New iMac or Wait?? Apple vs. Intel [Solved]

Discuss anything related to audio or music production.
Machinesworking
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Re: New iMac or Wait?? Apple vs. Intel

Post by Machinesworking » Wed Mar 16, 2022 5:43 pm

H20nly wrote:
Wed Mar 16, 2022 5:15 pm
Last night when I put my iMac to sleep, the RME stayed on. Is this normal, or is there a button combo and/or a setting in TotalMix to power it down?
I ended up unplugging it
Yeah it stays on because it’s still getting power from the iMac. The M1’s start up quickly so it’s not a big deal to shut them down. I don’t think it’s that twig of a deal either way, leavingt it lit up or unplouggint it..
It didn’t get hot, but it was definitely on the higher end of warm to the touch - more than expected. Is this pretty standard for the unit?
It gets a bit warm but nothing crazy.
Does the red light from the optical input always stay on, or is that something that will turn off as I get TotalMix setup for my workflow (without optical inputs)?
Always stays on, nothinG to worry about.

H20nly
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Re: New iMac or Wait?? Apple vs. Intel

Post by H20nly » Wed Mar 16, 2022 10:07 pm

Thanks!

And yeah… derp…
I got in the habit of putting the iMac to sleep cuz it started to taking sooooo long to boot up after around Sierra. Those days should be over sometime between March 30 and April 6 - when the Mac Studio is scheduled to show up. The Duet used to go to sleep with the iMac though, hence the question
LoopStationZebra wrote:it's like a hipster commie pinko manifesto. Rambling. Angry. Nearly divorced from all reality; yet strangely compelling with a ring of truth.

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Re: New iMac or Wait?? Apple vs. Intel

Post by H20nly » Sat Mar 26, 2022 5:04 pm

Mac Studio shipped… :mrgreen:
LoopStationZebra wrote:it's like a hipster commie pinko manifesto. Rambling. Angry. Nearly divorced from all reality; yet strangely compelling with a ring of truth.

H20nly
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Re: New iMac or Wait?? Apple vs. Intel

Post by H20nly » Tue Mar 29, 2022 6:38 am

When I placed the order for the Mac Studio I found that it basically comes with nothing included that isn’t built in. So I ordered a keyboard too - since Apple now makes a Bluetooth version with a number pad. I also ordered a new magic mouse - since they’re rechargeable now. And, I ordered a Magic Trackpad - cuz I wanted one.

First thing I noticed was that the included cables are no longer white and *drum roll* Apple is covering them in a braided sheath now. This made me happy :D

Second thing, before the keyboard left my hand after unboxing was the feel of the keys… They felt loose/soft compared to my 2011ish model and the ones on my 2015 MBP. I’m assuming these are the infamous butterfly keys??

What are you guys thoughts on these?
LoopStationZebra wrote:it's like a hipster commie pinko manifesto. Rambling. Angry. Nearly divorced from all reality; yet strangely compelling with a ring of truth.

Pitch Black
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Re: New iMac or Wait?? Apple vs. Intel

Post by Pitch Black » Tue Mar 29, 2022 7:28 am

H20nly wrote:
Tue Mar 29, 2022 6:38 am
I’m assuming these are the infamous butterfly keys??

What are you guys thoughts on these?
I don’t think they’re using that mechanism any more. Can’t comment on how the latest kbds are supposed to feel, my kbd is one of the older models.
MBP M1Max | MacOS 12.7.2 | Live 11.3.20 | Babyface Pro FS | Push 3 (tethered) | a whole other bunch of controllers
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H20nly
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Re: New iMac or Wait?? Apple vs. Intel

Post by H20nly » Thu Mar 31, 2022 9:55 pm

It has arrived. 8)

As usual, Apple have outdone themselves with the packaging.

The power cable is black and feels and moves like it’s a piece of rope. I love the direction they’ve gone with cables.

The day I started this thread I had my credit card out… It took over a year to get here, but already seems worth the wait.

