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  4. VSL January 2021 software on silicon M1 Macmini: very promising.

  • VSL January 2021 software on silicon M1 Macmini: very promising.

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    I actually spent last couple of days testing my VSL arsenal with my new Macmini M1 16Gb, and I have to report I'm pretty surprised by the good performance despite the fact the full package, including my Audio interface (Steinberg UR-C 22) are UNSUPPORTED!

    - all synchron and VI software is running smoothly stand alone or hosted in VE Pro and MIR Pro 24, as in Logic/Garageband native DAWs.

    - synchron pianos for instance are performing as good as on my Mac Book Pro i9 2019 (actually costing 4k euros, instead of 900 euros as the Macmini...)

    - the speed and reactivity of the whole system is impressive, everything being more fast and smooth than all Intel Macs I own and owned (including the Mac Pro early 2013 12 cores, now a bit outdated, but still pretty powerful in multi core computing, RAM and disk access)

    WARNING: in general the system is not ready yet for professional application, due to some (pretty small to be honest, but potentially disruptive for professional workflow and performance stability) little graphic artefacts and audio issue: for an undetected yet reason I get unpredictable small interruption of sound (kind of overload, but without noise or digital glitch) then I can't say if it's due to disk, or software, or audio driver incompatibility.

    But due to the pretty stable fast and good result in synchronization (both audio and MIDI) and bounce/rendering I'm very happy and looking forward to great performance with native universal binary version of the software coming (more or less) soon from manufacturers (hopefully including VSL).

    This is not only meaning that we can expect some future mid-range Mac will do magic, but it already opens the hi-performance scenario to affordable actual small macs as well, candidates for budget home-studio, or for arrays of VE Pro servers etc.
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    I am also exploring — perhaps even closer to the leading edge — with a well-configured (16GB) MacBook Air running <gasp> Monterey.

    I work as a creative tutor and always advise my music and other media clients to 'hang back' in previous versions of macOS. That said, I was intrigued with the new Apple Silicon machines and decided to jump in and see just what kind of mess I could get into! (I have a stable Catalina iMac as my primary work machine).

    I am even 'out there' a little further than (perhaps) others, running Logic in native mode and not in Rosetta, and seeing/hearing what happens with my template, which includes VSL, Spitfire, Orchestral Tools, Synthogy (Ivory) & Output sample libraries. So far, there have been minimal issues, though I would never recommend this configuration for a production machine … at least, not yet.

    The trade-off of testing this 'edge' in technology is to experience the speed and fluidity of macOS and Logic in concert with this new architecture. It is extraordinary, and I even suspect that Logic has a built-in Rosetta 'layer' that kicks in automatically when it encounters a non-native, 3rd-party plug-in. I have no proof of that, but there is much to be said for how Logic is one of Apple's flagship apps, and the developers are collaborating closely (albeit not in the same 'huddle' but adjacent, perhaps).