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... and it's not like the M1 Pro and M1 Max MacBook Pro or Studio machines are low end. They're blazing fast. It's very much a niche market since anyone demandi
by api 4y ago
... and it's not like the M1 Pro and M1 Max MacBook Pro or Studio machines are low end. They're blazing fast. It's very much a niche market since anyone demanding even more power can easily just build a Linux box with 2X the power for 1/4 the price or use cloud.
- jgalt212 4y agoIsn't cloud rendering cost prohibitive? i.e. don't you get killed on egress costs?
- api 4y agoFor some workloads yes, but as I said you can build an insane local box running Linux or Windows for 1/4 the price of the Mac Pro. Last I checked for a few thousand USD you could have 64 CPU cores with 128 threads, 128 gigs or more of RAM, and one or more top tier GPUs.
- steve1977 4y agoThere's use cases (e.g. music production) where this doesn't work.
- eunoia 4y agoYeah but what music production workflow needs the power of an “extreme” chip? The M1 Max and Pro (not to mention Ultra) are already practically overkill for the vast majority of musical workflows. Many producers work on plain M1 Airs as when everything has enough functional power, the lack of a fan becomes the most desirable feature.
- rewgs 4y agoFilm composers. Absolutely absurd track counts, plus usually working in quad or 5.1. A majority of the big ones have long since moved to using multiple Windows machines, but most of them did so begrudgingly. For a long time, the usual choice was a Mac Pro, but the Xeons were never a great choice from a processing standpoint -- they just enabled the massive amounts of RAM needed for said absurd track counts, though ECC was an unnecessary added expense. Musicians tend to prefer macOS for a variety of reasons, and the Mac Studio is a breath of fresh air, finally giving us something we actually need. That said, the Mac Studio still doesn't quite enable everything to be loaded on one machine, so the PC farms are still in use; worse, the primary software used to utilize those PC farms, Vienna Ensemble Pro, isn't yet Apple Silicon native, so...for the time being, the Mac Studio still isn't quite ready for prime time. The Apple Silicon Mac Pro would likely enable finally moving to using a single machine running macOS with the CPU performance and amount of RAM needed, so you best believe that film composers will move to it in droves once it comes out, whatever the price, as VEP being native or not will no longer be a factor. Source: was a fairly successful film composer myself until I developed an ear condition called Hyperacusis, now working as a programmer writing custom tools for my peers, and as a tech consultant designing their rigs.
- eunoia 4y agoYeah that actually makes a ton of sense. I almost added a flippant addendum to my post along the lines of “unless you’re running 1000 orchestral VSTs at once”. And sure enough, that is a real workflow! Thanks for the knowledge.
- rewgs 4y agoTotally, always happy to talk about this stuff. Making film/game/TV scoring a not-horrible experience is a fascinating problem to solve.
- prmoustache 4y agoI don't think music production has ever been the market for the mac pro.
- kitsunesoba 4y agoIt absolutely was for a long time. There’s a number of studios that even still have old PowerMac and cheese grater Intel towers chugging along in some capacity, and audio professionals were among the loudest to protest the “trash can” Mac Pro’s lack of expansion slots.
- 72deluxe 4y agoI wonder if Thunderbolt and USB interfaces killed all this though? It's difficult to find a dedicated card for an audio interface these days.
- kitsunesoba 4y agoNot sure but two or three years ago I watched some videos from an audio engineer who migrated from the trash can to the 2019 cheese grater and he seemed pretty happy. He ditched several Thunderbolt enclosures and filled his tower to the brim with cards.
- 72deluxe 4y agoI used to use a cheese grater Mac at work and was impressed at the build quality and tool-less chassis, and also how heavy it was! Quiet in use too.
- rewgs 4y agoIt's not at all, plenty of great PCIe cards out there. Most notably RME.
- ace2358 4y agoI’m still using a 2012 max pro upgraded to 2x 6 core 3.6ghz and 128gb ram. I have 12tb of storage, nvme ssd and an optical burner! I’ve put this machine together over a few years and total cost is 3k Aud. They’re still great value, this machine can still run drivers for hardware from 2005 (with FireWire!). I can run any os from snow leopard to big sure. I can put a Thunderbolt card in it. I can put most GFX cards. I have a laptop for my performances, but in the studio, this thing is a beast and I hope it works for quite a few more years as a replacement will be very expensive.