For those wondering, the rest of the specs on my computer is: 10-core CPU, 32-core CPU, 16-core Neural Engine 1tb SSD And all my VST's are located on an external T5 SSD
could you test if there is a speed difference between having the libraries on the intern ssd or extern t5… sometimes i wait forever until a big library is completely loaded into kontakt… i have also t5s
Double-click on the CPU meter in the Transport Bar to bring up the floating Performance Meter window… just to see how the load is distributed across the cores.
Perfect, that’s exactly the kind of stress mode I wanted to see, since I’m gonna get a new MBP (like yours but with 8TB, I know, very expensive), but that’s what I’m gonna need since I want to run heavy composer template with hundreds and hundreds of tracks with mainly Kontakt and orchestral sample libraries, some tracks with Omnisphere, Superior Drummer, Komplete Ultimate Collector, etc… So if I can a Thousand tracks with maybe 200 simultaneous tracks, I’m pretty sure it should cover any kind of composition. The reason I’m going with the 8TB is because of the storage of large libraries. Komplete Ultimate Collector, it’s 1TB, the Eastwest collection it’s another 1TB, the whole Superior Drummer with Expansions, another 1TB, so it’s already 3TB and I didn’t even installed all other synths such Omnisphere, UVI libraries, etc… So I will definitely got over 4TB. I could run external drives, but I want to run the maximum I can from the internal drive since it’s very fast and will avoid to have an external drive plugged all the time. Long story short, your video clearly shows what I needed to know before to order, because I don’t want to spend over 6,500 Euros without knowing if I can run this large composer template I want to build. Thanks!
@@AndroidGamingApps I generally don’t do much video, but I will try to do it. I’m gonna get my beast either for Christmas or in March. I just don’t know if I’m gonna get a new iPhone 13 for Xmas or wait for the 14 in Septembre. If I wait for the 14, then I will get the MBP for Xmas. I can’t do it all in the same time. That’s a lot of money ;)
@@vasorotto19 I will have an external drive for the libraries I don’t use too much. But for the ones I use a lot, I prefer them to be on the internal drives to get as much tracks as I can with it. I would technically need 20TB internal SSD if I would want to store EVERYTHING internally. So it’s not possible and I’m gonna need to keep some stuff on external drive. I’m considering an OWC 4M2 with 4 NVME for the external storage. But I will wait for the NVME to drop in price before to get such system. But that’s the long term idea. Of course I have backup on a thunderbolt Drobo and an additional backup for old sessions on an Ethernet NAS.
i find that in my project it stressed out the cpu the most when doing a LOT of automation of the parameters of the VSTi. Would love to see you do all the automation parameters and then duplicate a whole bunch to see how it perform.
Just what I wanted to see. Thanks for the video. Would love to see how this machine works with other third party VSTs and plugins; ones that can run natively, as well as ones that need Rosetta.
@@BrandonWells Those are mostly optoimized, if I'm not mistaken. Still it'd be great to see how many instances of Waves and Izotope you can load, since those aren't stock and can be quite heavy, depending on the plugin.
Could you test how Logic works when you exceed 64gb of ram and are using swap. Is it still responsive? Maybe with a lower amount of tracks but more memory hungry Kontakt patches? I would like to only get 16 gigs of ram but if it seems absolutely necessary I can stretch to 32 gigs. I don't use that much Kontakt instruments so I think I would be fine. I've just yet to see how music production is affected by exceeding the ram and using swap.
There’s a max tech video where they stress test the RAM on a 16gb vs 32gb model and the performance with swapping on the 16gb is basically as good. They don’t properly test logic but from everything I’ve seen the memory swapping on these super fast SSDs is incredibly high performance. I would assume if you don’t run massive orchestral templates you’ll be fine with 16gb of RAM.
You don't want to be regularly running your machine while swapping. It will shorten the life of the onboard SSD. But remember, you can lower your Kontakt preload size, to fit more memory-hungry Kontakt instruments in RAM. Kontakt's default preload sizes are far too conservative, set for 5400RPM drives. With SSDs, you can dramatically lower the preload size (probably to the minimum on an m1).
Have you done any tests looking at latency while recording? I currently rely on my UA Apollo for latency free monitoring (vocal and guitars). Would I be able to sell the Apollo and get latency free monitoring with a cheaper interface and M1 Pro do you think (selling the Apollo would help pay for the laptop).
