New: Mac Pro M2 Ultra - Mac Studio M2 Max & Ultra - 15.3" MacBook Air M2

[wing]

8 hours ago, wonshu said:

However, the "large screen" could be interesting for work...

Yeah, although I do wonder what ill effects that would have on our vision and our bodies, our necks in particular (the screen being projected so close to your retinas, while appearing "far away," and looking constantly left/right/up/down which might get very exhausting and bring about all kinds of new unheard of work-related injuries...) I'm sure Apple and proponents would say "it's perfectly safe for the long-term" but I think there simply wouldn't be enough data on that for quite some time. But my intuition says it can't be great for the human body (heck, we haven't even properly evolved to sitting at desks). Not to mention probably the simple discomfort of wearing that thing hours on end, sweat building up around your face 😉

[David MacNeill]

Back in the day, influential PC Magazine columnist Bill Machrone had a rule: The computer you want costs $5000.

It's still true. The computer I want is a new Mac mini M2 Ultra with 128GB of memory and a 2TB drive: $5199.

If I thought I could get it past wifey without a fight, I would order it right bloody now. Trade in my months-old Mac mini M2 Pro 32GB/1TB and just get on with it.

(sound of fingers thrumming the studio desk...)

[fisherking]

36 minutes ago, wing said:

Yeah, although I do wonder what ill effects that would have on our vision and our bodies, our necks in particular (the screen being projected so close to your retinas, while appearing "far away," and looking constantly left/right/up/down which might get very exhausting and bring about all kinds of new unheard of work-related injuries...) I'm sure Apple and proponents would say "it's perfectly safe for the long-term" but I think there simply wouldn't be enough data on that for quite some time. But my intuition says it can't be great for the human body (heck, we haven't even properly evolved to sitting at desks). Not to mention probably the simple discomfort of wearing that thing hours on end, sweat building up around your face 😉

we adapt. i remember when everyone was first getting into computers... everyone was getting carpal tunnel syndrome. now, you almost never hear about that.

we adapt, and, along the way, developers fine-tune their products. so my feeling is, we'll survive and adapt to what comes next, ad infinitum (or until the sun burns out, or we do...).

[wing]

9 minutes ago, fisherking said:

everyone was getting carpal tunnel syndrome. now, you almost never hear about that.

People still get it all the time and I am even more susceptible as I'm nearing 40 having played several instruments my whole life too... source: talk to any physical therapist including my own 😉

We haven't actually truly adapted to sitting all day at a desk either, for that matter. I'm not a scientist on this matter but I don't believe the human body can evolve at an overnight speed. There will definitely be new physical repercussions from wearing something like this all day, for both eyes and body...

To me the real future will be projected holograms, where we can interact with our space in this augmented reality fashion, but without having to actually wear anything – and this would make it a shared experience too. Now that would be cool, and a lot more physically natural in the long run. Someday I'm sure...

[des99]

33 minutes ago, wing said:

I'm not a scientist on this matter but I don't believe the human body can evolve at an overnight speed.

Not overnight, but certainly over weeks and months. This is what *training* is - the more you use and build muscle, or muscle memory, the more your body adapts. it's nothing to do with evolution, but all about training.

33 minutes ago, wing said:

There will definitely be new physical repercussions from wearing something like this all day, for both eyes and body...

Sure. Just like learning, say, a guitar will make your fingers hurt, or a sax will make you out of breath and dizzy etc.

You're not going to start out wearing this all day anyway. But yes, if you're doing this for some hours initially and your neck hurts due to the extra weight, it will take a bit of time to adapt and build the muscles in your neck so it can cope adequately - the body is excellent at doing this, providing you do it responsibly.

Edited June 7, 2023 by des99

[wing]

1 minute ago, des99 said:

Not overnight, but certainly over weeks and months. This is what *training* is - the more you use and build muscle, or muscle memory, the more your body adapts. it's nothing to do with evolution, but all about training.

Sure. Just like learning, say, a guitar will make your fingers hurt, or a sax will make you out of breath and dizzy etc.

You're not going to start out wearing this all day anyway. But yes, if you're doing this for some hours initially and your neck hurts due to the extra weight, it will take a bit of time to adapt and build the muscles in your neck so it can cope adequately - the body is excellent at doing this, providing you do it responsibly.

I meant overnight as hyperbole. There are numerous studies that point to the fact that human evolution to new physical tasks takes generations and beyond. I definitely don't think what I'm saying – that there will be physical issues arising from consistent use of such devices, is a hot take at all...

[fisherking]

it's probably a bit of both; people struggling with carpal tunnel, other health-related issues to bending over iphones all day, leaning into their desks... while others adapt, and find ways to balance things out, ie...

getting up from our desks and stretching. taking breaks. walking. not looking at our phones. i try to do all these things daily, and (mostly) succeed....

