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Apple M1 Pro Beats M3 Pro with Ableton, Logic and Pro Tools

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Re: Apple M1 Pro Beats M3 Pro with Ableton, Logic and Pro Tools

#51

Post by squeaky-clean »

n9 wrote: post #19

The methology used in these tests is utter nonsense. Yes, there is something to be learned by his results but it has a the very least 50% to do with DAW internals and CPU vs the CPUs themselves. He used large numbers of tracks to test which isn't a valid measure of CPU optimization across different DAW platforms. There is widely varying CPU overhead issues among the different DAWs. Running 300 tracks in Ableton is go…

I'm an Ableton user so it's important to me to know how these laptops actually perform when using Ableton and not in some theoretical benchmark.

Re: Apple M1 Pro Beats M3 Pro with Ableton, Logic and Pro Tools

#52

Post by [deleted] »

n9 wrote: post #47
david_allison wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a music site. Showing that the efficiency cores aren't fully utilized by the DAWs is appropriate for the audience. It shows to less specialized users that they'll need to examine their tools and their use of efficiency cores to determine if an upgrade is worthwhile

testing how a DAW handles 300 identical low-CPU consumptive tracks is not at all appropriate for a music CPU workload assessment. No one except Charlie Clauser or Hollywood cinema post production uses projects with 300+ tracks -- it is a really idiosyncratic test that exposes the optimization liabilities of the DAW vs the CPU. A Better test would be to set up an intensive real world 20 track project, assess utilizati…

[deleted]

Re: Apple M1 Pro Beats M3 Pro with Ableton, Logic and Pro Tools

#53

Post by squeaky-clean »

n9 wrote: post #47
david_allison wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a music site. Showing that the efficiency cores aren't fully utilized by the DAWs is appropriate for the audience. It shows to less specialized users that they'll need to examine their tools and their use of efficiency cores to determine if an upgrade is worthwhile

testing how a DAW handles 300 identical low-CPU consumptive tracks is not at all appropriate for a music CPU workload assessment. No one except Charlie Clauser or Hollywood cinema post production uses projects with 300+ tracks -- it is a really idiosyncratic test that exposes the optimization liabilities of the DAW vs the CPU. A Better test would be to set up an intensive real world 20 track project, assess utilizati…

300 tracks is more realistic than 20, at least for electronic music. Here is a Skrillex single with 180 tracks.

https://youtu.be/2dYFJdQf7rs?si=rsBc8gCtz5DQYGI9

Re: Apple M1 Pro Beats M3 Pro with Ableton, Logic and Pro Tools

#54

Post by wtallis »

n9 wrote: post #47
david_allison wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a music site. Showing that the efficiency cores aren't fully utilized by the DAWs is appropriate for the audience. It shows to less specialized users that they'll need to examine their tools and their use of efficiency cores to determine if an upgrade is worthwhile

testing how a DAW handles 300 identical low-CPU consumptive tracks is not at all appropriate for a music CPU workload assessment. No one except Charlie Clauser or Hollywood cinema post production uses projects with 300+ tracks -- it is a really idiosyncratic test that exposes the optimization liabilities of the DAW vs the CPU. A Better test would be to set up an intensive real world 20 track project, assess utilizati…

> I mean... 300 tracks? You're basically testing the DAW's thread management at that point, not the CPU as it would be used.

Any realistic test is going to have more tracks than there are CPU cores, so thread management would seem to be an unavoidable aspect of the test. The test results were in the 60–100 track range, not 300, so not really as excessive as you are claiming. And while testing with too many tracks could certainly be problematic for introducing excessive context switching overhead, the problematic behavior that was actually revealed is much more serious and less subtle and applies to any scenario with more than 5–8 threads.

Re: Apple M1 Pro Beats M3 Pro with Ableton, Logic and Pro Tools

#55

Post by sayrer »

squeaky-clean wrote: post #50
sayrer wrote: post #33

Surprising, but you really don't even need an M1 for those programs. You want fast external SSDs, though. I use the last Intel Mac mini for audio things, and it's fine.

Only if you're mixing audio tracks with minimal processing or using lots of sample libraries. Modern virtual analog synthesizers or guitar amp emulations like the Archetype Nolly mentioned in the article use a ton of CPU and require almost no disk I/O. For example he mentions FL Studio can handle 70 tracks of Nolly. The latest FL Studio version's tutorial project has 98 tracks and can run on an HDD if your CPU is fas…

Oh, interesting. I'd probably never use something like Nolly. So, out of my range. I do use the synth stuff, and I can get the Intel mini to like 50% with some effort, but it's never been a real problem.

The SSD matters for picking the sounds, in my experience. So you're going through listening to a bunch of drum hits, for example. If the drive is slow, this stalls.

Plus, isn't he simultaneously playing 70+ tracks with a CPU-intensive filter on each one? That's not a realistic workload.

Re: Apple M1 Pro Beats M3 Pro with Ableton, Logic and Pro Tools

#56

Post by squeaky-clean »

sayrer wrote: post #55
squeaky-clean wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only if you're mixing audio tracks with minimal processing or using lots of sample libraries. Modern virtual analog synthesizers or guitar amp emulations like the Archetype Nolly mentioned in the article use a ton of CPU and require almost no disk I/O. For example he mentions FL Studio can handle 70 tracks of Nolly. The latest FL Studio version's tutorial project has 98 tracks and can run on an HDD if your CPU is fas…

Oh, interesting. I'd probably never use something like Nolly. So, out of my range. I do use the synth stuff, and I can get the Intel mini to like 50% with some effort, but it's never been a real problem. The SSD matters for picking the sounds, in my experience. So you're going through listening to a bunch of drum hits, for example. If the drive is slow, this stalls. Plus, isn't he simultaneously playing 70+ tracks wi…

> Plus, isn't he simultaneously playing 70+ tracks with a CPU-intensive filter on each one? That's not a realistic workload.

I linked this in another comment, but here's a real video of a Skrillex single and it has 180 tracks loaded with plugins.

He mostly uses virtual synthesizers, but you'll notice the track is mostly composed of audio clips and not MIDI running a real synthesizer. Because he does the synthesis in a different project and renders the audio out. Because it would be impossible for a project like this to run in realtime with the synthesizers being calculated.

https://youtu.be/2dYFJdQf7rs?si=rsBc8gCtz5DQYGI9

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