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The impact of Apple Silicon Macs on Broadway

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Re: The impact of Apple Silicon Macs on Broadway

#141

Post by paulryanrogers »

EamonnMR wrote: post #115
cmroanirgo wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... And yet Apple refused flash support on iOS. It didn't hurt Apple, and only strengthened web development by forcing new solutions to appear. Flash, once a big chunk of the web, is now a little more than a footnote.

Apple killed flash. If they will be able to kill x86 remains to be seen. I don't think web users won out because flash is dead though. Web games never recovered. Video making switched from animation to people filming themselves talking to the camera. What will we loose with x86, I wonder?

> Video making switched from animation to people

Not sure this is entirely due to the flash web player being phased out. Kids just watched their friends play from the couch, or watched more generic broadcast television. Now they still watch and play together but remotely.

Edit: 'due' not 'sure', 'play' not 'pay'

Re: The impact of Apple Silicon Macs on Broadway

#143

Post by eggy »

Couldn't you use a PC box built for less than $600. Sound does not require near the bandwidth of video, and I am sure you could get a decent rig setup for that price. I have been doing low-latency audio on Windows for over a decade. I have used Ableton on Windows with my Novation X-Station 25 from 2005, and I play with Extempore[1] for livecoding, and Windows has been more than adequate. I used the X-Station as my soundcard at the time, because it was better than my cheap PC at the time. I also work for the Entertainment division of an engineering company and we do (did before COVID) lots of mechanical/structural work for Broadway.

[1] https://extemporelang.github.io/

Re: The impact of Apple Silicon Macs on Broadway

#144

Post by [deleted] »

marcan_42 wrote: post #43

They're going to have to wait until the synth industry gets their act together and ports to Apple Silicon though. The DAW/music ecosystem is notoriously bad at these kinds of transitions. Due to how VSTs work, if any of your plug-ins are not ARM compatible, you have to run the whole plug-in host and all plug-ins under Rosetta, with the performance drop and stability compromises that that entails. And a lot of plug-in…

[deleted]

Re: The impact of Apple Silicon Macs on Broadway

#145

Post by kolinko »

himujjal wrote: post #119
kolinko wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine Windows deciding to do a forced auto-update (or hard disk check) ten minutes before performance. Or breaking down because the system doesn’t work well after the update. I set up a VR performance in a gallery once. It was supposed to run the same piece of a basic program for 3 months. Since it was Windows we had to do additional steps to make sure that it wouldn’t try to update* and possibly break drivers. Bec…

Turning off Windows Updates is 10 minute work. And I am no Windows expert. Just got to know this via a youtube video. I am not sure how you couldn't disable updates. I am not a professional, so I might not know audio stuffs. But manual Windows Updates is easy.

NVidia has it's own auto-update system, and some other programs as well.

Re: The impact of Apple Silicon Macs on Broadway

#146

Post by kolinko »

tomcam wrote: post #120
kolinko wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine Windows deciding to do a forced auto-update (or hard disk check) ten minutes before performance. Or breaking down because the system doesn’t work well after the update. I set up a VR performance in a gallery once. It was supposed to run the same piece of a basic program for 3 months. Since it was Windows we had to do additional steps to make sure that it wouldn’t try to update* and possibly break drivers. Bec…

You ever work with Joanna Klass? Also... the Posterous link in your profile is of course dead

Nah, the VR work was with Norbert Delman: http://norbertdelman.com/2017/1951

Posterous - oh no! ;) Perhaps I will change the link to the webarchive page of it :)

Re: The impact of Apple Silicon Macs on Broadway

#147

Post by mistersquid »

EamonnMR wrote: post #115
cmroanirgo wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... And yet Apple refused flash support on iOS. It didn't hurt Apple, and only strengthened web development by forcing new solutions to appear. Flash, once a big chunk of the web, is now a little more than a footnote.

Apple killed flash. If they will be able to kill x86 remains to be seen. I don't think web users won out because flash is dead though. Web games never recovered. Video making switched from animation to people filming themselves talking to the camera. What will we loose with x86, I wonder?

> Apple killed flash.

Apple didn’t kill Flash. Adobe did.

By failing to deliver a performant and secure version of Flash (under any architecture, but especially mobile), Adobe ensured Flash would be not be viable for the web as it evolved.

Re: The impact of Apple Silicon Macs on Broadway

#148

Post by colejohnson66 »

stephen_g wrote: post #136
kergonath wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If performance is really a problem, there were faster Intel Macs than a mini, as well.

True, but form factor plays into this a lot. You can fit two minis on a single 19” rack shelf, whereas trying to use an iMac or a laptop isn’t as convenient. If they made a smaller and much cheaper entry-level Mac Pro that had a rack mount kit to fit in 2U or something, that would be amazing for production.

The current Mac Pro is available in a 4U rack form factor for US$500 more.

Click the “Buy” link: https://www.apple.com/mac-pro/

Re: The impact of Apple Silicon Macs on Broadway

#149

Post by yummypaint »

eggy wrote: post #143

Couldn't you use a PC box built for less than $600. Sound does not require near the bandwidth of video, and I am sure you could get a decent rig setup for that price. I have been doing low-latency audio on Windows for over a decade. I have used Ableton on Windows with my Novation X-Station 25 from 2005, and I play with Extempore[1] for livecoding, and Windows has been more than adequate. I used the X-Station as my so…

Yes, Im kindof baffled why they insist on a mac mini with such a tight budget. There are linux options too

Re: The impact of Apple Silicon Macs on Broadway

#150

Post by pgwhalen »

fab1an wrote: post #38
robbyt wrote: post #36

Programming has been my "day job" for a long time, but writing music has been my real passion. It's absolutely standard for electronic musicians to bounce tracks with computationally expensive plugins to static audio tracks while working. Otherwise, there is usually not enough CPU available to perform all the DSP for a complex song. (Additionally, bouncing tracks to audio gives more control over fades, cross-fades, t…

It's a little weird, especially since the musicians aren't visible to the audience - why would you play live?

All of the other answers have good points but are missing the one that matters: the musician’s union requires it. Every Broadway theatre has a minimum number of musicians (depending on the space) if a musical is being performed.
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