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Apple Mac Mini M1


cclarry

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On to a few audio project examples

 

To achieve as much disk-speed as possible, I connected an external M.2 NVMe to the second Thunderbolt port.

Audio tracks and samples are streaming from this drive.

 

Note about memory:

The M1 Mac Mini isn't making use of the VM Swapfile... until you load it down pretty heavy.   (More to come on this)

As expected... at that point performance goes down significantly. 

What the M1 is doing is making use of RAM compression... to eek a bit more out of 16GB.

 

I've got several instances of a stress-test... from heaviest load to more of a simple singer/songwriter demo.

Here's a screen capture working on a simple singer/songwriter type demo.

  • Studio One Pro v5 - Set to maximum drop-out protection
  • Superior Drummer 3 - Ayotte kit
  • Kontakt - The Grandeur 
  • Bass (recorded DI) using an instance of Helix Native
  • Rhythm Guitar (recorded DI) using an instance of Helix Native
  • Guitar Lead (recorded DI) using an instance of Helix Native

12.45GB (of the 16GB available) is being used.I

The Studio One project is running at 96k using a 32-sample buffer size.

With one (of three) instance of Helix Native being monitored in realtime (to record the guitar lead), it was pushing the M1 Mac Mini just about to the point where it'll glitch.

Note that Studio One's green Z button was enabled (for lowest possible round-trip latency.

After overdubbing that last guitar part, turning off realtime monitoring of Helix Native drops CPU use down to about 25%.

That would give you plenty of headroom to overdub vocals/etc.

567507853_ScreenShot2021-06-16at3_28_46PM.thumb.jpeg.5012f9c4f32327a76a04a795d6108d6a.jpeg

 

The M1 Mac Mini performed very well in this example.

I was able to record all the above with zero glitches... at 1ms total round-trip latency.

In the above picture, notice that the Memory Pressure graph is in the "comfortable" green zone.

Edited by Jim Roseberry
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8 minutes ago, Jim Roseberry said:

What the M1 is doing is making use of RAM compression... to eek a bit more out of 16GB.

Interesting... does that mean it's draining CPU cycles to do the compression/decompression instead?

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Now, let's push the M1 Mac Mini... and see what happens when you purposely load it down with large sample libraries (that consume a lot of RAM).

 

Here's a screen capture with the M1 Mac Mini loaded down.

The purpose here is to find out where the RAM scheme starts to break down... so yes, it's purposely loaded to the gills.

 

  • Studio One Pro v5 - Set to maximum drop-out protection
  • Superior Drummer 3 - Ayotte kit
  • Kontakt - The Grandeur 
  • Kontakt - Scarbee MM Bass Amped
  • Kontakt - Scarbee Pre Bass Amped
  • Kontakt - Symphony Series Percussion
  • Kontakt - Session Strings Pro
  • Kontakt - Symphony Series String Ensemble
  • Kontakt - Symphony Series Brass Ensemble
  • Kontakt - Symphony Series Solo Brass Quartet
  • Kontakt - Session Horns Pro
  • Kontakt - Symphony Series Woodwind Ensemble
  • Kontakt - Symphony Series Solo Woodwind Quintet
  • Audio track for guitar - Helix Native loaded (using same patch as in singer/songwriter project)
  • Audio track for bass - Helix Native loaded (using same patch as in singer/songwriter project)

353017929_ScreenShot2021-06-16at4_12_37PM.thumb.jpeg.a7da4f9d5aa83cfe1a24e827adf832a8.jpeg

 

With the RAM compression being implemented, it takes a good while for this project to fully load.

I'd say a good couple of minutes.  Note that this isn't reflected in the Studio One Project, you have to watch the results in Activity Monitor.

With the same 96k 32-sample buffer setting, there's regular buffer overloads (glitches).

This isn't surprising given the load at 1ms total round-trip latency. 

To eliminate the buffer overloads, you have to increase the buffer size to 256-samples.

At that point, you can play The Grandeur and it's completely glitch-free.

 

Notice that the Memory Pressure graph is now well into the orange.

This is about as far as you can push the RAM scheme with the 16GB M1 Mac Mini.

To push things even further (RAM wise), I opened Chrome with several tabs. 

This is when the M1 Mac Mini started to use the VM Swapfile

It starts paging ~35MB... and over time creeps significantly upward (it's now up to 2.66GB)

722582610_ScreenShot2021-06-16at4_46_01PM.thumb.jpeg.2bc19b386e1720220a2e125219c5fb45.jpeg

115739077_ScreenShot2021-06-16at4_51_26PM.thumb.jpeg.99ae2025abbe61afe337c5ffe1b9de46.jpeg

 

Edited by Jim Roseberry
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11 minutes ago, Fleer said:

Native M1 silicon software

 

https://isapplesiliconready.com

 

https://www.logicprohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=157598

 

AAS

RME

Spire

Bitwig

Melda

Hornet

Valhalla

FabFilter

Pianoteq

FL Studio

Klevgrand

AudioThing

SugarBytes

Xferrecords

Apogee (MiC)

MOTU M2 & M4

MOK Waverazor

It wouldn't affect the amount of RAM used by sample-libraries.

I'm sure it would be further CPU optimized.

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“The new support is significant, since it allows Spectrasonics users with M1-processor based Mac computers to utilize all of the powerful capabilities of the new technology and experience extraordinary performance at low buffer settings. Not only does this native Apple Silicon support allow significantly more instances of Spectrasonics plug-ins, but the major improvement in latency performance allows live performers to have a more reliable and immediate experience onstage - even with inexpensive off-the-shelf Apple laptops.”

https://www.spectrasonics.net/news/news-content.php?id=125

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