How many VST can Mac M1 handle ;-)

spark240

Jonathanthomas83

Not watched the video but have seen similar and I personally have run many.

It's by no means a record, but I'm pretty chuffed that I have 27 guitar tracks each running a separate instance of amplitube on my most recent project. Plus some heavy hitters from Acustica! My best purchase in years, this M1 Mac.

spark240

Well I can tell you it reached 80 vst tracks and probably more…next test is audio tracks 

Danny1969

Well actual audio tracks don't need any processing power at all hardly. Old guys like me used to run 24 track projects on Pentium 233mhz chips with 32Mb of ram in the nineties 
The Mac I had in the studio from 2010 to 2015 was a 2005 MacPro and that could handle 96 tracks all with EQ and comp plugs. Plus around 8 aux busses with effects. 

My 2007 iMac is fine with 48 tracks all with EQ and comp plugs plus a few effects busses 

Complex reverb algorithms are probably the most taxing in terms of CPU, I remember Altiverb used to make the old CPU groan a bit

octatonic

Danny1969 said:

Well actual audio tracks don't need any processing power at all hardly. Old guys like me used to run 24 track projects on Pentium 233mhz chips with 32Mb of ram in the nineties 
The Mac I had in the studio from 2010 to 2015 was a 2005 MacPro and that could handle 96 tracks all with EQ and comp plugs. Plus around 8 aux busses with effects. 

My 2007 iMac is fine with 48 tracks all with EQ and comp plugs plus a few effects busses 

Complex reverb algorithms are probably the most taxing in terms of CPU, I remember Altiverb used to make the old CPU groan a bit

Yep.

The processing we have available now is insane compared to the old days.
My current Mac Pro never goes over 20% CPU with 80+ tracks and plugins on every channel.

I don't bother benchmarking anymore- the only thing that stretches modern DAW's are high CPU virtual instruments which I don't use as I have hardware synths I prefer.

Snap

I got a new PC set up a couple of years ago. 12 core AMD ryzen 7 with 32mb ram. It runs anything I throw at it without even a grunt tbh. Usually that's involving a lot of Omnisphere and Kontakt stuff, plus umpteen other things. Which is a relief, cos that was the point

poopot

Mid 2015 iMac… 66 instrument tracks and counting… most with plugins on… only gets to about 30%

But… this is since I’ve switched to an external TB ssd for the boot disk. It seems to be happier and a lot faster!

spark240

poopot said:

Mid 2015 iMac… 66 instrument tracks and counting… most with plugins on… only gets to about 30%

But… this is since I’ve switched to an external TB ssd for the boot disk. It seems to be happier and a lot faster!

Do you think Logic being Apple handles this a bit better than say Studio One ?

poopot

spark240 said:

poopot said:

Mid 2015 iMac… 66 instrument tracks and counting… most with plugins on… only gets to about 30%

But… this is since I’ve switched to an external TB ssd for the boot disk. It seems to be happier and a lot faster!

Do you think Logic being Apple handles this a bit better than say Studio One ?

That is a possibility… 3rd party plugins tend to slow things up compared to apples own AU ones in logic…

the main thing that seems to make it fall over is midi tracks… if you have a software instrument or midi track logic is always listening, always recording infact even if your just noodeling…
I tend to get the midi stuff done and bounced ASAP…

Bezzer

poopot said:

Mid 2015 iMac… 66 instrument tracks and counting… most with plugins on… only gets to about 30%

But… this is since I’ve switched to an external TB ssd for the boot disk. It seems to be happier and a lot faster!

Call that a "project"?  Bloody amateur ...  

From what I've seen, rather than "how many plugins can an M1 run" a better "how many plugins will run on an M1"

poopot

Bezzer said:

poopot said:

Mid 2015 iMac… 66 instrument tracks and counting… most with plugins on… only gets to about 30%

But… this is since I’ve switched to an external TB ssd for the boot disk. It seems to be happier and a lot faster!

Call that a "project"?  Bloody amateur ...  

From what I've seen, rather than "how many plugins can an M1 run" a better "how many plugins will run on an M1"

And that why mine went back to apple the same day I got it