I haven’t tested any latency. But I will say..the other day I was tracking a ton of harmonies on a session that already had maybe 50-60 tracks with half being virtual instruments. No latency
oh thanks for the test 🙏 that’s awesome! don’t need to run 250 or more tracks but i’m more interested in what happens when you load a lot more then 64 GB “different” kontakt instruments into RAM… it would be a gamechanger if a 64 GB Macbook can handle easily 80 GB different sample libraries or even more without a Problem. that’s a realworld test , that would be an absolut gamechanger! turned the fans on in your test? get it warm on the bottom? love to work on the couch sometimes but my intel macbook is getting too hot for doing this. thanks for tue test… all best
i was wondering why is one instrument using so much RAm in your Test? normally Kontakt is loading only one instance into the ram regardless of how many tracks you use of this instrument 🤔
Hey Josh! I've had a few random plugins that have been a pain. Soundtoys haven't been working for me, and Waves have to be on the latest versions. I don't have slate plugins anymore, but I hear it's not quite there? I have SSD drums and they're not compatible at all with M1 or Monterey
1 instance of Kontakt supports 64 midi channels. Why would you use multiple instances of the plugin? You could have gotten a similar amount of track count on a computer from 10 years ago if you used the software the right way.
Sorry if I missed this, but just to confirm, you're running Logic entirely through Rosetta (emulation) right? If that's true, then I'm definitely buying an M1. I'm only hesitant cause I use old plugins that I cannot live without.
Logic is already fully m1 compatible. Since he did not mention anything about logic i am assuming its running natively. He did mention kontakt running through Rosetta doh.
@@BrandonWells So, you are running Logic natively, while Kontakt as a plugin runs through Rosetta? Because NI is telling on their website in order to run Kontakt you also have to run the DAW in Rosetta mode.
Great video. Could you set the buffer to 32 samples with a sample rate of 96Khz. Then put a VST vocal chain (pre-amp, compressor) on your vocal input to test the latency? Your machine is the same spec I ordered. Luck would have it that my Duet died recently and I’m trying to determine if the UA int are still necessary to be able to input monitor a vocal with processing. I haven’t been able ti find anyone on TH-cam who has done this test. Thanks 🙏🏽
So is this running the native apple silicon version of logic, but it’s wrapping the AU plug-ins to have them work within it? Or are you using the Rosetta version of logic?
@@dtrelzmusic You used to have to run Logic in Intel mode (find Logic icon->get info> Open using Rosetta) to use some Intel plugins. I think this has changed, so that Logic will simply run natively, and the plugins will use Rosetta mode if required. But best to check with your plugin manufacturer's web support pages to see. Kontakt still only runs in Rosetta...NI said:- "From January 12th, 2021, we’re enabling the installation of NI products on computers with Apple Silicon processors. All of our products can be activated, installed and updated using Native Access (version 1.13.4 and later), which will run on the latest generation of Mac computers via Apple’s automatic translation environment Rosetta 2." So 10 months later they are still not native M1 compatible. They further add :- "We are working to ensure full support for Apple Silicon across all of our current products, but time frames for compatibility will vary, and we are not yet able to announce any specific dates." This as of August 31st 2021. Come on NI, get your act together.
Very interested to see how fast scrolling through Kontakt/Omnisphere presets and sounds are. Still having to wait 10-20 seconds for a sound to load can be a vibe kill.
@@ShizeHu While the M1 Max CPU is able to read/write to the shared memory (RAM) faster than the M1 Pro CPU, tests have shown that the difference is not significant. Since the number & speed of CPU cores in the Max version are the same as the Pro version, it appears that, for music production, there isn't any real advantage to having the Max chip. The only reason to get the Max version over the Pro version is if you plan to use your MBP for some GPU-demanding tasks too, as the Max version is a definite upgrade (with either 24 GPU cores or 32 GPU cores, rather than 16 GPU cores in the Pro version).
Hello Brandon, can you help me out? I can't get Kontakt player to show in Logic. I have an M1Pro Running Monterey. Kontakt successfully validated in plugin manager. Any ideas? Thanks
Kontakt hasn't been upgraded for native apple silicon support so I wouldn't expect quite as incredible results... but I am sure it still smokes most other laptop setups
Considering that making good music - even complex music - requires only 40 well-optimized tracks, i would say that such power would have been excessive even in the hands of John Williams.