[HoraceWimp]

for a year I thought I had the fastest Mac ever - now it's over 😅

[redgreenblue]

26 minutes ago, HoraceWimp said:

for a year I thought I had the fastest Mac ever - now it's over 😅

It's time to sell it and get a new one. I'll give you $100 for it.

[des99]

9 minutes ago, redgreenblue said:

I'll give you $100 for it.

Don't listen to him, he's trying to scam you - it's worth *way* more than that.

I'll *double* his offer...

😉

[Blatboy]

During the covid lockdown in 2020, I had no job and my 2010 Mac Pro called it quits.  (Or something happened where I couldn't work/record in an acceptable way... I forget)  10 years is a great run for a computer, but I didn't have money coming in.  I picked up a new first generation M1 Mac mini (16GB ram) and it was pretty good!

Fast forward to today... I have a job again (yay!) but of course getting that Mac mini to behave with thick logic sessions almost 12 minutes in length... I would have to close out of everything (cloud services, any non-audio applications running in the background) for it to run without hiccuping (usually saying something nasty about the midi driver... but really it was just low on resources.)

I just picked up a Apple M2 Ultra with 24‑core CPU, 60‑core GPU, 32‑core Neural Engine 64GB unified memory and 2TB SSD storage.

Wicked expensive but now is the time as I have job and  I'm hoping to have this last as long as the 2010 Mac Pro did.  

So far it's great.  Certainly none of the issues I had before are cropping up. Interestingly, offline bouncing is not hugely faster.  However, that conversion to MP3 is insanely quick compared to even my 2017 MBP.  

I may not even need a Vienna Ensemble situation/PC for orchestral mockups... but let's not get hasty.

 

Edited July 28, 2023 by Blatboy
still a pandemic haha

[des99]

21 minutes ago, Blatboy said:

Interestingly, offline bouncing is not hugely faster.

Offline bouncing is still largely a single-core process, and your M2 will have maybe a 10% faster core speed than your M1, which is why your bounces are only about 10% faster...

You've got a lot more cores though so you can run more stuff in parallel (ie, more plugins in Logic etc).

[Christopher11]

Lord, think how this would burn through any DSP, reverb, VSTs!  David, do you think you could get the latency so low with a Mac Pro like this that it would be as fast as using hardware?  (for those of us who use a lot of virtual instruments). 

I also wonder about the 16" MB Pro laptop.  That's probably what I'll end up going with when I upgrade. 

[Yabbadabbadoo]

So I'm looking to buy a new mac for using logic with. 

I have a 2017 imac retina with 32gb ram. 

It can't handle all my native instruments komplete and izotope plugins after a while. 

Would buying a mac mini pro m2 10 core etc be enough and a big upgrade?

Thanks

[analogika]

Just now, Yabbadabbadoo said:

So I'm looking to buy a new mac for using logic with. 

I have a 2017 imac retina with 32gb ram. 

It can't handle all my native instruments komplete and izotope plugins after a while. 

Would buying a mac mini pro m2 10 core etc be enough and a big upgrade?

Thanks

Yes.

[Yabbadabbadoo]

4 minutes ago, analogika said:

Yes.

Thank you

[studioj]

So I've been on the new M2 Mac Pro for several months now... and overall it has been fine, enjoying the power and snappiness... and being on up to date software for the most part... 

But truly, my i9 Hackintosh running Catalina was way more stable and reliable with Logic and generally overall. I get so many unexplained quirks during the course of a workday now... most of them not reproducible but when it is I send feedback. I assume much of this can be chalked up to a Ventura vs Catalina thing, but interesting that my system that was many multiples cheaper and not even officially sanctioned was generally a better work machine. Come on apple, dig in a little deeper and work out the inconsistencies. 😕 I'm holding off on updating to Logic 10.8 after seeing people report problems with some plugins.

[analogika]

I'm going to assume that most of the quirks are third-party, and not Apple's to fix… they have been on my machine. 

[studioj]

Yes, perhaps. Although nothing that is specifically happening to the plugins themselves. But yes I think we will be feeling the transition from intel to silicon for a while longer...

I get occasional freezing that requires hard reboot, sometimes Logic will open not playing any audio (relaunch cures it), some graphics and meter anomalies...just little annoyances. still getting work done just fine. but old system was a little more predictable.  

[analogika]

1 hour ago, studioj said:

Yes, perhaps. Although nothing that is specifically happening to the plugins themselves. But yes I think we will be feeling the transition from intel to silicon for a while longer...

I get occasional freezing that requires hard reboot, sometimes Logic will open not playing any audio (relaunch cures it), some graphics and meter anomalies...just little annoyances. still getting work done just fine. but old system was a little more predictable.  

Haven’t had a hard freeze in a decade or so. I’ve had two instances where Logic wouldn’t give out audio. 
 

hm. 

[studioj]

Yeah same! I think my hard freezes have been while Logic is open, but while I'm in Safari actually. Also haven't seen that in over 10 years!