MP 7,1 Mac Pro 7,1 spec for Recording Studio

[Shadow Puppets]

Hi all,

I’m tasked with speccing up a new Mac Pro for a commercial recording studio.

I wondered if any of you guys could help me understand better what specific components are most important for potentially massive Logic / Pro Tools sessions, and driving two displays and a TV. Processor/ram/GPU requirements etc.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[flygbuss]

Only for recording? What kind of recording? How many channels? I can only speak for Pro Tools but if you don't have a massive amount of virtual instruments a 5,1 would still do the job.
So I would go for 12 or 16 cores 48GB of RAM (up-gradable if needed) 1TB SSD (I assume they use external / network storage) and the 580X.

Be aware that Avid doesn't support neither the Mac Pro 7,1 nor Catalina for Pro Tools yet.

http://avid.force.com/pkb/articles/en_US/Compatibility/Pro-Tools-System-Requirements

 

[Shadow Puppets]

Only for recording? What kind of recording? How many channels? I can only speak for Pro Tools but if you don't have a massive amount of virtual instruments a 5,1 would still do the job.
So I would go for 12 or 16 cores 48GB of RAM (up-gradable if needed) 1TB SSD (I assume they use external / network storage) and the 580X.

Be aware that Avid doesn't support neither the Mac Pro 7,1 nor Catalina for Pro Tools yet.

http://avid.force.com/pkb/articles/en_US/Compatibility/Pro-Tools-System-Requirements

Predominantly for recording yes. We’re talking anything from solo artists all the way up to small orchestras. It’s not uncommon for track counts to be maxed out. And yes, virtual instruments a plenty!

I’m aware of the lack of compatibility from Avid at the moment, but I’d expect that to come in the next month or so, if they have any sense.

In addition to recording, the studio occasionally gets used as a film editing suite (mainly due to its double 4k displays and TV). So I guess some specs that help in that regard wouldn’t go a miss too.

 

[davidec]

I run a commercial studio too. Top end projects like yourself. I've ordered
16 Core (this is the sweet spot for multi core performance (Logic Pro X etc) and single core CPU speed.
96GB Ram more than enough for now. Replace with 192 in twelve months if even likely to be required for little money
4TB Inbuilt storage, why not, max it out as it won't be so easy to replace
Sonnet Fusion and 4 x 2TB Samsung Evo NVMe blades for fastest storage
Pegasus internal rack for backup /raid

 

[flygbuss]

Predominantly for recording yes. We’re talking anything from solo artists all the way up to small orchestras. It’s not uncommon for track counts to be maxed out. And yes, virtual instruments a plenty!

I’m aware of the lack of compatibility from Avid at the moment, but I’d expect that to come in the next month or so, if they have any sense.

In addition to recording, the studio occasionally gets used as a film editing suite (mainly due to its double 4k displays and TV). So I guess some specs that help in that regard wouldn’t go a miss too.

Given Avid's history nothing is certain or granted. It took 7 month until they officially supported Mojave.
But I guess support will come sooner for Catalina especially since the Mac Pro is released now.

I agree with @davidec about the CPU, I would go for a good balance between single core and multi core performance.

If it's also gonna be used as a film editing suite, it's probably a good idea to upgrade the GPU.
But I'm an audio guy so I can't say anything valuable about it.

 

[Parzival]

Take a look at this video:

They are using the 28 core model, perhaps you can infer what would be the best option for you by looking at the thread performance in their session?

I was planning on getting the 12 core model for film scoring work and would be interested to know how that would hold up.