For those wondering, the rest of the specs on my computer is:
10-core CPU, 32-core CPU, 16-core Neural Engine
1tb SSD
And all my VST's are located on an external T5 SSD
How Many RAM do you have?
3:05 Oh, oops, I just should have waited for answer (64GB)
could you test if there is a speed difference between having the libraries on the intern ssd or extern t5… sometimes i wait forever until a big library is completely loaded into kontakt… i have also t5s
@@tb6265 well considering the internal read/write speed is above 3gb per second, it would be a bit faster yeah compared to only 500mb/s on the T5
@@tb6265 my bad, the M1 is 3gb/s, the M1 pro and m1 max are above 5gb/s
Double-click on the CPU meter in the Transport Bar to bring up the floating Performance Meter window… just to see how the load is distributed across the cores.
+ 1
Was worried about upgrading since Kontakt isn't officially supported, but this has given me some peace of mind. Thanks for the test!
Perfect, that’s exactly the kind of stress mode I wanted to see, since I’m gonna get a new MBP (like yours but with 8TB, I know, very expensive), but that’s what I’m gonna need since I want to run heavy composer template with hundreds and hundreds of tracks with mainly Kontakt and orchestral sample libraries, some tracks with Omnisphere, Superior Drummer, Komplete Ultimate Collector, etc… So if I can a Thousand tracks with maybe 200 simultaneous tracks, I’m pretty sure it should cover any kind of composition. The reason I’m going with the 8TB is because of the storage of large libraries. Komplete Ultimate Collector, it’s 1TB, the Eastwest collection it’s another 1TB, the whole Superior Drummer with Expansions, another 1TB, so it’s already 3TB and I didn’t even installed all other synths such Omnisphere, UVI libraries, etc… So I will definitely got over 4TB. I could run external drives, but I want to run the maximum I can from the internal drive since it’s very fast and will avoid to have an external drive plugged all the time. Long story short, your video clearly shows what I needed to know before to order, because I don’t want to spend over 6,500 Euros without knowing if I can run this large composer template I want to build. Thanks!
Please man do a performance test on your channel with that beast of Mac!
I would suggest you external drives for vst libraries. apple internal drive is too expensive and ok that's powerful but maybe it's too much for this
@@AndroidGamingApps I generally don’t do much video, but I will try to do it. I’m gonna get my beast either for Christmas or in March. I just don’t know if I’m gonna get a new iPhone 13 for Xmas or wait for the 14 in Septembre. If I wait for the 14, then I will get the MBP for Xmas. I can’t do it all in the same time. That’s a lot of money ;)
@@vasorotto19 I will have an external drive for the libraries I don’t use too much. But for the ones I use a lot, I prefer them to be on the internal drives to get as much tracks as I can with it. I would technically need 20TB internal SSD if I would want to store EVERYTHING internally. So it’s not possible and I’m gonna need to keep some stuff on external drive. I’m considering an OWC 4M2 with 4 NVME for the external storage. But I will wait for the NVME to drop in price before to get such system. But that’s the long term idea. Of course I have backup on a thunderbolt Drobo and an additional backup for old sessions on an Ethernet NAS.
@@Spidouz i subscribed to you just to see that stresstest as I'm also a composer looking to run many tracks and I'm considering the new MB
Thanks, I've ordered a Mac Studio, same specs except 2TB SSD, and found this helpful.
i find that in my project it stressed out the cpu the most when doing a LOT of automation of the parameters of the VSTi. Would love to see you do all the automation parameters and then duplicate a whole bunch to see how it perform.
If you purge samples it will run 10-20x more instances of Kontakt.
Now time for the the Ultimate test!
1 Instance of Omnisphere 🤣
Just what I wanted to see. Thanks for the video. Would love to see how this machine works with other third party VSTs and plugins; ones that can run natively, as well as ones that need Rosetta.
That would be cool. Unfortunately, I don’t have anything else
The plug-ins I use are Waves, Vocalign, JST, Aberrant DSP, and some Izotope. But there’s not really much to note apart from them working per usual
@@BrandonWells No worries, man. Thanks a ton for the video, anyway.
@@BrandonWells Those are mostly optoimized, if I'm not mistaken. Still it'd be great to see how many instances of Waves and Izotope you can load, since those aren't stock and can be quite heavy, depending on the plugin.
Thanks for this video! This is exactly what I wanted!
Thank you for this! Also what external display are you using there? Just for reference.
