Rebuilding a studio after the Palisades Fire – Mac, UAD, iLok, etc.

[seamonster]

Hi all, it's been a while....

My system was already long in the tooth when my house and studio burned in January. I managed to evacuate a few key pieces (pre-loaded in the car before I stayed and fought the fire to no avail, except that I did save my neighbors house), but I had hastily grabbed gear without cords, adapters….. Only recently have we found a place to live in long enough for me to start rebuilding a studio. I’m thinking that now is a good time to upgrade, so I’d like some reality check(s) on where I’m headed.

My existing setup: a 2010 Mac Pro Nehalem with a UAD-2 Octo card, and an Apollo firewire quad. The Mac was used only for studio work, which has been sporadic since Covid, so might still have life in it. It’s only a 2.8 GHz quad core, but the UA DSP makes up for some of that, and its got two internal SSD drives. It’s limited by its graphic card to OS 10.13 High Sierra, though I did pick up a cheap card that supposedly could get me to at least Catalina (I haven't tried it yet)...

But looking ahead, I’m thinking of a refurbished Mac Studio, mid-2023, with a M2 Max chip. Pros, cons?
I’d put my UAD-2 Octo in an OWC Mercury Helios 3S ($250). Or, has anyone tried their UAD-2 in this *fanless* model on Amazon for $209: Anquora “Thunderbolt 3 to PCIe Card Dock with one PCIe 3.0 x16 Slot, 36W Power Supply, External Enclosure…”? The UAD-2 Octo is 8W, so the OWC Helios at 150W might be overkill – while recognizing there may be compatibility concerns with the Anquora(?).

Meanwhile, my DAW is Digital Performer, and I’m probably due for an upgrade there too, though I reckon I should at least have a look at Luna(?). Has Motu ever fixed the bug where adding a new volume automation point doesn't automatically duplicate the same value as the point on the line adjacent to it?

Finally, if I rescued my dongles, I don't find them now: an early iLok, and a thumb drive (for what auths, I don’t recall – maybe some VI’s?) Any iLok upgrade wrinkles to be aware of? (I've already bought a 3rd gen iLok, but haven't opened it yet.) I reckon I can open the Pace app and transfer auths from the old, vaporized iLok to a new one. How much of any auth migration must I do first on the old Mac Pro? Or can I just use Apple’s standard migration path from the old High Sierra system into the new OS (whatever version it is), and only then deal with transferring auths to the new iLok?

– Hoagie

[Rick Cornish]

Sorry for all your losses. Glad you’re now in rebuilding mode.

You’ll be very happy with the M2 Mac Studio. I bought one when my old Mac Pro (trashcan) died and have been very pleased with it. External SSDs will be great for sample drives, etc. There are lots of good ones available and prices are going down all the time.

Two things to think about:
1. Migrating from an Intel processor to Apple Silicon might be a bigger deal than you anticipate. Make sure to download new installers for all your VIs and plugins so you get the AS versions (if available). Also, it might be time to recycle old hardware that’s not compatible with the current macOS.
2. The current version of DP (v11.34) is solid. If you’ve been using old versions, it is well worth updating.

Good luck!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[EMRR]

So sorry you’re going through this.

[HCMarkus]

I did save my neighbors house.

– Hoagie

Good work there!

I suffered a total studio loss in the 2003 Cedar Fire in San Diego; I managed to save my backups, which were up to date as of two weeks before the fire, but all was otherwise lost. In my case, insurance was available; I'm hoping you are similarly positioned. Regardless, post-fire is a very good time to re-think your setup based on your experiences combined with pertinent tench advances.

Computer: The performance of any of the Apple Silicon Macs will surprise you (in a very nice way), but there have been advances made since the introduction of the M1. I say this as a happy owner of an M1 Mac Studio: you may wish to consider an M4 Mini Pro or Mac Studio as the new heart of your setup.

UAD2 Card: UA has made most of their plugins available as Native AU plugins; you may be better off abandoning the UAD card and spending the money saved by not buying a PCIe box on updated versions of the UA plugins. Prices have dropped, and you may be entitled to free native versions in some cases. I didn't have an extensive collection of UAD plugins, but have replaced those I did have with native versions, and it didn't cost me much... look for sales; UA runs them often.

Migration Assistant: Rick's advice re: new installers is solid. You want the latest versions as they will run as Apple Silicon Native plugins and will not require Rosetta2. Personally, when I moved from Intel to Apple Silicon, I felt most comfortable starting from scratch with all program and plugin installations. Others have used Migration assistant successfully, but I wanted to avoid cruft from my old Mac when building my Mac Studio.

DP: Current version is really good. I'm loving it. So many advances have been made!

iLok: Should be no trouble.

