M1 Mac Mini

[Michael Canavan]

Honestly from all the reports coming in, it's not going to be that big of a deal to run DP10 in the M1 once it's Big Sur ready.
It's looking like Rosetta 2 is a lot more stable and useful than Rosetta v1 was. Remember iOS is basically a stripped down version of OS X with multi touch support. They've been running OS X on Apple Silicon for probably the entire time they've had their own chips in the iPads etc. I'm well past due for a new laptop, and I'm planning on buying the 16" macbook pro with Apple Silicon as soon as it comes out. Probably by that time (guess's are March or June), MOTU will have a version of DP that's Big Sur compatible.

I've done all the major modifications you can to this Mac Pro 12 cores 3.33ghz. two M.2 SSDs inside. USB3 card, Radeon RX580 etc. These little 13" first batch machines are getting similar scores in Geekbench. The 16's should crush.

Basically I think it's always good to have a second DAW around in case a version or update kills DP etc. but I don't know if you necessarily need to learn Logic to use the M1 macs that are coming out in a few months. Especially seeing how these consumer level laptops are doing with the chips.

[mikehalloran]

…
The learning curve was my main thought as a minus. I don't wanna spend my time learning another program unless I have to. I'll either wait it out or go for a used imac or mac mini.

Yea, if you work with outside studios and need to open LPx and GB projects (as I do) or if you want to save $100 off FCPx or … there are a number of reasons to spend the two bills. If you don’t need it, then save your money.

I’ve prepared a couple of 2014 Minis recently and they work ok but used prices are too steep to be a bargain compared to the 2018 Mini — either used or from the Refurb Store.
https://www.apple.com/us-hed/shop/refu ... c/mac-mini

The under $300 4K monitor (new) seems to be gone thanks to everyone working from home but bargains exist. Under $350 monitors are easy to find.
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product ... olor.html/

[mikehalloran]

Honestly from all the reports coming in, it's not going to be that big of a deal to run DP10 in the M1 once it's Big Sur ready.
It's looking like Rosetta 2 is a lot more stable and useful than Rosetta v1 was. Remember iOS is basically a stripped down version of OS X with multi touch support. They've been running OS X on Apple Silicon for probably the entire time they've had their own chips in the iPads etc. I'm well past due for a new laptop, and I'm planning on buying the 16" macbook pro with Apple Silicon as soon as it comes out. Probably by that time (guess's are March or June), MOTU will have a version of DP that's Big Sur compatible.
…

Having played with it on my test machine, I’m pleasantly surprised by how much works already. It’s still unusable over MacOS 11 but it’s pretty close.

The only app that needs to work on my 2012 MBP is Zoom — so it’s perfect for testing everything else.

[Michael Canavan]

Having played with it on my test machine, I’m pleasantly surprised by how much works already. It’s still unusable over MacOS 11 but it’s pretty close.

The only app that needs to work on my 2012 MBP is Zoom — so it’s perfect for testing everything else.

So you have an M1 mac to test DP on? or did you mange to install Big Sur on a 2012 MBP?

My situation now is I'm in transition mode. Attempting to use VEP on the Mac Pro and the 2012 MBP here as a master for the eventual move to this setup in a permanent way when the M1 16" comes out.

I'm messing around with OWC drive enclosures. Just sent this dock/enclosure back.
https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/owc-mer ... e-pro-dock
It's really nice, a 4TB WD Black gets around 200mbs in it, but the tiny fan is LOUD. enough to where I would want to put it in the closet here, then what's the point in the dock? You want a dock near you, but the fan kills me. So close yet so far.

The one I'm going to buy as soon as the return money shows up in my account is a straight drive bay.
There aren't any reports of it being loud online, I'll probably still put it in the closet though.
https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/thunder ... nderbolt-3

I'm basically just getting everything ready for the Apple Silicon 16". Looking at current SSD prices to upgrade the Intel 16" MBP out now, it's pretty brutal, and I would want back up.

[mikehalloran]

This guy talks too much but following his directions and the github links, I was able to install Big Sur on my 2012 MBP. You'll see my notes in the remarks. The contrast on the password entry screen is really bad and that threw me at first.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73VpW-X4g-s&t=2s

Some of the info is wrong on the Ben Sova site — it still assumes that BS is in beta. Anyway, the install was pretty easy. To restore Catalina, one needs to run a USB installer, wipe the drive and reinstall the OS to access a Time Machine backup. The first time I installed OS 11, I tested that. I have since reinstalled 11.1. Among the things to test are Time Machine compatibility with other non-BS Macs on the network and how APFS Snapshots are handled. I have a 6TB loaded Time Capsule for testing that. Till then, my other three TM backups will not see the MPB.