Im using a BenQ 4k PD3200U
hi! loving your vids - would it possible to re-do a test, now that Kontakt supports M1 natively ? thanks a lot in advance !
this is great, is it the 14 or 16 inch? how´s about heat or fan noise? how many screens do you use? Thanks , cheers
dude didn't even know you had a channel haha subbed
ayyyy keepin it in the fam haha
really cool jacket
Could you test how Logic works when you exceed 64gb of ram and are using swap. Is it still responsive? Maybe with a lower amount of tracks but more memory hungry Kontakt patches? I would like to only get 16 gigs of ram but if it seems absolutely necessary I can stretch to 32 gigs. I don't use that much Kontakt instruments so I think I would be fine. I've just yet to see how music production is affected by exceeding the ram and using swap.
There’s a max tech video where they stress test the RAM on a 16gb vs 32gb model and the performance with swapping on the 16gb is basically as good. They don’t properly test logic but from everything I’ve seen the memory swapping on these super fast SSDs is incredibly high performance. I would assume if you don’t run massive orchestral templates you’ll be fine with 16gb of RAM.
@@austinz9310 Yeah I saw that video, I was wondering if music production is in any way different when using swap.
You don't want to be regularly running your machine while swapping. It will shorten the life of the onboard SSD. But remember, you can lower your Kontakt preload size, to fit more memory-hungry Kontakt instruments in RAM. Kontakt's default preload sizes are far too conservative, set for 5400RPM drives. With SSDs, you can dramatically lower the preload size (probably to the minimum on an m1).
Nice work!
Have you done any tests looking at latency while recording? I currently rely on my UA Apollo for latency free monitoring (vocal and guitars). Would I be able to sell the Apollo and get latency free monitoring with a cheaper interface and M1 Pro do you think (selling the Apollo would help pay for the laptop).
I haven’t tested any latency. But I will say..the other day I was tracking a ton of harmonies on a session that already had maybe 50-60 tracks with half being virtual instruments. No latency
oh thanks for the test 🙏 that’s awesome! don’t need to run 250 or more tracks but i’m more interested in what happens when you load a lot more then 64 GB “different” kontakt instruments into RAM… it would be a gamechanger if a 64 GB Macbook can handle easily 80 GB different sample libraries or even more without a Problem. that’s a realworld test , that would be an absolut gamechanger! turned the fans on in your test? get it warm on the bottom? love to work on the couch sometimes but my intel macbook is getting too hot for doing this. thanks for tue test… all best
i was wondering why is one instrument using so much RAm in your Test? normally Kontakt is loading only one instance into the ram regardless of how many tracks you use of this instrument 🤔
Thank you very much for the video. What camera are you using by the way? It looks great, especially with your color-grading!
thanks! its a black magic pocket cinema 4k
Dope review!!!!!! Hey where'd you get the jacket???!!!!
thanks! i found it at a thrift store, but its an REI jacket lol
Hey I remember you from the Ryan Tedder course! I’ve been looking to pick this up. Have you run in to any compatibility issues?
Hey Josh! I've had a few random plugins that have been a pain. Soundtoys haven't been working for me, and Waves have to be on the latest versions. I don't have slate plugins anymore, but I hear it's not quite there? I have SSD drums and they're not compatible at all with M1 or Monterey
@@BrandonWells Thanks for getting back to me! Do you they work with Rosetta, or do they not work at all?
1 instance of Kontakt supports 64 midi channels. Why would you use multiple instances of the plugin? You could have gotten a similar amount of track count on a computer from 10 years ago if you used the software the right way.
dude I have no idea what you're talking about lol
Great video, thanks for the testing! I wonder if you installed the content files of the programs on an external drive or on the internal ssd?
My kontakt stuff is located on external ssd
What chair and headphones do you use?
My Kontakt not launchin in garage band what should i do
Sorry if I missed this, but just to confirm, you're running Logic entirely through Rosetta (emulation) right? If that's true, then I'm definitely buying an M1. I'm only hesitant cause I use old plugins that I cannot live without.
Logic is already fully m1 compatible. Since he did not mention anything about logic i am assuming its running natively. He did mention kontakt running through Rosetta doh.
logic runs natively, it just runs intel based plugins through a rosetta compatibility thing
@@BrandonWells So, you are running Logic natively, while Kontakt as a plugin runs through Rosetta? Because NI is telling on their website in order to run Kontakt you also have to run the DAW in Rosetta mode.
