2013 Mac Pro for Music?

[Octogibbon]

What about the TB>FW800 dongle? Does that reduce the latency using the FW protocol? Problem solved if you can work within the confines of 24 streams. This has me a little worried with my Metric Halo gear. MH will be offering a TB upgrade backplane but suggest TB>FW800 for now. Thoughts?

That would be compounding the issue - FW800 has bandwidth issues compared to PCIe, and latency on FW800 devices is already much higher than that on PCIe which would be a deal breaker anyway. To then add TB>FW conversion would be latency suicide.

Oh and I'd need 6 of them!

In your instance, if you're using the MH on FW800 at the moment, I suspect going TB>FW won't be a problem, and you can then safely wait until their newer backplanes are available. May be worth finding someone with a TB equipped Mac to try it?

 

[derbothaus]

That would be compounding the issue - FW800 has bandwidth issues compared to PCIe, and latency on FW800 devices is already much higher than that on PCIe which would be a deal breaker anyway. To then add TB>FW conversion would be latency suicide.

Oh and I'd need 6 of them!

In your instance, if you're using the MH on FW800 at the moment, I suspect going TB>FW won't be a problem, and you can then safely wait until their newer backplanes are available. May be worth finding someone with a TB equipped Mac to try it?

Thanks Octo. Just needed some context of the kind of latency you were worried about. If TB is better than FW I am happy. I use tape in studio anyway but my demo/ workshop stuff is all FW. MH has decent enough latency for my purposes atm.

 

[Octogibbon]

Context is key

Decent FW interfaces from MH or RME with 20 or so channels should be able to manage 5-7ms latency. Add another device to that FW buss and that'll increase. A PCIe MADI card should be around 1.3-2.6ms when running 128 channels. As you can see its quite a difference, but its certainly not to say the FW ones are bad, but for high I/O count beefier exercises, PCIe is king.

Lets say the FW>TB conversion added 1ms to a FW device of 20 channels, then it's not the end of the world. Changing a PCIe device and putting it in an enclosure behind TB and making it 5, 7, or as reported thus far, in excess of 10ms, it becomes unusable, and the percentage increase in latency is far higher proportionally.

 

[deconstruct60]

No current DAW software has any OpenCL support, and I doubt it'll be added in the future as it'd cripple any mobile solutions.

Crippled how? Is your implication that mobile solutions don't have OpenCL ? OpenCL can run on x86 and GPGPUs. Or that the OpenCL workload would be so high that graphics workload wouldn't have enough bandwidth?

 

[Wild-Bill]

to then add tb>fw conversion would be latency suicide.

thank you!

 

[ekwipt]

RME has already confirmed Thunderbolt works extremely well with the PCIe cards. Audio is not going to be a problem

http://www.rme-audio.de/forum/viewtopic.php?id=16182

http://www.netstor.com.tw/_02/02_detail.php?ODg=

 

[zephonic]

RME has already confirmed Thunderbolt works extremely well with the PCIe cards. Audio is not going to be a problem

http://www.rme-audio.de/forum/viewtopic.php?id=16182

http://www.netstor.com.tw/_02/02_detail.php?ODg=

thanks for the links!

 

[Bergante]

RME are having many of the same problems Avid did with their TB offerings - the latency is unacceptable. Until that is resolved, I'm sticking with my PCIe MADI rig!

Having said that, I do trust if anyone can solve it, RME will. Avid on the other hand....

Then they have done something wrong. Thunderbolt is a transport for PCIe. The delay it adds should be essentially irrelevant.

What about the TB>FW800 dongle? Does that reduce the latency using the FW protocol? Problem solved if you can work within the confines of 24 streams. This has me a little worried with my Metric Halo gear. MH will be offering a TB upgrade backplane but suggest TB>FW800 for now. Thoughts?

You can't magically reduce the latency of Firewire, which, by the way, is really low. The "dongle" is a PCI Express attached Firewire host adapter.

And anyway the latency added by Thunderbolt should be negligible, comparable to the latency added by one of those PCIe expander chassis.

That would be compounding the issue - FW800 has bandwidth issues compared to PCIe, and latency on FW800 devices is already much higher than that on PCIe which would be a deal breaker anyway. To then add TB>FW conversion would be latency suicide.

That's nonsense, sorry.

In your instance, if you're using the MH on FW800 at the moment, I suspect going TB>FW won't be a problem, and you can then safely wait until their newer backplanes are available. May be worth finding someone with a TB equipped Mac to try it?