This is the only TB3 external that interests me. No fan, best speed at 4TB and uses a single NVMe 3 x4 blade. Bus powered.
https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/owc-env ... nderbolt-3

These use multiple blades at RAID 0 to get the job done. Must run hotter than hell. Externally powered. No mention of the fact that a pair of blades at RAID 0 is slower than a single or that a quartet is even slower due to the 4 lane restriction of TB3 — not that there's much real world difference at those speeds.
https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/owc-thunderblade

Heat is the issue, of course, which is why no one is building externals using the 8TB NVMe 3 x4 blades out there. Bob Ludwig tried to use one of those in his MP 6.1 and had to give up. Samsung has been supplying 4TB blades to Apple for over a year but still hasn't released a 4TB version of the X5.

As for backup, I just bought one of these and received it yesterday. To save a few hundred dollars, I bought the diskless version plus a pair of 14TB Reds instead of the 28TB version. I don't mind the one-minute it takes to install the drives.
https://shop.westerndigital.com/product ... 00NCH-NESN

For now, I will configure them JBOD and Time Machine. I will be curious to see if this is faster than the 1st Gen My Cloud Mirror with a minimal CPU and no RAM. I could increase the speed and double the capacity configuring to RAID 0 but will never do so — one drive goes bad and the backup is gone. I don't like RAID 1 since both drives are working twice as often. I'm fine with JBOD and my three TM backups doing the round-robin hourly.

The 6TB Reds in the current Mirror are too small for the 4 Macs that now back up to them. I'll sell it on eBay, no doubt. The HDDs still have some of their 3-yr warranty left. I was going to install the new Reds into this housing but seeing that the EX2 was only $151, decided to do the upgrade.

[monkey man]

Mike, just curious:

The Pro Apps Bundle you linked to is entitled "Pro Apps Bundle for Education". Wouldn't I have to prove I'm a student (I'm not) to get that price? I can't find any other flavour of the Pro Apps Bundle, hence the question.

Thanks bud.

[mikehalloran]

Mike, just curious:

The Pro Apps Bundle you linked to is entitled "Pro Apps Bundle for Education". Wouldn't I have to prove I'm a student (I'm not) to get that price? I can't find any other flavour of the Pro Apps Bundle, hence the question.

Thanks bud.

For some things like hardware, Apple sends you to the EDU store. That does not happen with this link. You buy, they email the five codes when you’re done.

[bayswater]

Mike, just curious:

The Pro Apps Bundle you linked to is entitled "Pro Apps Bundle for Education". Wouldn't I have to prove I'm a student (I'm not) to get that price? I can't find any other flavour of the Pro Apps Bundle, hence the question.

Thanks bud.

For some things like hardware, Apple sends you to the EDU store. That does not happen with this link. You buy, they email the five codes when you’re done.

I've had both hardware and software from Apple via educational discounts, and some things via corporate discounts. It looks like this is managed on a country specific basis by the local marketing and sales organization (Apple Canada in my case). In some cases it was closely managed and proof and approval was required, in others simply ordering via the appropriate channel seemed to be good enough.

Probably best to just try buying at the discounted price. There's nothing to lose. In at least one case, the software I got via an educational discount was not upgradable to a new version, so it might be worth knowing whether that would apply.

[monkey man]

For some things like hardware, Apple sends you to the EDU store. That does not happen with this link. You buy, they email the five codes when you’re done.

Thank you for confirming, Mike.

In at least one case, the software I got via an educational discount was not upgradable to a new version, so it might be worth knowing whether that would apply.

Thanks for the warning, Stoivo.

I wonder if Mike has any insights on this?

[mikehalloran]

There are no such restrictions other than the normal limit of 5 devices per license, controlled by your Apple ID. I ran into that earlier this year and had to delete a couple of Macs from my App Store/iTunes account that I had taken out of service in 2018/9.

I bought this bundle a few years ago and the apps update on a regular basis. LPx went to 10.4.1 a month or two ago.

[monkey man]

Thanks Mike.

