I’ve been very vocal about that .. but I’ll recap here: Choose your software, choose the hardware that supports it and get to work using those tools. I couldn’t care less if it’s Mac or PC.
You’re a legend Neil. I’m so glad you’re a TH-camr. You’re a natural and it’s about time the local Toronto legend became a global phenomenon. Also, it’s a great way for me to feel like I’m hanging out with you even though we never hang out.
I'm not an audio professional, I'm not about to buy a Mac, I wouldn't even have the money for a decent Mac Pro, and yet here I am, being very intrigued by this.
Neil I've only known you since the beginning of this year, but you seem like such a fun and awesome dude! Fellow Mac Pro nerd/musician, and bearded! Keep being you man!
Great advice Neil. I ended up going to a pro audio made PC. I’ll miss Logic Pro X, but, I couldn’t justify (no income), the Mac Pro £10.5k for me too. End cost of mine £4k, and very nicely specced.
Thank you. Super cool video that answered a lot of my questions. Would you consider do a video about your monitor set up? Monitor Controller , how you Eq the room etc? Thank you.
Also note that memory upgrades should be ideally purchased 6 sticks at a time because hex channel memory and the power cables could be made custom for a given use case since the connector are able to be sourced fairly easily
I'm about to move from a Radar Studio (windows 8.1) back to Mac and this has been extremely helpful. I'm keeping the ADA I/O sound cards, which I love the sound of, and installing them into the new Radar Converters so that I can get back to working in the Mac environment, which I'm most comfortable with. Thanks Neil! John Carpenter
Hello, I have never seen Your channel before, but WOW this is what I have always been looking for. Your content is exactly what I'm researching right now, and in my opinion You make incredible videos. So thank you for making this easier for Me ... I live in Toronto Ontario so yeah go Canada!! Thank you very much a.
Brilliant. Just what I was looking for. And you’re basically the only guy on the planet who decided to make a video like this. I thank you for your service!
I wish I watched this a few weeks ago - just ordered my beast. I did the 16 core and feel good about my build out. Can't wait for it to all come and put it together! Thanks so much for your videos!!
@@NeilParfittMusic I think so - I just wished I watched your video before I slugged through researching everything myself. You and I chatted on Instagram months ago and that was helpful. The one thing I added to mine was the internal SATA drive bays - the 2 bay Pegasus J2i. I am going to use those drives for backups. I also am getting a OWC Thunderbolt 3 doc for more connections. I was surprised that the basic video card only had HDMI outputs on the card. So I needed to expand.
@@NeilParfittMusic true. I’m using DVI cables for monitors now and I am going to try a usb-c to dvi adapter so I don’t have to run any new cables. We will see!
"Geekbenches / Dollar" = ultimate measure of value! Over the last several years this number has been surprisingly consistent across all Macs of a given generation, controlling for ram, storage, and graphics. And the 2x performance increase is my minimum requirement for upgrading. It took 6 years for Macbook Pros to double in geekbench score. The 2019 16" I bought ended up being ~225% faster than my 2013...
Watching this from a 1,1 Mac Pro with Xeon X5365's and the 2,1 firmware, 2x HD5770's (might stick something faster in it someday), 16gb DDR2 667mhz ram (soon to be 32gb for S&G's), 4 hard drives, OS X 10.7.5 (will likely stay with 10.7.5 since hes left all of the software he used on the hard drive) This machine was my dads video/photo editing workstation, he used to be a major stake holder in a video production company in Melbourne, who had a pretty close relationship with apple (since the company bought so many Apple machines, and was a Apple Business Customer). He purchased it from Apple as a maxed out demonstration model that had just done a trip around Australia, when Apple was like "Hey we have finished demonstrating this machine around Australia, do you want it?". My dad said yes and he purchased it for himself for a good deal. He used it daily from when it was purchased in late 2006 to about mid/late 2018 and it never missed a beat. Recently gave it a clean out and a CPU upgrade, it was nasty in there, heat-sinks nearly completely blocked and dust bunnies everywhere, surprisingly it wasn't overheating at all, anyway its all clean now and runs flawlessly to this day.
Thanks man! I’m going through the same dilemma, and have arrived to similar conclusions. Didn’t know about the two Canadian peripheral manufacturers though. I’ll check them out. Greetings from Quebec! Stay safe :)
I'm a Pro Tools Ultimate and Studio One user. I prefer Mac but realised I needed a higher end model and there's already no way I can afford the low end 2019 Mac Pro. So I'm building a 16 core AMD Ryzen PC. First time building one ever. It's a crazy ride. I'm documenting it on youtube too on my other channel, if anyone's interested. Much smaller box (I don't need PCIe) and a quarter of the price of a comparable 16 core Mac Pro. I've yet to get it running though, so don't take it as a success story just yet :D
I'm drooling over the rack mount for my scoring gigs Still using a 5.1 Mac Pro for recording . I think the price for these are gonna drop after the new M1X mini Mac pros come out. If these ever drop by half it's a no brainer.
I enjoy your videos Neil. One thing - Sonnet makes a silent (no fan) version of their M.2 cards. That's the ticket. comes with heat syncs and no noise. I did buy the Pegasus J2i which has a slot inside the new MacPro and it has slots for 2 8Tb spinning drives. Gives me 16TB of VERY affordable storage and is dead silent.