Happy MH user here, by the way

You aren't using MH on FW800. You are using it on FW400, even if it's connected to a FW800 port. The device is FW400, more than enough for the audio applications for which it is intended.

MH's designer has said several times that there's no penalty using a TB attached Firewire controller such as Apple's.

And they have a public statement on their web site:

http://mhsecure.com/metric_halo/products/thunderbolt.html

Also, they say "The performance is the same as a native FireWire port" which on the other hand is not unexpected.

Anyway, you can always join the Metric Halo mailing list and ask for a qualified answer. I guess that they will say that, of course, Metric Halo hardware works awesomely with the new Mac Pro, when they have the chance to test it.

 

[champ01]

OpenCL doesn't work for audio.

The professional audio community is furious with the new design.

Its everything that community didn't ask for.

The new Mac Pro has 2 PCI-e for its custom made GPU. The old model had 4 PCI-e slots.
The new Mac Pro has 1 PCI-e custom flash card. The old model had 4 SSD slots.
The new Mac Pro has 1 CPU. The old model had 2.
The new Mac Pro has 4 RAM slots. The old model had 8.

Everything you wanna add to the New Pro is going to be adding unnecessary costs which the old model didn't have.

The new Mac Pro is a Mac Mini on steroids which has stripped features over the previous model and is going to be extremely expensive.

All Apple had to do was to upgrade the previous with Thunderbolt ports.
It would already been a more flexible machine then the new Mac Pro/Mac Mini on steroids.
It should've only skipped the super drives and the handles which would make the Mac Pro probably small enough to place it in a rack.

 

[rammyindia]

I presently use a Mac pro for professional Music Production with Steinberg Cubase. I do music for Backgrounds and sound designs for AV's too quite a lot along with popular music production. I feel the powerful, even dual GPU option for Music production is an awesome idea as it helps the production software to be more visually intuitive and informative as now we rely heavily on the visual feedback of audio too and empowering the software to use the graphic power available is a top priority overlooked otherwise. I use a blackmagic pcie card for video output just for music production as Cubase takes support of hardware acceleration in outputting the feed of the video file nd it gets crunching for the GPU to output good resolution video with 2-3 displays running on max resolution already displaying the software content but if this enables a new user to skip that and use the stock system for complete work, that'll be awesome. Nd you are anyways going towards heavy video resoultion in coming times, the more you empower the software companies, the better they will make use of the graphic power available. Like other day i saw a demo of Yamaha Nuance controller system,amazing how they have integrated the use of off the shelves available sceens with hardware controller from inside of production software. Imagine adding more high quality displays whenever you need just for individual tasks like reading master spectrum and loundness meters for examples right from the system coz it supports it. good graphics in audio production has always lagged because of non priority usage coz of unavailable stock resources. And this is going to lead in future as you are talking touch and interactive displays very soon (Very excited for use of Leap Motion in Music production) and that all greatly reduces the amount of reaction time for components so more powerful stock devices makes great sense to me.
Nd by the trends, Pro industry loves their system to be modular, justified by all the outboard gear and DSP cards (even analog has gone the chassis way with 500 series systems), so i have good reason to believe the new I/o system will be welcomed with open arms as then you don't have what you don't need and only buy what you gonna rightly use for a greater length of time as all that gear is anyways a huge investment on their own. We are already on that path. The new pro though not loosing on backward compatibility more over gives you a better options for future upgrades.
Apple has secured and powered the pro users long term with what they need to create the content what everyone consumes expecting of the new and fresh approches. I always use to feel if i had an option for Mac mini in audio for future as just even the ease of mobility opens new experiences for otherwise hermit life inside a studio but was let down by mobile architecture nd the future of expandability in need of more processing power. This is like that with workstation specs in an amazing technical and art design combined. Imagine the use in Music events and performances with so much stable power available from one system for real time use. The possibilities are endless.
Power is only enough as much as you can make use of it. Thrilled by the new pro.

 

[Loa]

Audio processing, especially in realtime, is very CPU intensive.

Thanks!!!

 

[Liquidstate]

Just back from a late session. For audio, I think champ01 has it right.

I'm not anti-progress. I like the idea of a core computer and specialty builds of dedicated externals. But Apple has a bad habit of sealing off their machines in the name of progress.

It's OK to disrupt a consumer market. But pro markets are different. Especially pro audio, where circuitry can make a big difference in sound quality. And where FW 400 (let alone FW 800) is fast enough.