Good to know, mate.

[Michael Canavan]

As for backup, I just bought one of these and received it yesterday. To save a few hundred dollars, I bought the diskless version plus a pair of 14TB Reds instead of the 28TB version. I don't mind the one-minute it takes to install the drives.
https://shop.westerndigital.com/product ... 00NCH-NESN

For now, I will configure them JBOD and Time Machine. I will be curious to see if this is faster than the 1st Gen My Cloud Mirror with a minimal CPU and no RAM. I could increase the speed and double the capacity configuring to RAID 0 but will never do so — one drive goes bad and the backup is gone. I don't like RAID 1 since both drives are working twice as often. I'm fine with JBOD and my three TM backups doing the round-robin hourly.

Thanks this looks good actually. If you get a chance could you run blackmagic speed test or something similar on it?
From what I gather most NAS systems are topping out around 80mbs if that. That's just fine to me especially for backup and smaller audio files.

[dpdan]

Hi guys,
I still have my Macbook Pro that I use for remote multi-track recording and it has always been great.
I went to the Apple website about three weeks ago and discovered that I could trade in my MacPro "trash can looking thing" and get an Apple gift card for $800.00. It was in great shape and I realized after eBay would get their greedy 10% and PayPal would get their 2.9% plus shipping I should just trade it in. It was almost 6 years old and I was afraid it would blow up one day and green smoke would fill the studio then I would be scu-rood.

So, to make a short story long, Apple delivered my Mac Mini M1 with a 1TB drive and 16GB ram almost two weeks earlier than anticipated, so that was cool! I decided on the CalDigit TS3 USB hub and a Samsung T7 2TB SSD. That would be sufficient for my video editing jobs with FInal Cut Pro X where sometimes I have as many as 11 cameras. Anyway, I knew that this Mac Mini M1 has it's growing pains and I was prepared for DP to not even install but to my surprise it did and it opened and it works great as far as I am concerned. Melodyne runs, Altiverb runs, Trilian runs, Omnisphere runs, Garritan's Yamaha CFX Grand runs and Kensington released a new update for the trackball that I use.... KensingtonWorks 2.2.6 all good so far

I just can not use Logic, alot of people like it but I am just too married to DP since OS9. I did render a video with FCPX and my jaw hit the floor as I watched the export render wheel. MAN OH MAN!

The most fun thing I did was bought a Switchbot to remotely turn it on. Very cool!

[dix]

Very interesting and good to hear dpdan!

A quick look at your website tells me you do some serious, pro work. Please keep us posted on how the M1 MacMini performs over time with DP via Rosetta. Particularly on larger complicated projects with and without MIDI etc. I personally wasn't even considering considering a Silicon Mac for pro work with DP until there was a native version, but there's a lot of reasons why some might need to use DP10 with these first gen machines. I'm also curious if the low RAM in the Mini is as much of a limitation as it would be in Intel Macs.

Most of us are assuming the growing pains we experienced going from PowerPC to Intel will be the same with this transition. It's at least possible Apple got it right-er this time.

...love your Rube Goldbergesque solution for remote power ups! I feel like an idiot just using my finger now.

[dpdan]

dlx... Rube Goldbergesque

that made me laugh outloud
I have not heard that term in years...

Thank you for the very nice compliments.

I was hesitant to post that I think DP 10.13 works great on my M1 Mini because there are DP users here that are far more knowledgable about all things computers than me, but it works great for me.

I have a gut feeling that Apple understands that a lot of people like to "upgrade" their computers themselves. As we have been told for years,,, you need maximum RAM if you want the computer to be able to perform without beachballs. I always believed that but I think Apple is in a very tricky spot when they talk about RAM with the M1 design. Since RAM is not upgradeable, they feel like they have to offer the option of MORE when the computer is ordered or purchased. Since the RAM is now just part of the main PC board,, I still think that when we buy a new computer, we should always get as much RAM as we can afford. The speed at which Thunderbolt/USB-C ports are capable of makes me believe that an SSD that lives outside the computer is capable of speeds equal to the SSD that is part of the main PCB. I have to admit that I was just a little ticked off when a few youtube channels posted news of impending Apple M1X units while I was waiting for FedEx to ring my bell.... Anyway, I am more than happy with this little Mini M1. I am also pleased that AppleCare was just 99 bucks, so that's cool.
Have a great weekend... !!