Nice video Neil - I imagine it's going to be super helpful for a lot of people out there, especially all the tips about when and when not to buy direct from Apple. If I cast my mind back to ten + years ago I was just a musician with a little home studio. Technically I was far more concerned, and rightly so, with the complexities of a song's arrangement or on the audio engineering side, mic placement / selection or where to place effects in my signal chain etc, etc. Weeks or even months would go by without my paying much if any attention to what was going on inside my Mac, or even consciously to think about the computer as a Mac, not least because by that point I'd been using Apple computers for 20 odd years. The irony for me is that Apple essentially created a situation where I HAD to learn about the components inside the case, I mean beyond upgrading a GFX card or adding a hard drive - it started for me with the realisation that I had something called a 32bit EFI on my original Mac Pro and that the software I wanted to use wouldn't install because I wasn't (typically!) using the latest OS, and that I couldn't upgrade because of said 32bit EFI, whatever the hell that was . . . . Infuriated, my journey began into hacking my Mac to make it do what it damn well should have been able to do with a simple patch from Apple, had they been even a tiny little bit less greedy. The "fix" was apparently coded overnight by some genius kid called Tiamo, to whom I will be forever grateful. It would have taken an Apple engineer 10 minutes, and was something they chose to withhold. There are all kinds of very valid reasons why a professional composer or recording engineer might be obliged to buy the Mac Pro tower and I totally empathise with those music professionals who couldn't be less interested in what's going on inside the magic box, so long as it 'just works'. That was me for 20 years! However, because part of the Apple agenda is to hook into aspirational marketing, I'll just comment that the vast majority of people absolutely don't need one, and it's actually perfectly feasible to take less than half the $10,000 budget and build a PC with the specific intention of running Mac OS, and enjoy a very stable and reliable OS. At the end of the day, I guess it's about how much your time is worth, but I'd encourage anyone who's currently thinking of buying a Mac Pro or high end iMac to invest a few hours in researching OpenCore hackintosh. It's a bit complicated for sure, but nothing that should trouble anyone who's built a home studio. To put it another way, to all you gearslutz out there - what ELSE might you spend $5000 on? ;)
that shirt bro. ☑️☑️ as a mac pro owner, i can say this is all very sound advice also: “how much memory is right for you? NONE from the apple store!” so true - had me cracking up. especially when i saw the pricing when making the purchase. i chose the 16 core, and i have a 24 core tray i might try...with the base 32 gigs and grabbed 128 gigs of nemix, which is a great option as well. excellent point on the base card - if i didn’t also do video editing and graphics, i wouldn’t have upgraded - i tried both of their cards and they both have tons of issues, as well as problems with ultra wide monitors that i had to use an adapter to fix. my advice for those who need it? get a radeon vii or something.
A couple of things (hopefully someone didn't already mention them)... You've got 60 days after purchase to add AppleCare. Also, in my case, since I really don't need that many PCIe spaces, I used and 2Tb Samsung NVME for a system drive on a PCIe card to replace the internal drive (I bought a refurb that only had a 256Gb drive). The NVME system drive works great, and is faster than the stock internal drive.
Curious about future CPU upgrades. Apple told me when I inquired about this machine that the CPU can't be upgraded. Obviously, you don't want to break your warranty, but future-proofing your purchase is the main reason to buy this machine. I'm stuck on a 2013 MacPro and trying to figure out what to do. If I went base just to get in, is a CPU upgrade down the road realistic? And BTW, Go Canada. I'm a homeboy too :)
$11K for a Mac is a huge spend considering a high end 3950x spec'd PC would get you the same kind of performance at around 1/3 of the cost. There's an awful lot of synth, outboard or modular gear you could buy with that chunk of change for sure. As you said though you don't want to get into the Mac vs PC thing, so I guess if you have the budget.
Jason got it, but.. out of sheer curiosity, I want to know the true pricing equivalent machine with 8 PCIe slots (I’m using ALL of them with 2 that are double height that aren’t video cards) that can take 384GB minimum memory and still run at least 3 4k displays,, 28core, silent and also fully verified hackintoshable.
@@jasonsavory9748 Yeah. I mean, I told myself that for over two decades too, but you're not locked into Apple, you're never actually locked into Apple. It's kinda liberating to move outside of that too. Literally the only program you can't use is Logic. Each to their own though. If that's how someone feels then I'm not going to change their mind.
@@billB101 his whole workflow revolves around Logic, all of his experience is Logic, all his previous projects are in logic, so he is "locked in" to Apple. Yes, he technically *could* switch to PC and use a different DAW, relearn it, find comparable plugins to Logic only ones, convert projects over, hope he doesn't get Logic files from clients he works for, etc, but at that point is it worth it to save a few grand whenever he buys a new machine.
@@tombarber8929 Bummer then. You're stuck with the ever expanding Apple tax. Personally though I was in the same place a year ago and I've transitioned out so it can be done. As a jobbing engineer/producer I've always used multiple DAWS though. If a project comes in on Logic I'll pull it up on my MBP no biggie, I just now prefer the PC with Ableton or Pro tools. As I said though, each to their own.
About the thunderbolt ports on the GPUs.. You won't get full bandwidth out of them and 2 ports share a single thunderbolt bus. It doesn't really matter unless you're going plug in an external SSD or a dock or something with high throughput.
Major difference in the price is because the apple store RAM is ECC RAM. The stuff you showed on Newegg isn't ECC. ECC RAM is generally significantly more expensive than regular stuff.
No, it’s because they just overcharge. I bought same spec 384GB ECC memory 3rd party. $2000 compared to Apple’s + $7500 charge for the same thing. Nasty!
I ended up buying mine back in may thanks to your videos in part. I mean, I was going to buy it regardless, but you convinced me to buy a custom desk too so I can fit my rackmount mac pro right next to me :)
great videos Neil! Thanks for sharing. I wonder if you can run those acustica-audio plugs? I bet you know about them but because they are so intensive you don't use them. Really great videos! Thanks :)
acustica-audio? a bit of patience is needed with them, those plugs are SO intensive,, maybe they could be coded better perhaps. You need to download ‘aquarius’ which is their plug-in loader. First create an account i think then download aquarius. The plugs are super cool, but just too unstable i get cpu spikes on my new hackingtosh! i reckon even with your mac pro it would give you crap too.
If you, personally and hypothetically, were not constrained to the so called "industry standard" software and not constrained by the requirement for format compatibility - just you doing your very own thing - ... and let's also say you give yourself a generous amount of time where you can look through the many DAWs that are out there as well as the possible hardware for the box that runs the DAW that you will be choosing; would you have an idea now where you would gravitate towards? Things you would like to test for a deeper dive? I keep asking that question to audio pro users I know, and usually it just comes down to them really not wanting to try and learn new things... which is a shame because some of them leave workflow, performance and money on the table. Which inevitably means they are cutting away the most precious commodity they have. Their lifetime.
@@Teluric2 direct usage by me and my peers would prove otherwise. I'm not standing up for their repair policies (which are stupid).. but instead, from them running day in and day out in studios all over the place with uptime in the 99%
I guess we'll see what happens - for now, I'm 100% happy with this one on Catalina as everything works where's as on Big Sur PLUS M1 - only a small chunk of audio software works natvely.