Recovering from a fire loss is a huge task, and I do not envy you. If you haven't already done so, start a spreadsheet documenting everything lost that you can think of. I'm not just talking studio gear here... everything. Add to it whenever a little (or big) item pops into your mind... the little things add up! That said, when my studio burned in '03, I was able to make do without much of the hardware I had used in the past. The timing of your situation, what with the tremendous improvements in computers and software since the era of the Nehalem, is such that you may well be stunned by the performance and cost-effectiveness the new Macs offer.

Best to you and yours, and please feel free to reach back to me either here or in a PM if I may be able to assist further.

[seamonster]

Others have used Migration assistant successfully, but I wanted to avoid cruft from my old Mac when building my Mac Studio.

Ha, I've never heard that word before, but I know exactly what you mean! I can imagine there might be some small minority of cruft that I'd actually like to perpetuate. Guess I'll have to look closely at what apps are still relevant and do or don't have an updated installer. I'll also look at the limitations of Rosetta2, and much it might be another layer of brain pain.

[HCMarkus]

Others have used Migration assistant successfully, but I wanted to avoid cruft from my old Mac when building my Mac Studio.

Ha, I've never heard that word before, but I know exactly what you mean! I can imagine there might be some small minority of cruft that I'd actually like to perpetuate. Guess I'll have to look closely at what apps are still relevant and do or don't have an updated installer. I'll also look at the limitations of Rosetta2, and much it might be another layer of brain pain.

FYI, Rosetta2 works great, very transparent, but it is still preferable to run all Native Apple Silicon plugins. None of the plugins I own have yet to be updated to Native; DP will run non-Native AU plugins alongside Native versions if necessary.

[mikehalloran]

For audio, any Studio is going to smoke what you’ve used in the past. 32GB unified RAM is fine for audio and VIs. Additional cores and RAM come in handy if doing AV as rendering times decrease dramatically. An M2 Ultra with 192GB RAM hits my comfort zone with the amount of AV that I do.

I can’t recommend at least 2TB onboard storage highly enough. Because of the way some apps and installers handle data, too small a System drive can cause a temporary bottleneck waiting for TRIM/Garbage Collection to free up drive space. 1TB is just not enough for maximum efficiency.

AV rendering has nothing on AI, however. I wasn’t prepared for a simple 4-part, 2 minute choIr demo taking over an hour to render using AI voices—yikes! Consider the M3 Studio Ultra with the full 512GB RAM if planning to get into AI.

For audio, the real sleeper is the M4 Mini Pro, however. These will handle AV, perhaps not as fast as the Studio Ultra but few are likely to complain. Many of these are already in the Apple Refurb Store. A fully tricked out 64GB/8TB Pro is just under $4K in the Refurb Store—and there are many others for less.
https://www.apple.com/shop/product/G1K ... -Ethernet-

TB5/USB 4.2 is twice as fast as USB 4/TB4/3. To take advantage of that speed, one will need USB 4.2 compatible hubs and external storage. Fortunately, that’s all now available and not very expensive. With the right cables and adapters, it’s fully backward compatible with TB1 and USB 1.1 (old MOTU USB MIDI boxes). I’ve done the research.

[seamonster]

Yikes, Mike, I just pulled the trigger on an Apple refurb M2 Studio with only 32GB RAM and a 500GB boot drive. They didn't have refurbs available with bigger drives, and I figured 500GB would be enough if I could just tell sample libraries to install themselves on supplemental drives.

But suddenly I'm wondering how user-accessible the M2 Studios are. Maybe before I even install anything, I should add more 3rd-party RAM, and buy a 2TB SSD to boot from and swap the stock 500GB drive out to an enclosure.

I'm also curious what choice I may have as to OS version. I don't enjoy being on the bleeding edge. Is there an OS version one or two generations old that's optimum in terms of already being supported by the most 3rd parties? Is my refurb 2023 M2 likely to come with no more recent than a 2023 OS? Pr does Apple try to limit new installs to only the most recent OS?

[mikehalloran]

I figured 500GB would be enough if I could just tell sample libraries to install themselves on supplemental drives

That is exactly what causes the bottleneck and why I recommend a 2TB minimum. Native Access and IK Multimedia, for example, download to your System Drive, and then expand and install onto your external before being deleted automatically. T.R.I.M. must now prepare those cells to accept new data and this can take 36 hours or more. Considering that your System will have 100–400GB that can't be offloaded, this gives you very little free space for such operations. Will it work? Yes but will take a long time and you will get many messages that you don't have enough drive space—they will not be errors because, when generated, you will not have enough space until TRIM makes it available which will happen eventually.