First thing I installed was Live :mrgreen:
Then iLOK :x
LoopStationZebra wrote:it's like a hipster commie pinko manifesto. Rambling. Angry. Nearly divorced from all reality; yet strangely compelling with a ring of truth.

Pitch Black
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Re: New iMac or Wait?? Apple vs. Intel

Post by Pitch Black » Thu Mar 31, 2022 10:05 pm

Mazel Tov! (Now smoking a virtual cigar, Papa)
MBP M1Max | MacOS 12.7.2 | Live 11.3.20 | Babyface Pro FS | Push 3 (tethered) | a whole other bunch of controllers
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H20nly
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Re: New iMac or Wait?? Apple vs. Intel [Solved]

Post by H20nly » Mon Apr 04, 2022 6:21 pm

I think I’m in love. Mac Studio is a beast. Way better than any Intel PC or iMac. Totally worth the wait.
LoopStationZebra wrote:it's like a hipster commie pinko manifesto. Rambling. Angry. Nearly divorced from all reality; yet strangely compelling with a ring of truth.

Forge.
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Re: New iMac or Wait?? Apple vs. Intel

Post by Forge. » Sun May 08, 2022 6:19 pm

Pitch Black wrote:
Sun Dec 26, 2021 1:50 am
^^ ooooh harsh! 8O :lol:

You should know better than to come between a man and his entirely-necessary, completely-justified, sensible, sober, aspirational, notional, potential Apple purchase!

You monster!! :evil: :evil: :evil:
Well I'll be, if it isn't ole Paddy Pitch Black back again recent like! How the heck are ya son?

You, and everyone here should get on Endlesss (endlesss.fm) by Tim Exile, the genius mad scientist behind The Finger, The Mouth etc. through NI. It's my new haunt, got me inspired about musicking again. They solved the problem of proper online jamming. Probably like me you'll all start off just tinkering with it in solo mode and say "yeah this is pretty cool" then take ages before you finally get around to actually jamming with someone else, but when you do it's a light bulb moment, and a game changer. I'm Alef on there - I've had an upgrade - and my avatar is a cyberman smoking a ciggie.

I've just about persuaded our Nebulae to join me, life permitting. They are about where Abe was when we all first started, so there's a lot of that same vibe, and it's exciting!

I should probably have posted this in a more appropriate thread, I was just excited to see ya Padster!!

8) 8)

I have missed this emoji though:
8O 8O 8O

Tarekith
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Re: New iMac or Wait?? Apple vs. Intel [Solved]

Post by Tarekith » Sun May 08, 2022 6:47 pm

Endless is definitely a pretty interesting app, I was impressed with how easy it is to get some ideas going with other people.
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Forge.
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Re: New iMac or Wait?? Apple vs. Intel [Solved]

Post by Forge. » Sun May 08, 2022 10:55 pm

yeah that's the bit that hooks you, keeps you moving, keeps the momentum going. It took me a while before I properly got into that part, but when I finally did it felt like a game changer. Love those FX too, very much in Tim Exile's style, e.g. Finger. Half the time I just remix stems with those FX, you can get so much out of them.

If you/any of you get on there hit me up and I can send some more links to jams that aren't on the main public page, but they have a spreadsheet linked from their Discord with loads of them. It's amazing it's not a lot busier yet, but I think it'll probably catch on pretty soon. For v.1 it's pretty impressive. They're about to drop VST/AU hosting on Mac/Win and iOS.

They went to free forever and open source, which surprised me, don't know how they're going to make money. Some kind of voodoo with NFTs.

H20nly
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Re: New iMac or Wait?? Apple vs. Intel [Solved]

Post by H20nly » Wed May 18, 2022 6:26 am

I'm stoking my chin. might have to check that out.

and yeah, agreed... Paddy has been great to see chiming in. Super helpful. And, to so many others in this thread as well; I've made some big changes to my setup since the first post and cannot thank you ALL enough for your replies and keeping hope alive. I'm very happy with said changes
LoopStationZebra wrote:it's like a hipster commie pinko manifesto. Rambling. Angry. Nearly divorced from all reality; yet strangely compelling with a ring of truth.