Great video. Could you set the buffer to 32 samples with a sample rate of 96Khz. Then put a VST vocal chain (pre-amp, compressor) on your vocal input to test the latency?
Your machine is the same spec I ordered. Luck would have it that my Duet died recently and I’m trying to determine if the UA int are still necessary to be able to input monitor a vocal with processing.
I haven’t been able ti find anyone on TH-cam who has done this test.
Thanks 🙏🏽
I wonder how the faster alderlake would run it if optimized via hackintosh or opencore?
So is this running the native apple silicon version of logic, but it’s wrapping the AU plug-ins to have them work within it? Or are you using the Rosetta version of logic?
I don't believe logic uses rosetta it nativetly works.
@@dtrelzmusic You used to have to run Logic in Intel mode (find Logic icon->get info> Open using Rosetta) to use some Intel plugins. I think this has changed, so that Logic will simply run natively, and the plugins will use Rosetta mode if required.
But best to check with your plugin manufacturer's web support pages to see.
Kontakt still only runs in Rosetta...NI said:-
"From January 12th, 2021, we’re enabling the installation of NI products on computers with Apple Silicon processors. All of our products can be activated, installed and updated using Native Access (version 1.13.4 and later), which will run on the latest generation of Mac computers via Apple’s automatic translation environment Rosetta 2."
So 10 months later they are still not native M1 compatible. They further add :-
"We are working to ensure full support for Apple Silicon across all of our current products, but time frames for compatibility will vary, and we are not yet able to announce any specific dates."
This as of August 31st 2021.
Come on NI, get your act together.
@@timbeaton5045 Understood. Yeah it looks promosing but I'm going to hold out until the rosetta stuff is gone and it's native
@@timbeaton5045 ah okay, so it’s possible that Logic is running natively here and is just wrapping the AU plugins in a Rosetta wrapper?
Doing a stress test with it running in Rosetta is kind of silly. It will be much better when it’s native.
We don't know when that's coming, so you work with what you have
this is crazy
Very interested to see how fast scrolling through Kontakt/Omnisphere presets and sounds are. Still having to wait 10-20 seconds for a sound to load can be a vibe kill.
yeah i feel you. its not as slow, but still is a little quicker. also helpful to have those located on an SSD for speed
I m a newbie.. how are u running Kontakt on m1 chip?
Kontakt runs natively now doesn’t it?
yes it does
I ordered m1 max 14inch 64gb ！But I’m afraid that cpu will max out before memories . What do you think？Should I go to m1 pro 32gb instead？
i have what you ordered
@@BrandonWells Can you test that if the cpu will max out before memories when using large libraries like Spitfire?Thanks!!!
@@ShizeHu While the M1 Max CPU is able to read/write to the shared memory (RAM) faster than the M1 Pro CPU, tests have shown that the difference is not significant. Since the number & speed of CPU cores in the Max version are the same as the Pro version, it appears that, for music production, there isn't any real advantage to having the Max chip. The only reason to get the Max version over the Pro version is if you plan to use your MBP for some GPU-demanding tasks too, as the Max version is a definite upgrade (with either 24 GPU cores or 32 GPU cores, rather than 16 GPU cores in the Pro version).
@@derekbaker3279 I get the m1 max for 64 gb :) I'm sure I will go to 64gb on a Intel Mac , but the unified memories seems different.
Ableton test please
Hello Brandon, can you help me out? I can't get Kontakt player to show in Logic. I have an M1Pro Running Monterey. Kontakt successfully validated in plugin manager. Any ideas? Thanks
have you tried opening logic with rosetta?
@@BrandonWells No luck
Kontakt hasn't been upgraded for native apple silicon support so I wouldn't expect quite as incredible results... but I am sure it still smokes most other laptop setups
Funny ... looks like there are a lot of tracks and plugins loaded on each, but according to the meters, only the top track is playing anything ;-)
the fader is all the way down on them all besides the top track
are you on rosetta?
i haven't been prompted to install rosetta yet, but activity monitor is showing that its all running on intel
Is this the pro or max model and which inch?
0:29
I have the Mac mini and it gives up on Spitfire library.
I get the hype but AMD beat this
Considering that making good music - even complex music - requires only 40 well-optimized tracks, i would say that such power would have been excessive even in the hands of John Williams.
lol. who needs to run 240+ tracks of kontakt for any reason?
good question
Hans Zimmer
Hehe