I have watched most of your videos on your Mac Pro and just found out you were in Canada, not sure why I thought you were in LA or something. Loved the videos so far on Mac Pro stuff
Hey Neil!, I Really love your videos! You are super personable and you do an excellent job of explaining it so even I can understand haha! We share a lot of the same likes and humour so these vids are so great!! 👍🏼👍🏼. Question, I thought there was a link somewhere to the memory you purchased... I’ve been going through all your videos and can’t seem to find it. Any chance you could point me in the direction to what you use? I’m pretty sure I’ll be picking up the 16 core. Again... ty & I appreciate you so much! Stay safe my friend! Looking forward to your future videos! Go Canada!!! Haha!!! Love It!! 🇨🇦
Thanks 😀😀😀 I got them from Amazon - but it’s nemix. Looks like they’re having a sale: nemixram.com/apple-compatible-memory/mac-pro/mac-pro-2019-macpro7-1/
Thank You SO Much Neil! Very much appreciated!! I hope to meet/work with you one day when we’re through these crazy times! Being a St. Catharines boy, it’s not a far trip! Thanks again and ttyl! cc. 🇨🇦‼️
@NeilParfitt - I am not a audio / music producer, but simply a high-end MacPro user for photo post-production. As I mentioned in a prior comment, I came across your Channel because of a comment by Gerald Undone. I will transition from a cMP 5,1 to a MP 7,1, and your videos about your transition from MP 6,1 to MP 7,1 have been very informative, albeit on a slightly different use case. Thanks for the great content.
Neil, that was great. You cleared up a bunch of stuff for me. I wasn't sure about what to do with the RAM but I see I can buy the cheapest and then put in some 3rd party RAM as there are 12 slots. I'm not exactly sure what you meant by having 6 SSDs on a single PCIe card but one brother is a programmer, the other a systems analyst and they can clear that up for me. Your maths was awesome (I got an * for maths in High school. Not my strong suit). So if I understand correctly. I can get say 1 - 2 TB HD for my system use (250 GB does seem like Apple are trolling us). But add more SSDs via the PCIe slots? If that is correct then I think get it. I really appreciate you going through this. I've looking for such info since December (my brothers talked me out of buying the 2019 Mac Pro. Now I have some maths to convince them. Also, my 5,1 is 10 years old and can't upgrade to Logic Pro 10.5 AND it is performing "slow" In fact I was trying to do something in Logic a little while ago but it was like extracting teeth. Of course it might be a temporary thing and a restart might fix it but I am ready for a new machine. So, once again, thanks for the overview. It is very much appreciated. * yes, an asterisk! The computer didn't want to embarrass me to let everyone know I got zero. Somehow I don't think it worked.
Yes you can get the ie: 1TB system, and any additional ssds such as m.2 or even 2.5” satas have appropriate pcie cards you can pop them onto, and put them in a PCIe slot
The only question is how long will Intel be supported ,once they'll make their own Cpu. Great video by the way ,specially if you think that it's coming from an McDonald's professional :))))
what's the real-world performance (actual test) on this build? how many vsti's? how many convolution reverbs? how many audio tracks? how many general-purpose eq/comps? how many instances of serum can it run (a well known heavy cpu vsti)? how many instances of ni's massive x vsti? i think this was a sensible value-driven buying approach. but how does the system perform under real workloads? that's the key factor.
problem with those type of tests... "I can run 2000 channels strips with W, X,Y'' with VI Z" is that those tests are never realistic either as no session is ever a sustained crunch like that. It's all about the random chaos of madness coming and going in waves and bursts... especially in television and film where you just need a ton of crap sitting there, routed and ready to be triggered. The show I'm writing on now, my template is well over 1000 tracks, nothing is offline/bypassed, there are at least 60 Kontakts in VEP each with 16 heavy sounds loaded within, there's eq everywhere, reverbs, compressors etc, plenty of local VI's in Logic (native and 3rd party), Protools up behind it dealing with stems, Resting template ram footprint is over 220GB. It's all just humming along for any cue I've been writing - from the teeniest thing to the most Boombastic orchestral hybrid cue. That's my real-world test so far - and I've done 10 episodes with this system writing. The other show is prepping/stemming score in Protools - the mix engine is HDX but plenty of the verbs, EQ, dynamics and such are surround and it's not breaking a sweat. This would have brought the trashcan to its knees in defeat. I've delivered 9 episodes of that so far.
Thanks Neil for all this info. Question - Did you need to update the firmware for those Samsung M.2s? Basically the only bad reviews on that SSD are mac users. I just got the squid card and am shopping now for the modules. I might try those Sabrents- they are so tempting and are mac ready out of the box.
I like how you specifically say this isn't a "Mac vs PC" video, but there are still people in the comments being like "yeah but if you got a PC you could get xyz for $x less than you spent!"
Awesome video Neil - JUST what I needed ! What do you think of the OWC Accelsior 4M2 PCIe drives ? They claim over 6GB throughput for not that much more than regular M.2. SSDs.
I haven’t used the latest incarnation of them, but the first few I bought many many years ago both failed. Check forums and stuffs for more user experiences as I’m not sure how they are now
@@NeilParfittMusic OK, got it. Thanks very much for the reply ! I am totally new to this and don't even know a single forum that would be appropriate to check. Could you recommend any ? Thanks again for taking the time to make this great video. There must be a ton of people who needed EXACTLY this from someone who actually did it ! (like me)
Hey Neil, great informative video man thanks! based on your experience, what Processor upgrade do you think is a better choice for the old 2013 MacPro, 10 core or 12 core? thanks!
I threw 4 of the 2tb sabrent cards on an OWC card. Had some minor issues with Softraid, but those have finally been sorted. I also have 4 of the 1tb Samsung 960's, same card. Performance is within 10% between the two. I expect to throw in the 8tb by Q2 2021.
@@NeilParfittMusic Two builds back I would have the array randomly disappear. Luckily it's not doing it now. There were some forum posts on it. Since the updates though, i've been rocking fine. Still, I archive the two ssd's nightly just in case.
