14 pm
Apart performance test results I’m also curious about responsiveness (aren’t you glad I didn’t say snappiness? :D) Logic has always been more responsive than DP by a wide margin. Has that gap been narrowed too between the AS native versions of each?
Yes, very much so. There's a thread on V-Control where people are complaining about 500 track projects turning unusable with their setups. I can load it and it takes 7 seconds to switch to the Mixer and Sequence window, but it's workable. It's almost impossible to use on the Mac Pro here.
This begs a question I'm going to hit Matt with this Friday if I can, are there workarounds for this? People use DP with massive VEP setups so this has had to come up before? What worked for me with the Sequence editor was packing 500 tracks into 5 folders, closing 4 etc.

Anyway yeah it's snappy! :koolaid:
Good to hear. So the reported unusable 500 track projects you mention are DP projects on Intel Macs? - presumably MIDI tracks in a large VEP template (500 audio tracks would be doable on our cMPs).

And so, your question for Matt is a general DP question (not M1 related). Yes, it's always seemed like it's been DP's graphics that slows the app down. Dense fields of arpeggios etc in the SE, for example, can make DP super sluggish. The folder idea is a good one for sure. Even scrolling the dense MIDI sections off screen speeds things up. ....One would hope all the GPU cores in the new MBPs would help this issue, but historically DP's responsiveness has never been improved by more powerful graphics cards. I'd be curious if DP11 has been updated to take advantage of GPU somehow. Be cool if it were, but I kinda doubt it.
14-inch MBP M1 Max (2021), 13.6.x, 64GB RAM, UAD Quad Tb Satellite, 4 displays ::: 2009 4,1 > 5,1 MacPro 12-core 3.33 ghz , 10.14.x, 96GB RAM, GeForce GTX 770 , NewerTech eSATA/USB3 PCIe Host Adapter, UAD-2 Quad, ::: 15-inch MBP (2015) 10.14.x, 16GB RAM ::: Lynx Aurora (n) USB ::: DP (latest version), Vienna Ensemble Pro danwool.com
Post Reply