There's a lot that can be offloaded including VIs and work product (docs, projects, movies, Applemusic etc.). Apps, Support libraries and plug-ins, however, must remain on the System Drive. Since Monterey, synchronized copies of cloud based documents including GoogleDrive, iCloud, OneDrive, Sync and Dropbox can no longer be stored anywhere else except on the System drive—otherwise, the originals remain in the cloud. You can manually copy the files onto external drives but they will not be in sync. Apple and everyone else really, really wants you to buy more cloud storage and larger System drives—this is how they do it)

The one bright spot is that a few months ago, Apple allowed Apple Silicon Macs to boot and run all apps from an external drive. You need Sonoma 14.7 or Sequoia 15.4 to do this. TB4 external SSDs on an M1/2 Studio run a bit over 1/3 the max speed of the internal (still pretty fast but...). TB5 externals to the M4 Mini run closer to 3/4 the max speed of those internal drives if there are two blades or on par if there's only one. An internal pair is configured RAID 0, nearly double the speed of a single NAND blade. Minis and M2 Studios can have one or two blades depending on the size and year.

If you find that the one you get doesn't have enough internal storage, you'll have 14 days to get an RMA exchange from Apple, no questions asked.

[mikehalloran]

Maybe before I even install anything, I should add more 3rd-party RAM,

All Apple Silicon uses Integrated aka Unified RAM. It is part of the ARM chip. 3rd party RAM is not possible. There is a rule of thumb that considers unified RAM about the same as 4x discrete RAM. 4:1 is not accurate but integrated is a lot more efficient and you do require less.

[seamonster]

Based on your wise counsel, I will be refusing shipment (Apple's choice of method) of the 32/500GB M2, and have instead ordered an 64/1TB. It was almost twice the price, and more than I wanted to spend, but I figure the extra boot drive wiggle room at 1TB will save at least a few installation headaches.

[James Steele]

Based on your wise counsel, I will be refusing shipment (Apple's choice of method) of the 32/500GB M2, and have instead ordered an 64/1TB. It was almost twice the price, and more than I wanted to spend, but I figure the extra boot drive wiggle room at 1TB will save at least a few installation headaches.

I'm glad you did. I was sitting on the sidelines thinking to myself you may likely be fine with the 32GB of RAM, but that you'd likely end up regretting that 500GB internal drive. I was going to suggest you cancel it and at least bump up the internal drive size. It wouldn't be so crucial if it were possible to upgrade it yourself in the future, but unfortunately you're kind of locked in with whatever it's initially configured with.

I have a M1 Max Mac Studio with 64GB of RAM and 2TB internal drive. Fortunately I had a friend who as an Apple employee who let me use his Friends & Family discount so that helped take some of the sting out of it financially. And to be honest with you, for my needs, I probably could have gotten by (up to this point at least) with 32GB instead of 64GB, but I planned to have this Mac for quite some time, so I erred on the side of having more than I might need.

[James Steele]

Native Access and IK Multimedia, for example, download to your System Drive, and then expand and install onto your external before being deleted automatically.

In the case of IK, unfortunately they don't automatically delete the installers, at least not on my system unless there's a setting I have overlooked. I'm talking I guess about application and plugin installers... might go for sounds too... but after they are installed IK Product Manager archives the installers to your boot drive here:

<username>/Documents/IK Product Manager/

After installing anything IK with IK Product Manager, I go into the above folder and manually trash the installer files that will be inside a "sub-folder" named for that product. You can free up many GB of space this way.

[seamonster]

Heya James, hope you're well. I was active in this Unicorn world like 20 years ago, then got wrapped with studio and other stuff and kinda weaned off the internet for most purposes. Now I'm forced to start over, so taking the advice of past survivors: don't be shy about asking for help.

Thanks for the reminder about the IK installers. I've experienced that. I seem to recall other apps similarly leaving big files on the boot drive. I'll just have to be vigilant.

Now one of my big dilemmas will be whether to use Migration Assistant or start from scratch. Advice seems to be running both ways.

[mikehalloran]

Native Access and IK Multimedia, for example, download to your System Drive, and then expand and install onto your external before being deleted automatically.

In the case of IK, unfortunately they don't automatically delete the installers, at least not on my system unless there's a setting I have overlooked. I'm talking I guess about application and plugin installers... might go for sounds too... but after they are installed IK Product Manager archives the installers to your boot drive here:

<username>/Documents/IK Product Manager/

After installing anything IK with IK Product Manager, I go into the above folder and manually trash the installer files that will be inside a "sub-folder" named for that product. You can free up many GB of space this way.

Yes, I only dwelt on the NA process to keep my post down to a page and focus on the TRIM issue. Those IK installers must be deleted manually as they are useless once the libraries are installed. Likewise, iZotope installers stay in the Downloads folder till deleted manually—you’d think that, since NI now owns iZotope, they’d fix this.

My point was that a 500K System drive for any of us is too damned small. Mark’s problems last week told us the same about a 1TB drive. My wife’s bread and butter apps are Acrobatic Pro and Word — although 500K is fine for her, I buy 1TB for her Macs.