Great video and very sympathetic kind. I got the 16core for some months now and I´m kinda frustrated because I have expected some more power with Logic Pro. In special cases when using a large bus chain filled up with hungry mastering plugins I got permanent system overloads because Logic does not seem to be able to distribute the processor load evenly. In this mastering bus-into-bus case it can only address the first cpu thread. No matter what I do or change, this thread is peaking all the time while the other 31 threads are sleeping. For me it looks like Logic has not yet been optimized and with the new Mac Pro range. And as you said, the individual cpu cores are not the most powerful ones. For music production with many tracks and instruments works great, but when it comes to my 1-4 mastering bus chains it gets frustrating. Also a 6min song is bouncing about 8 minutes (offline). My previous machine was a Mac Pro (2009) and the difference in relation to this scenario makes me crazy, because i bought the MP to be able to work efficiently and fluently for the next few years, which is unfortunately not the case here.
Hrmm I wonder if there’s also some other factors adding to this issue. What’s your audio interface? Sample rate, buffer etc? I’m also assuming you’ve tried various configurations of LX audio. Trying different combos of live (reserves and pins a core vs playback tracks only). What’s your buffer and process size? Are these mastering sessions on top of the existing song session or a standalone template? FWIW logic has always been “meh” with multi core management - I usually park my selected arrange track to a go-nowhere midi track during mixing as it seems to spread cores better vs pinning a few. I’ve been doing that since ten years ago on L9. What mastering plugins are you using?
@@NeilParfittMusic Hey Neil, thank you so much for your reply and expertise. I´m on Logic and Mac for decades but this case really brings me down. Apple Pro Support has not yet been able to provide a solution, but you know that yourself, haha. I have tried different settings with playback & live tracks and even running on max buffer size (1024) does not help. Also switching to system audio instead of my Motu interface was not bringing any solution. Apple suggested to split plugins into busses and let the master out free, but even a big split with only one plugin per bus does not help to address more then the first thread. I´m also aware about the live midi track hack (rec button armed). Sometimes this helps, but looks pretty tough to keep this situation when working. Most times its a mastering template with just 6-15 stems. The biggest bummer in this scenario is always Izotope Ozone 9 which is eating 80% of the first cpu core. Without Ozone it runs much better, but still only one core gets addressed. Would be super great if i could drop you a mail, i got some screenshots and videos about this case. Big up for your friendly help !
I am still waiting for the Mac Pro M2 Ultra rackmount. It's been way longer than 7 years!!! Like you, I want the rack so that I can simplify and limit the potential mess. I want to produce concept-albums of immersive music videos. I expect to still need TB4 peripherals. I am guessing it will cost about $50K American dollars. What I really need is a standalone 96 channel API vision board for Immersive for less than $10K. Like the Presonus 64s studio-live on steroids. I have suggested this Home-studio concept to Presonus, SofTube, API and everyone who will listen. It's more than doable with today's technology. What we need is for Fender to buy UAD, Softube, and make a deal with API.
![[Full] 4 ต่อ 4 Celebrity EP.910 | 22 ก.ย. 67 | one31](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/4TR3MVpOiw8/mqdefault.jpg)
So Neil how about Mac Vs PC then ? ;)
I’ve been very vocal about that .. but I’ll recap here:
Choose your software, choose the hardware that supports it and get to work using those tools. I couldn’t care less if it’s Mac or PC.
@@NeilParfittMusic I wasn't expecting a serious answer. (I agree btw)
You’re a legend Neil. I’m so glad you’re a TH-camr. You’re a natural and it’s about time the local Toronto legend became a global phenomenon. Also, it’s a great way for me to feel like I’m hanging out with you even though we never hang out.
Oh man! I feel like we need an Indian food rendezvous!!
@@NeilParfittMusic IM SO HUNGRY
I'm not an audio professional, I'm not about to buy a Mac, I wouldn't even have the money for a decent Mac Pro, and yet here I am, being very intrigued by this.
Welcome!
Lot's of great info. I had figured that the 16-core was the sweet spot, but I learned a lot about the SSD situation. Perfect! Thanks.
Neil I've only known you since the beginning of this year, but you seem like such a fun and awesome dude! Fellow Mac Pro nerd/musician, and bearded! Keep being you man!
Thx Adam! 🤗
@@NeilParfittMusic what is the link for lg 4k 30 inch ?
I bought this one:
LG 32UK550-B
Wow. Really appreciate how you broke everything down number wise.
You’re a lovely dude Neil and i love how you care about and love your job.
I wish you all the best!
Thanks, Neil! This will serve as my buyers guide when i'm ready!
Holy shit and he uses openoffice. A man after my own heart.
Good god. I know the why. But how? That shits a heartbreaker piece of software.
Great advice Neil. I ended up going to a pro audio made PC. I’ll miss Logic Pro X, but, I couldn’t justify (no income), the Mac Pro £10.5k for me too. End cost of mine £4k, and very nicely specced.
If the tool works for you and you’re happy with the result, that’s the perfect buying choice!
Thank you. Super cool video that answered a lot of my questions. Would you consider do a video about your monitor set up? Monitor Controller , how you Eq the room etc? Thank you.
Hrmm that’s a tricky one, as I’m In a weird space. Using a trinnov DMON6 to calibrate the room, beyond the baffles
Also note that memory upgrades should be ideally purchased 6 sticks at a time because hex channel memory and the power cables could be made custom for a given use case since the connector are able to be sourced fairly easily
ah crap - forgot to mention that in the moment. Mentioned it in a previous vid. Good catch.
@@NeilParfittMusic could add it to the top of the description?
Go Canada! Thanks for sharing that info. Super helpful.
I probably won’t buy a Mac Pro until at least 10 years from now, and by then this video will be obsolete, but this is a great video regardless!!
Absolutely spot-on buying advice 👍🏻
I totally agree
I'm about to move from a Radar Studio (windows 8.1) back to Mac and this has been extremely helpful. I'm keeping the ADA I/O sound cards, which I love the sound of, and installing them into the new Radar Converters so that I can get back to working in the Mac environment, which I'm most comfortable with. Thanks Neil!
John Carpenter
You are now my guru. Best info I’ve found yet and Don’t get me started on that cat shirt.
Excellent video and very well stated. I'll be able to forward this to the inevitable questions I get asked instead of having to create it myself!
"turn wall into spaceship"
*mission complete*
I just watched the trailer for Keanu then the algorythm leads me here - obviously because of your shirt! XD
Hello, I have never seen Your channel before, but WOW this is what I have always been looking for. Your content is exactly what I'm researching right now, and in my opinion You make incredible videos. So thank you for making this easier for Me ...
I live in Toronto Ontario so yeah go Canada!! Thank you very much a.