Straight to the point, TB is a flop in pro audio. And it's been out for OVER 2 YEARS. That's a long time in computing. And yes, some of that is due to Intel Xeons not supporting it. And yes, there are reported problems of latency in TB conversion with FW for iMacs and Minis that support TB. Maybe they've solved that. And maybe not. But I'm not laying down tracks unless I know my studio cans are giving me a true-enough read.

I can hear the Apple fan brigade yelling FW is over. Yo dudes and dudettes, a lot of the best sounding pro audio gear is FW. In fact, nearly everything you listen to in your iToys EarPods was and is made by non-TB audio gear. And don't even mention USB. No pro studio trusts a session to USB.

And even if they/we wanted to "upgrade," there's no pro level TB gear. OK, the UA Apollo for small venue live, but beyond that, nothing.

For audio, TB is not an upgrade from dedicated PCIe. Yes, they are both direct to North Bridge. Except PCIe is a dedicated lane, and TB is a lane traffic cop. Does anyone with money on the table want to trust an expensive session to an aggregator?

To my knowledge, no pro studio uses an iMac. Or a Mac Mini. Or TB anything. Or, for that matter, Logic. If I were still producing, and I saw any of this being used, I'd walk out.

And if it turns out that TB to FW conversions result in a harsher signal, for pro audio, TB will be history. And we'll all be rebuilding our aluminum MP towers with FW and PCIe. Fortunately, Apple made tons of these machines, and made them highly upgradable and nearly indestructible. So even if a massive astroid hits the earth, although we'll all be dead, our aluminum case MP's will still be ready to record our tracks.

And maybe this is the future of audio. Vintage analog and digital systems. Neve pre's and tube mic's. And a trusty rebuilt MP running native PT 10 pumping the mix.

Sort of like audio BladeRunner.

 

[clamnectar]

And if it turns out that TB to FW conversions result in a harsher signal, for pro audio, TB will be history. And we'll all be rebuilding our aluminum MP towers with FW and PCIe. Fortunately, Apple made tons of these machines, and made them highly upgradable and nearly indestructible. So even if a massive astroid hits the earth, although we'll all be dead, our aluminum case MP's will still be ready to record our tracks.

And maybe this is the future of audio. Vintage analog and digital systems. Neve pre's and tube mic's. And a trusty rebuilt MP running native PT 10 pumping the mix.

Sort of like audio BladeRunner.

Proving that there's nobody more conservative than audio guys. Come on, "harsher signal?" Really? It's digital! It's perfect or it's not there at all.

 

[spoonie1972]

Proving that there's nobody more conservative than audio guys. Come on, "harsher signal?" Really? It's digital! It's perfect or it's not there at all.

There's nothing wrong with being conservative.

You know what sucks? When you go to open a project worth millions of dollars that you did a year or two ago, and some asshat wearing a software designer hat decided that your can't open your old version w/o everything exploding.

This is why ProTools is still in business. It's not perfect but the **** works. Every. Day.

 

[Bergante]

And if it turns out that TB to FW conversions result in a harsher signal, for pro audio, TB will be history.

Excuse me?

Well, maybe the guys from Audioquest, who sell "audiophile" Ethernet cables bathed in holy snake oil will release need to release a similar Thunderbolt cable, well articulate, with warm sounding string and mellow voices.

 

[DPUser]

With the exception of the "harsher" remark, I think counterbalance has some pretty good points. But the fact that FW400's bandwidth is adequate for many audio interfaces and studios gets us to the bottom line: the current Mac Pro, properly outfitted, is more than adequate for a large percentage of the audio work that is being done today and in the foreseeable future.

I can record a fully-mic'd band with drums and percussion live using my 20 analog inputs, track VI's simultaneously with very low latency, provide four independent monitor mixes, and run as many Altiverb instantiations and tracks, VI's and plug-ins as I want when mixing, all on my hex 5,1 which was built from a 2009 quad 4,1. I was able to expand my Mac with 4 SSDs and 3 internal HDs and a UAD card without any added expense or hassle. The computer sits in a machine room, so I don't really care what it looks like, but I like the cool-running and spacious Mac Pro case.

Although I'm not doing heavy score work with massive VI orchestra templates as some are, I think my usage typifies many pros who earn their living doing audio with their Macs. And we don't need a more powerful Mac than the ones we can buy right now.

This does not make Apple's marketing team get excited.

So who is Apple marketing the New Mac Pro to? I think the dual video cards (which are useless to me given currently available audio software) are a pretty good indicator.

