M1 16GB plays 96 orchestral instruments using 30GB swap file
Results today are a bit inconclusive, but promising. I was able to get 96 orchestral instruments to play back using a 30GB swap file on the M1 16GB by lowering the preload size in Kontakt to 18kb. The Studio One memory in Activity Monitor was around 74GB and the segment played back flawlessly. Granted, after I made an edit I was having some stability issues but that doesn't mean they couldn't get resolved. So, interesting development.
0:00 money shot
0:30 intro
4:27 testing
9:47 preload size
12:26 low latency recording
16:54 editing
17:30 kaboom
-scripted section-
it's day five
I've gotten a lot of really helpful feedback on my previous two videos attempting to test this M1 MacBook Pro with 16GB of RAM
thanks for your encouragement I really appreciate the helpful feedback and I do want to provide valuable content while I have this opportunity, because I still think I'm going to return this M1 when I'm done but I do want to see what else can be done to optimize it for music production first
my main goal here is to see what work I can get done
these aren't meant to be purely theoretical tests
and I'm not trying to see how many reverbs I can load
I am trying to use larger orchestral sample libraries with multiple mic positions and many round robin velocity layered samples
so the RAM overhead it might be safe to say, seems far greater than what many users will need for other purposes (like video editing or certain styles of pop and electronic music production)
the audio output needs to be handled in real time while we compose and arrange — without voices dropping out or distracting clicks
and ideally we will also be able to record new parts while all that is handled as well, in real time.
in this third video which is day five of owning this while my MacBook Pro is in the shop due to a swollen battery I'm going to try optimizing the machine to squeeze the most out of it that I can.
here are some new things that have been recommended:
these mostly seem specific to Kontakt.
"Have you tried..."
Kontakt: loading the samples Direct From Disk aka lowering the Preload Buffer Size in the global options?
Kontakt: using the memory server?
Kontakt: lowering the voice count?
using Logic instead of Studio One?
lowering the Device Block Size in S1?
changing the dropout protection in S1?
quitting the background Adobe support applications?
using an audio interface instead of the Mac built in audio?
Synchron player?
EastWest PLAY?
VEP and a slave with more RAM?
we already tried purging samples from kontakt
and we tried rendering the MIDI data to audio which will certainly work in some cases
but if you need to change tempo or insert music or for any other reason convert a large number of tracks at once you will be waiting several minutes depending on the length of the audio that needs to get bounced.
and before we get into it I want to comment on the word "pro" that I've heard used in many online discussions; there are many kinds of "professionals" working with music so we need to be a little careful with that word, I think the caveat here is that we are trying to get work done in the context of these larger 10-100GB sample libraries that are used to resemble symphonic or orchestral musicians playing in a scoring hall or an orchestra hall, and whether or not these are combined with synthesizers and other elements to make a hybrid sound or a Hollywood sound or a concert hall experience the idea is a sort of convincing quote unquote realism or perceived realistic sound output....
this niche use case has relied largely on intel machines with 32, 64, 128GB of RAM and that's why this relatively small community has not fully embraced the M1 Macs just yet.
but there are plenty other professionals in the music world who might not have such stringent needs, and furthermore these slightly more extreme needs might reveal ways to optimize your setup to take advantage of all the ram and cpu you have on any machine, even a windows machine.
ok with that out of the way let's get started
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