Thanks Doug! Appreciate the kind words :) Tarannna represent!
Brilliant. Just what I was looking for. And you’re basically the only guy on the planet who decided to make a video like this. I thank you for your service!
I wish I watched this a few weeks ago - just ordered my beast. I did the 16 core and feel good about my build out. Can't wait for it to all come and put it together! Thanks so much for your videos!!
Still sounds like you made a good decision!
@@NeilParfittMusic I think so - I just wished I watched your video before I slugged through researching everything myself. You and I chatted on Instagram months ago and that was helpful. The one thing I added to mine was the internal SATA drive bays - the 2 bay Pegasus J2i. I am going to use those drives for backups. I also am getting a OWC Thunderbolt 3 doc for more connections. I was surprised that the basic video card only had HDMI outputs on the card. So I needed to expand.
@@KevinMantheiMusic yeah, but ok the plus you can run hdmi further distances vs display port. Check out the Caldigit hubs as well...
@@NeilParfittMusic true. I’m using DVI cables for monitors now and I am going to try a usb-c to dvi adapter so I don’t have to run any new cables. We will see!
Neil, you ROCK! I was about to reach out to you again privately, but you answered my questions here. Thanks mate! Stay well. Cheers, Mark H
"Geekbenches / Dollar" = ultimate measure of value! Over the last several years this number has been surprisingly consistent across all Macs of a given generation, controlling for ram, storage, and graphics. And the 2x performance increase is my minimum requirement for upgrading. It took 6 years for Macbook Pros to double in geekbench score. The 2019 16" I bought ended up being ~225% faster than my 2013...
The i9 MBP is smokin!
I love this guy, his sense of humor, and his style!
Watching this from a 1,1 Mac Pro with Xeon X5365's and the 2,1 firmware, 2x HD5770's (might stick something faster in it someday), 16gb DDR2 667mhz ram (soon to be 32gb for S&G's), 4 hard drives, OS X 10.7.5 (will likely stay with 10.7.5 since hes left all of the software he used on the hard drive)
This machine was my dads video/photo editing workstation, he used to be a major stake holder in a video production company in Melbourne, who had a pretty close relationship with apple (since the company bought so many Apple machines, and was a Apple Business Customer). He purchased it from Apple as a maxed out demonstration model that had just done a trip around Australia, when Apple was like "Hey we have finished demonstrating this machine around Australia, do you want it?". My dad said yes and he purchased it for himself for a good deal.
He used it daily from when it was purchased in late 2006 to about mid/late 2018 and it never missed a beat. Recently gave it a clean out and a CPU upgrade, it was nasty in there, heat-sinks nearly completely blocked and dust bunnies everywhere, surprisingly it wasn't overheating at all, anyway its all clean now and runs flawlessly to this day.
14:30 I decided to buy a PCIe to M.2 adapter and used a 2TB NVME SSD as system drive. future proof, expandable … I don't use the apple SSD at all.
Great walkthrough, super in depth and exactly what I've been looking for as I look at the best upgrade path for my studio
Looking forward to picking one up used in a few years.
Thanks man! I’m going through the same dilemma, and have arrived to similar conclusions. Didn’t know about the two Canadian peripheral manufacturers though. I’ll check them out. Greetings from Quebec! Stay safe :)
Most excellent review and breakdown, thank you!
U saved me 10 grand, ur officially bro now!
Excellent information! Thanks for taking the time to post this!
I'm a Pro Tools Ultimate and Studio One user.
I prefer Mac but realised I needed a higher end model and there's already no way I can afford the low end 2019 Mac Pro.
So I'm building a 16 core AMD Ryzen PC. First time building one ever.
It's a crazy ride. I'm documenting it on youtube too on my other channel, if anyone's interested.
Much smaller box (I don't need PCIe) and a quarter of the price of a comparable 16 core Mac Pro.
I've yet to get it running though, so don't take it as a success story just yet :D
I'm drooling over the rack mount for my scoring gigs Still using a 5.1 Mac Pro for recording . I think the price for these are gonna drop after the new M1X mini Mac pros come out. If these ever drop by half it's a no brainer.
Agreed!
I enjoy your videos Neil. One thing - Sonnet makes a silent (no fan) version of their M.2 cards. That's the ticket. comes with heat syncs and no noise. I did buy the Pegasus J2i which has a slot inside the new MacPro and it has slots for 2 8Tb spinning drives. Gives me 16TB of VERY affordable storage and is dead silent.
just found your channel. dude you are amazing. Subscribed!!
Thanks Kevin! :)
Excellent video Neil. Thank you!
Great stuff. Am in the market, so invaluable advice! Thanks!!
This was an excellent video. Great explanation of each choice!
awesome guide. I still cannot buy it but it teaches about buiyng any computer on apple as well
Bloody brilliant advice and round up - Thanks Neil !
The background needs more blinking lights! Anyway, an excellent video from a very different perspective to mine as a retired IT technician.
This guy’s cursor is bigger than my ego somehow.
Holy crap, He's on the bridge of the Millennium Falcon!
Really interesting videoNeil - thanks a bunch
As always, great video!
Excellent video Sir! 👍
I love your setup!
Nice video Neil - I imagine it's going to be super helpful for a lot of people out there, especially all the tips about when and when not to buy direct from Apple. If I cast my mind back to ten + years ago I was just a musician with a little home studio. Technically I was far more concerned, and rightly so, with the complexities of a song's arrangement or on the audio engineering side, mic placement / selection or where to place effects in my signal chain etc, etc. Weeks or even months would go by without my paying much if any attention to what was going on inside my Mac, or even consciously to think about the computer as a Mac, not least because by that point I'd been using Apple computers for 20 odd years.
The irony for me is that Apple essentially created a situation where I HAD to learn about the components inside the case, I mean beyond upgrading a GFX card or adding a hard drive - it started for me with the realisation that I had something called a 32bit EFI on my original Mac Pro and that the software I wanted to use wouldn't install because I wasn't (typically!) using the latest OS, and that I couldn't upgrade because of said 32bit EFI, whatever the hell that was . . . . Infuriated, my journey began into hacking my Mac to make it do what it damn well should have been able to do with a simple patch from Apple, had they been even a tiny little bit less greedy. The "fix" was apparently coded overnight by some genius kid called Tiamo, to whom I will be forever grateful. It would have taken an Apple engineer 10 minutes, and was something they chose to withhold.