PS: I can still open projects in DP8 64 bit I did in Performer on my 1984 original Mac, not to mention the ones I did on my Centris, G4 and G5.

 

[prowlmedia]

OpenCL doesn't work for audio.

The professional audio community is furious with the new design.

Its everything that community didn't ask for.

The new Mac Pro has 2 PCI-e for its custom made GPU. The old model had 4 PCI-e slots.
The new Mac Pro has 1 PCI-e custom flash card. The old model had 4 SSD slots.
The new Mac Pro has 1 CPU. The old model had 2.
The new Mac Pro has 4 RAM slots. The old model had 8.

Everything you wanna add to the New Pro is going to be adding unnecessary costs which the old model didn't have.

The new Mac Pro is a Mac Mini on steroids which has stripped features over the previous model and is going to be extremely expensive.

All Apple had to do was to upgrade the previous with Thunderbolt ports.
It would already been a more flexible machine then the new Mac Pro/Mac Mini on steroids.
It should've only skipped the super drives and the handles which would make the Mac Pro probably small enough to place it in a rack.

This is so short sighted its not true.

Shared storage is way better than internalised. Certainly in studios.

Thunderbolt to PCI enclosures means that anyone can share a card they don't have to have one installed. can even take it out and use it with a laptop.

The CPU is stil 12 core (24 thread) and twice as fast. Dual CPUs carry heat and overhead implications.

ram slots - 4 slots that actually can be 64gb each!

It's predict it will have scores hitting 60,000 on geekbench.

We don't know if there will be other configurations yet - it was a sneek peek. Might have a version with 6 cores and a single lower end graphics card

Price - we know nothing at all.

 

[vladi]

For audio workstation single fast CPU is faster solution than multiple CPUs.

I would dig you some benchmarks but I'm lazy

 

[Bergante]

With the exception of the "harsher" remark, I think counterbalance has some pretty good points. But the fact that FW400's bandwidth is adequate for many audio interfaces and studios gets us to the bottom line: the current Mac Pro, properly outfitted, is more than adequate for a large percentage of the audio work that is being done today and in the foreseeable future.

I mainly make live recordings of jazz bands, with a maximum of 8 tracks. Adding some glue, some reverb tracks, etc, I can go to maybe 16. Using DP as well.

Why did I buy a Mac Pro to replace my old Power Mac G5? Because a faster machine means a much more responsive GUI, including (and this can be really useful) much more responsive meters.

The new, powerful graphics will help make the GUI really fast which, in turn, makes stuff like meters (which can be very important) to feel much more natural. At the very least that can mean you are more comfortable and confident, which surely turns out to help you get better results.

And yes, I have a UAD2 card. Not that the quad core Mac Pro isn't capable of running what I need. It's just that UA has some amazingly good sounding plugins. The UAD2 card is more a dongle than a DSP nowadays.

If OpenCL can be used in real time (I am not sure of the limitations it may hit) it can be terribly useful for powerful, CPU hungry audio plugins. It can help improve the level of detail of vintage audio equipment emulation a lot.

So who is Apple marketing the New Mac Pro to? I think the dual video cards (which are useless to me given currently available audio software) are a pretty good indicator.

Sometimes there announcements are actually looking at the future.

PS: I can still open projects in DP8 64 bit I did in Performer on my 1984 original Mac, not to mention the ones I did on my Centris, G4 and G5.

The quote about protools was funny. It's the kind of software that freaks out if you change the color of the room carpet. If I am not wrong, Protools users usually have to wait for Digidesign's blessing before installing even minor system software updates.

 

[derbothaus]

Excuse me?

Well, maybe the guys from Audioquest, who sell "audiophile" Ethernet cables bathed in holy snake oil will release need to release a similar Thunderbolt cable, well articulate, with warm sounding string and mellow voices.

Lol.
I am holding out for the gold tipped 8.73" FW800 crossover myself because the 8" and 9" varieties introduce unwanted artifacts.
Classic.

----------

You can't magically reduce the latency of Firewire, which, by the way, is really low. The "dongle" is a PCI Express attached Firewire host adapter.

That was not my intent or question but thanks.

 

[spoonie1972]

The quote about protools was funny. It's the kind of software that freaks out if you change the color of the room carpet. If I am not wrong, Protools users usually have to wait for Digidesign's blessing before installing even minor system software updates.

If you have an orchestra booked in full of AFM guys, and your session isn't running because you're ***** around with your systems... I don't think PT/AVID will take the blame.

Working on your own at home with a zillion compromises is totally OK.