Forge.
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Re: New iMac or Wait?? Apple vs. Intel [Solved]

Post by Forge. » Thu May 19, 2022 12:28 am

Do it!

Be great to have all you back in the day freaks on there. It's like a forum where we all shut the fk up and just make music ;-) But there's a chat next to the jam too

Speaking of back in the day freaks your sig homage — that LSZ crazy cat still around too?

Did I mention it's free? It's a wonderful thing

You can do solo mode while you work out how to use it — which is where you get to see it's actually pretty good in its own right just for the surprisingly good sounds you can get out of just the simple interface, but it's when you get jamming that it takes on another level. And you can join in the public "join in" jams if you want, or just create your own and invite who you like.

just to get the ball rolling, here's one I started. Once you've set up your account and logged in, you can just click on it, or paste it into "join a jam" in the "My Jams" page on the Studio version.

This one I have shared publicly, but it's been pretty quiet, and it was meant to be a 90s big beat & chemical breaks theme, so I loaded it up with a bunch of breaks and acid lines if you go back to the earlier rifffs (clips of 8 stems)

https://endlesss.fm/jam/6640c1f760d6ce4 ... 43079/join

Maybe I'll start or rebrand one just for y'all

Forge.
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Re: New iMac or Wait?? Apple vs. Intel [Solved]

Post by Forge. » Thu May 19, 2022 12:59 am

Here, I've repurposed one I started a year ago when I was still finding my way around, so it's just a load of nothing noodling fresh as a starting point for more wobbly noodling to build on.

https://endlesss.fm/jam/748cb6fc9b803f7 ... ce3d6/join

H20nly
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Re: New iMac or Wait?? Apple vs. Intel [Solved]

Post by H20nly » Wed Jun 01, 2022 2:36 am

@Forge - I'll have to take a look. I'm certainly very curious...

Having said that, I'm currently working on a larger project with 2 other artists and it's been moving fast the last few months... except for bizzaro technical issues. I have a track that we started working up that's a little more than a week old. It came from a spontaneous bass line. Used two tracks in Live to get the bass parts cut up into moveable chunks. Created 3 drum parts in Session view and dropped them in accordingly on a MIDI track. Wrote a verse that day, then edited for a day or two then recorded it. A grand total of 3 audio tracks and 1 MIDI track... for a whopping 4 tracks; with a few plugins (Nectar 3 Advanced, Fabfilter Saturn 2, ValhallaVintageVerb) on the vocals plus an SSL channel strip and iZotope Relay on all.

Had a collaborator on the project show up to record audio a few days later... Out of nowhere, the Guitar was whacky - too much latency. Switched to a mic to capture his vocals that were forming in real time (while I checked the signal chain and stripped plugins) - more latency but reverb-like, so he toughed it out. Master bus randomly drops to -27.2 dB ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ even with all track inputs disabled and monitoring set to OFF. And, no matter how much of the project guts I rip out in Live, I cannot figure out why there's (suddenly) latency. Cut out the UA pre-amp and went direct to the RME while grasping for straws... The signal chain looks spotless. I would have tested with Cubase but it suffers the same one foot in one foot out of M1 compatibility dance between vendors that Live does. So, I switched to Logic and any plugins that have an AU version; because I can't deal with the unknowns Rosetta and all the questions background translation presents.

Not sure what is wrong with Live... hell in a hand-basket timing aligns with me updating it, but I have neither the time or interest to troubleshoot any further. I'm currently learning Logic to get our track arranged, but it's just another linear DAW and I've dabbled with it before... So far so good - not a lick of latency. It was worth all 200 dollars for it to fuck off. About to re-record my vocals now so they're not quite so upbeat (since the track took a dark turn in lieu of recent events in the U.S.), but I stopped for a gin and tonic and a puff and checked the forum. I got *this* far :lol:



TLDR; I'm super busy atm, but I'll be happy to give it a go. PM me if you're still in the same frame of mind.
LoopStationZebra wrote:it's like a hipster commie pinko manifesto. Rambling. Angry. Nearly divorced from all reality; yet strangely compelling with a ring of truth.

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