There are all kinds of very valid reasons why a professional composer or recording engineer might be obliged to buy the Mac Pro tower and I totally empathise with those music professionals who couldn't be less interested in what's going on inside the magic box, so long as it 'just works'. That was me for 20 years! However, because part of the Apple agenda is to hook into aspirational marketing, I'll just comment that the vast majority of people absolutely don't need one, and it's actually perfectly feasible to take less than half the $10,000 budget and build a PC with the specific intention of running Mac OS, and enjoy a very stable and reliable OS. At the end of the day, I guess it's about how much your time is worth, but I'd encourage anyone who's currently thinking of buying a Mac Pro or high end iMac to invest a few hours in researching OpenCore hackintosh. It's a bit complicated for sure, but nothing that should trouble anyone who's built a home studio. To put it another way, to all you gearslutz out there - what ELSE might you spend $5000 on? ;)
All great points!
Thank you for your sharing, this really helps. cas not everyone has a chance to dig into the new apple mac pro so soon... :D
that shirt bro. ☑️☑️ as a mac pro owner, i can say this is all very sound advice
also: “how much memory is right for you? NONE from the apple store!” so true - had me cracking up. especially when i saw the pricing when making the purchase. i chose the 16 core, and i have a 24 core tray i might try...with the base 32 gigs and grabbed 128 gigs of nemix, which is a great option as well.
excellent point on the base card - if i didn’t also do video editing and graphics, i wouldn’t have upgraded - i tried both of their cards and they both have tons of issues, as well as problems with ultra wide monitors that i had to use an adapter to fix. my advice for those who need it? get a radeon vii or something.
Awesome Neil, keep it up 👍
Not bad for a McDonald's professional...good video...
Neil really needs to get a gig scoring a McDonalds commercial to complete the circle.
A couple of things (hopefully someone didn't already mention them)... You've got 60 days after purchase to add AppleCare. Also, in my case, since I really don't need that many PCIe spaces, I used and 2Tb Samsung NVME for a system drive on a PCIe card to replace the internal drive (I bought a refurb that only had a 256Gb drive). The NVME system drive works great, and is faster than the stock internal drive.
it's faster on the nvme - but not by much - maybe 350MB/sec difference
Neil! It's 2020! As I really enjoy your videos, I wouldn't anyone to miss out thinking that it's old info.
Hrmm any suggestions for a title? Just lose the 2019? That is the model though ..
@@NeilParfittMusic A bit of marketing, just change the 2019 to 2020 or leave it out all together. Would anyone search for mac pro 2019 anyway?
Toine Bles thx ma’man.. updated :)
Curious about future CPU upgrades. Apple told me when I inquired about this machine that the CPU can't be upgraded. Obviously, you don't want to break your warranty, but future-proofing your purchase is the main reason to buy this machine. I'm stuck on a 2013 MacPro and trying to figure out what to do. If I went base just to get in, is a CPU upgrade down the road realistic? And BTW, Go Canada. I'm a homeboy too :)
$11K for a Mac is a huge spend considering a high end 3950x spec'd PC would get you the same kind of performance at around 1/3 of the cost. There's an awful lot of synth, outboard or modular gear you could buy with that chunk of change for sure.
As you said though you don't want to get into the Mac vs PC thing, so I guess if you have the budget.
He’s said in a previous video that he can’t afford to stop working and his whole ecosystem is built around MacOS so he’s locked into Apple.
Jason got it, but.. out of sheer curiosity, I want to know the true pricing equivalent machine with 8 PCIe slots (I’m using ALL of them with 2 that are double height that aren’t video cards) that can take 384GB minimum memory and still run at least 3 4k displays,, 28core, silent and also fully verified hackintoshable.
@@jasonsavory9748 Yeah. I mean, I told myself that for over two decades too, but you're not locked into Apple, you're never actually locked into Apple. It's kinda liberating to move outside of that too. Literally the only program you can't use is Logic.
Each to their own though. If that's how someone feels then I'm not going to change their mind.
@@billB101 his whole workflow revolves around Logic, all of his experience is Logic, all his previous projects are in logic, so he is "locked in" to Apple. Yes, he technically *could* switch to PC and use a different DAW, relearn it, find comparable plugins to Logic only ones, convert projects over, hope he doesn't get Logic files from clients he works for, etc, but at that point is it worth it to save a few grand whenever he buys a new machine.
@@tombarber8929 Bummer then. You're stuck with the ever expanding Apple tax. Personally though I was in the same place a year ago and I've transitioned out so it can be done. As a jobbing engineer/producer I've always used multiple DAWS though. If a project comes in on Logic I'll pull it up on my MBP no biggie, I just now prefer the PC with Ableton or Pro tools.
As I said though, each to their own.
About the thunderbolt ports on the GPUs..
You won't get full bandwidth out of them and 2 ports share a single thunderbolt bus.
It doesn't really matter unless you're going plug in an external SSD or a dock or something with high throughput.
Just discovered your channel...awesome stuff!!
Thanks and welcome! :)
Great review Neil, very insightful. For now my upgraded Mid 2012 12 core will suffice for now.
:O :O :O I've never been this early. Nice shirt!!! :D
love your videos thank you for making the content we need
great video very informative thank you !
loved your video, could you do an episode on sound cards that works on Mac Pro 2019. Thus I can't find anything regrading on TH-cam.
And here I am excited about my Mac mini being delivered in 2 week. 😕
Great vid, Neil!
awesome video, Neil. Thanks for sharing!
This was incredible, thank you!
Great summary, thanks for that.
Major difference in the price is because the apple store RAM is ECC RAM. The stuff you showed on Newegg isn't ECC. ECC RAM is generally significantly more expensive than regular stuff.
No, it’s because they just overcharge.
I bought same spec 384GB ECC memory 3rd party. $2000 compared to Apple’s + $7500 charge for the same thing.
Nasty!
I ended up buying mine back in may thanks to your videos in part. I mean, I was going to buy it regardless, but you convinced me to buy a custom desk too so I can fit my rackmount mac pro right next to me :)
Nice! Any shots of the desk?
Neil Parfitt instagram.com/p/CD1qmzlg9IW/?igshid=1a6135t0dfb79
about Sonnet, they now have newer version of PCIe NVME card without fan ;)
Awesome... a company that listens to their customer base :) :)
Thx
What about factoring in the new iMac if you didn't need a lot of PCIe cards?