 

[Liquidstate]

a similar Thunderbolt cable, well articulate, with warm sounding string and mellow vo

OK, yeah, it isn't the cable itself. Although I'd love to have some of the cables that have been listed (flaming myself now).

Obviously, it's what happens after the cables feed the DSP boxes or software modeling plug-ins. We know the perception of audio doesn't scale evenly. We also know faster speeds tend to increase the detail. Which is what I meant by potentially harsher signals.

In my experience, higher speeds are not always a good thing for audio. In fact, after writing these posts, I am thinking about exploring lower rates and frequencies as a creative decision.

As I see it, the new MP will be great for the video people and heavy data users. But for my use, at this point, there are too many unknowns, especially regarding connecting FW to TB.

Anyway, all we can do is wait and see what develops for TB audio gear, including how long it takes to become stable, how much it is going to cost, and what it sounds like.

 

[ApfelKuchen]

With the exception of the "harsher" remark, I think counterbalance has some pretty good points. But the fact that FW400's bandwidth is adequate for many audio interfaces and studios gets us to the bottom line: the current Mac Pro, properly outfitted, is more than adequate for a large percentage of the audio work that is being done today and in the foreseeable future. :::snip:::

Although I'm not doing heavy score work with massive VI orchestra templates as some are, I think my usage typifies many pros who earn their living doing audio with their Macs. And we don't need a more powerful Mac than the ones we can buy right now.

Sorry, I haven't done pro audio on a computer (Mac Quadra 950) since the days of Sonic Solutions/Sonic System (I Remember the early '90s), but...

The notion that "what we have now is good enough" is really besides the point. When has pro gear ever stood still? In the studios I worked in, having the latest, hottest equipment was a competitive necessity.

The audio software and hardware makers can't sell stuff if it can't run on the available hardware, and the available hardware has been in a holding pattern for quite some time. But Apple's tossed in a little game changer. You don't think the hardware and software makers will jump all over this, so they, too, have new stuff to sell?

If you have your Pros located where the clients can see them... in a little while it'll be, "When are you dumping those big, silver boxes? The studio down the street has a really cool new system. The whole thing runs on this tiny, black cylinder that's sitting right on top of the board, next to the Auratones..."

 

[DPUser]

Sorry, I haven't done pro audio on a computer (Mac Quadra 950) since the days of Sonic Solutions/Sonic System (I Remember the early '90s), but...

The notion that "what we have now is good enough" is really besides the point. When has pro gear ever stood still? In the studios I worked in, having the latest, hottest equipment was a competitive necessity.

The audio software and hardware makers can't sell stuff if it can't run on the available hardware, and the available hardware has been in a holding pattern for quite some time. But Apple's tossed in a little game changer. You don't think the hardware and software makers will jump all over this, so they, too, have new stuff to sell?

If you have your Pros located where the clients can see them... in a little while it'll be, "When are you dumping those big, silver boxes? The studio down the street has a really cool new system. The whole thing runs on this tiny, black cylinder that's sitting right on top of the board, next to the Auratones..."

My clients never ask about my computer. They enjoy the vibe in my silent studio, where computer monitors are the only evidence of my machine-room-housed Mac. They see the images dancing on my screens - three, running smoothly with a lowly 5770 GPU - and listen to my work, then hear me mold theirs into a beautiful form that exceeds their expectations.

I remember Sonic Solutions mastering sessions, when two tracks and a crossfade would stress the system to its limit. With all respect, if you haven't used a computer for audio since the early '90's, you haven't used a computer for audio.

Apple hasn't tossed in a game changer as far as performance goes. The new Mac Pro is simply another incremental update; albeit one that is repackaged into a cool looking form factor that is, IMO, a step or two back when it comes to utility.

Someday I'll buy a new computer. But it may be a Mac Faux, not a Mac Pro.

 

[Bergante]

Obviously, it's what happens after the cables feed the DSP boxes or software modeling plug-ins. We know the perception of audio doesn't scale evenly. We also know faster speeds tend to increase the detail. Which is what I meant by potentially harsher signals.

The differences in sound between sample rates (assuming the same converters) are caused by differences in the behavior of the converters at at different rates.

But no matter how you transmit the audio: through ftp, expensive unobtanium coated pure copper cables, or whatever. A bit is a bit unless there is a malfunction.

Regarding expandability: DPUser says that the new Mac pro is an incremental step backwards. Actually, it's far more expandable than the old one. Yes, probably you can't change the graphics card easily. But think about adding other peripherals.