If you don’t need all that expansion or nutty memory requirements and don’t care if it’s all-in-one, absolutely look that those machines.
great videos Neil! Thanks for sharing. I wonder if you can run those acustica-audio plugs? I bet you know about them but because they are so intensive you don't use them. Really great videos! Thanks :)
Their site is driving me nuts, I've been trying to create an account with no success as I've wanted to test them out
acustica-audio?
a bit of patience is needed with them, those plugs are SO intensive,, maybe they could be coded better perhaps. You need to download ‘aquarius’ which is their plug-in loader. First create an account i think then download aquarius. The plugs are super cool, but just too unstable i get cpu spikes on my new hackingtosh! i reckon even with your mac pro it would give you crap too.
If you, personally and hypothetically, were not constrained to the so called "industry standard" software and not constrained by the requirement for format compatibility - just you doing your very own thing - ... and let's also say you give yourself a generous amount of time where you can look through the many DAWs that are out there as well as the possible hardware for the box that runs the DAW that you will be choosing; would you have an idea now where you would gravitate towards? Things you would like to test for a deeper dive?
I keep asking that question to audio pro users I know, and usually it just comes down to them really not wanting to try and learn new things... which is a shame because some of them leave workflow, performance and money on the table. Which inevitably means they are cutting away the most precious commodity they have. Their lifetime.
I’d be on a ryZen machine for sure.
@@NeilParfittMusic every mac fan will say that the price of a mac is about reliability which is not true
@@Teluric2 direct usage by me and my peers would prove otherwise. I'm not standing up for their repair policies (which are stupid).. but instead, from them running day in and day out in studios all over the place with uptime in the 99%
I went and made a hackintosh.... I mean its painful but the cost difference I'm ok with having to be hands-on.
Great info! Thanks!
I have a Sabrent Rocket in my MacBook. It’s solid and very fast!
Would you still suggest one of these Mac Pro knowing what we know about the new M1 macs and that Apple will likely release M1X chips in Q1 2021?
I guess we'll see what happens - for now, I'm 100% happy with this one on Catalina as everything works where's as on Big Sur PLUS M1 - only a small chunk of audio software works natvely.
I don't own a MacPro nor do I make music but these videos are so good
I have watched most of your videos on your Mac Pro and just found out you were in Canada, not sure why I thought you were in LA or something. Loved the videos so far on Mac Pro stuff
Thanks Ralph! I do love that LA weather though...
Hey Neil!, I Really love your videos! You are super personable and you do an excellent job of explaining it so even I can understand haha! We share a lot of the same likes and humour so these vids are so great!! 👍🏼👍🏼. Question, I thought there was a link somewhere to the memory you purchased... I’ve been going through all your videos and can’t seem to find it. Any chance you could point me in the direction to what you use? I’m pretty sure I’ll be picking up the 16 core.
Again... ty & I appreciate you so much! Stay safe my friend! Looking forward to your future videos!
Go Canada!!! Haha!!! Love It!! 🇨🇦
Thanks 😀😀😀
I got them from Amazon - but it’s nemix. Looks like they’re having a sale:
nemixram.com/apple-compatible-memory/mac-pro/mac-pro-2019-macpro7-1/
Thank You SO Much Neil! Very much appreciated!! I hope to meet/work with you one day when we’re through these crazy times! Being a St. Catharines boy, it’s not a far trip! Thanks again and ttyl! cc. 🇨🇦‼️
@NeilParfitt - I am not a audio / music producer, but simply a high-end MacPro user for photo post-production. As I mentioned in a prior comment, I came across your Channel because of a comment by Gerald Undone. I will transition from a cMP 5,1 to a MP 7,1, and your videos about your transition from MP 6,1 to MP 7,1 have been very informative, albeit on a slightly different use case. Thanks for the great content.
Thanks!! :) :)
great infos!
Neil, that was great. You cleared up a bunch of stuff for me. I wasn't sure about what to do with the RAM but I see I can buy the cheapest and then put in some 3rd party RAM as there are 12 slots. I'm not exactly sure what you meant by having 6 SSDs on a single PCIe card but one brother is a programmer, the other a systems analyst and they can clear that up for me. Your maths was awesome (I got an * for maths in High school. Not my strong suit). So if I understand correctly. I can get say 1 - 2 TB HD for my system use (250 GB does seem like Apple are trolling us). But add more SSDs via the PCIe slots? If that is correct then I think get it. I really appreciate you going through this. I've looking for such info since December (my brothers talked me out of buying the 2019 Mac Pro. Now I have some maths to convince them. Also, my 5,1 is 10 years old and can't upgrade to Logic Pro 10.5 AND it is performing "slow" In fact I was trying to do something in Logic a little while ago but it was like extracting teeth. Of course it might be a temporary thing and a restart might fix it but I am ready for a new machine. So, once again, thanks for the overview. It is very much appreciated. * yes, an asterisk! The computer didn't want to embarrass me to let everyone know I got zero. Somehow I don't think it worked.
Yes you can get the ie: 1TB system, and any additional ssds such as m.2 or even 2.5” satas have appropriate pcie cards you can pop them onto, and put them in a PCIe slot
The only question is how long will Intel be supported ,once they'll make their own Cpu.
Great video by the way ,specially if you think that it's coming from an McDonald's professional :))))
For a long time - they won’t be making a Pro Silicon any time soon.
what's the real-world performance (actual test) on this build? how many vsti's? how many convolution reverbs? how many audio tracks? how many general-purpose eq/comps? how many instances of serum can it run (a well known heavy cpu vsti)? how many instances of ni's massive x vsti? i think this was a sensible value-driven buying approach. but how does the system perform under real workloads? that's the key factor.
problem with those type of tests... "I can run 2000 channels strips with W, X,Y'' with VI Z" is that those tests are never realistic either as no session is ever a sustained crunch like that. It's all about the random chaos of madness coming and going in waves and bursts... especially in television and film where you just need a ton of crap sitting there, routed and ready to be triggered.
The show I'm writing on now, my template is well over 1000 tracks, nothing is offline/bypassed, there are at least 60 Kontakts in VEP each with 16 heavy sounds loaded within, there's eq everywhere, reverbs, compressors etc, plenty of local VI's in Logic (native and 3rd party), Protools up behind it dealing with stems, Resting template ram footprint is over 220GB.
It's all just humming along for any cue I've been writing - from the teeniest thing to the most Boombastic orchestral hybrid cue.
That's my real-world test so far - and I've done 10 episodes with this system writing. The other show is prepping/stemming score in Protools - the mix engine is HDX but plenty of the verbs, EQ, dynamics and such are surround and it's not breaking a sweat. This would have brought the trashcan to its knees in defeat. I've delivered 9 episodes of that so far.
Great info and great video.
You're great men!
Thanks Neil for all this info. Question - Did you need to update the firmware for those Samsung M.2s? Basically the only bad reviews on that SSD are mac users. I just got the squid card and am shopping now for the modules. I might try those Sabrents- they are so tempting and are mac ready out of the box.
I bought the Samsung’s in back in March - popped them in out of the box and was up and running. Maybe the firmware issue was from previous batches?
I like how you specifically say this isn't a "Mac vs PC" video, but there are still people in the comments being like "yeah but if you got a PC you could get xyz for $x less than you spent!"
Also my fav.is ...
Comment: “Yeah, but X!”
Me: “i mentioned X”
Comment: “Oh I didn’t watch that part”
😆
Im not a Mac boi but this was awesome!
Nice Thanks
Awesome video Neil - JUST what I needed ! What do you think of the OWC Accelsior 4M2 PCIe drives ? They claim over 6GB throughput for not that much more than regular M.2. SSDs.
I haven’t used the latest incarnation of them, but the first few I bought many many years ago both failed. Check forums and stuffs for more user experiences as I’m not sure how they are now
@@NeilParfittMusic OK, got it. Thanks very much for the reply ! I am totally new to this and don't even know a single forum that would be appropriate to check. Could you recommend any ? Thanks again for taking the time to make this great video. There must be a ton of people who needed EXACTLY this from someone who actually did it ! (like me)
@@Starlite4321 I’d honestly go for something tried and true like a Samsung EVO m.2 with a sonnet pcie card
Great Neil, thanks !
Hey Neil, great informative video man thanks!
based on your experience, what Processor upgrade do you think is a better choice for the old 2013 MacPro, 10 core or 12 core?
thanks!
I had 12 core chips in my two 2013 machines and pushed them really hard! Only thing to watch out for is > 64gb ram drops ram speed down to 1333MHz
@@NeilParfittMusic thanks! I manage to find 64GB at 1866MHz. Anything more than that will decrease speed.
I threw 4 of the 2tb sabrent cards on an OWC card. Had some minor issues with Softraid, but those have finally been sorted.
I also have 4 of the 1tb Samsung 960's, same card. Performance is within 10% between the two. I expect to throw in the 8tb by Q2 2021.
What did you run into with softraid? Using that here as well.
@@NeilParfittMusic Two builds back I would have the array randomly disappear. Luckily it's not doing it now. There were some forum posts on it. Since the updates though, i've been rocking fine. Still, I archive the two ssd's nightly just in case.
ZVexxPlayer eek! That’s scary. I’m looking forward to AFS volumes whenever they get to it!
Great video and very sympathetic kind. I got the 16core for some months now and I´m kinda frustrated because I have expected some more power with Logic Pro. In special cases when using a large bus chain filled up with hungry mastering plugins I got permanent system overloads because Logic does not seem to be able to distribute the processor load evenly. In this mastering bus-into-bus case it can only address the first cpu thread. No matter what I do or change, this thread is peaking all the time while the other 31 threads are sleeping. For me it looks like Logic has not yet been optimized and with the new Mac Pro range. And as you said, the individual cpu cores are not the most powerful ones. For music production with many tracks and instruments works great, but when it comes to my 1-4 mastering bus chains it gets frustrating. Also a 6min song is bouncing about 8 minutes (offline). My previous machine was a Mac Pro (2009) and the difference in relation to this scenario makes me crazy, because i bought the MP to be able to work efficiently and fluently for the next few years, which is unfortunately not the case here.
Hrmm I wonder if there’s also some other factors adding to this issue. What’s your audio interface? Sample rate, buffer etc? I’m also assuming you’ve tried various configurations of LX audio. Trying different combos of live (reserves and pins a core vs playback tracks only). What’s your buffer and process size? Are these mastering sessions on top of the existing song session or a standalone template? FWIW logic has always been “meh” with multi core management - I usually park my selected arrange track to a go-nowhere midi track during mixing as it seems to spread cores better vs pinning a few. I’ve been doing that since ten years ago on L9. What mastering plugins are you using?
@@NeilParfittMusic Hey Neil, thank you so much for your reply and expertise. I´m on Logic and Mac for decades but this case really brings me down. Apple Pro Support has not yet been able to provide a solution, but you know that yourself, haha. I have tried different settings with playback & live tracks and even running on max buffer size (1024) does not help. Also switching to system audio instead of my Motu interface was not bringing any solution. Apple suggested to split plugins into busses and let the master out free, but even a big split with only one plugin per bus does not help to address more then the first thread. I´m also aware about the live midi track hack (rec button armed). Sometimes this helps, but looks pretty tough to keep this situation when working. Most times its a mastering template with just 6-15 stems. The biggest bummer in this scenario is always Izotope Ozone 9 which is eating 80% of the first cpu core. Without Ozone it runs much better, but still only one core gets addressed. Would be super great if i could drop you a mail, i got some screenshots and videos about this case. Big up for your friendly help !
Ahh, sample rate is just 44.1 or 48k, nothing spectacular.
matty menck yeah drop me a line - wouldn’t mind testing a session on my end to see if logic dies or not, assuming ozone has a timed demo or something
Also, did you reach out to izotope? Could be a case of better optimization being needed.
I am still waiting for the Mac Pro M2 Ultra rackmount. It's been way longer than 7 years!!! Like you, I want the rack so that I can simplify and limit the potential mess. I want to produce concept-albums of immersive music videos. I expect to still need TB4 peripherals. I am guessing it will cost about $50K American dollars. What I really need is a standalone 96 channel API vision board for Immersive for less than $10K. Like the Presonus 64s studio-live on steroids. I have suggested this Home-studio concept to Presonus, SofTube, API and everyone who will listen. It's more than doable with today's technology. What we need is for Fender to buy UAD, Softube, and make a deal with API.