Pro Tools 2023.3 Released - Full Apple Silicon Enabled

[sdelsolray]

Avid has released Pro Tools version 2023.3 which now runs natively on Apple Silicon CPUs.

[jim1960]

Now I have to make some decisions. Mac Studio, here I come!

[DupleMeter]

I saw that while I was at the studio & installed it on the Mac Studio there. It screams. Very impressive speed boost.

Now plugin manufacturers need to catch up & release SoC native plugins.

[sdelsolray]

Originally Posted by DupleMeter

I saw that while I was at the studio & installed it on the Mac Studio there. It screams. Very impressive speed boost.

Now plugin manufacturers need to catch up & release SoC native plugins.

Many plugin developers have already released SoC .aax native plugins. The remainder of those that are doing this should be available shortly.

[Joseph Hanna]

I'm running a Mac Studio and the upgrade seems to be very solid, the jitter is thankfully gone and it's rocket fast. Knock on wood this seems to be a solid advancement.

[Joseph Hanna]

Yikes....hold off. ****e's way wacky. Dunno what's wrong but something is waaaaaay wrong. Stand by.

[jim1960]

Originally Posted by Joseph Hanna

Yikes....hold off. ****e's way wacky. Dunno what's wrong but something is waaaaaay wrong. Stand by.

Over at the DUC, people are reporting grid issues. That should be an easy fix in the next update. Are you seeing more than that?

[KevWind]

Humm ? Think I will download it, but standby for installation

Given my studio machine is a late intel iMac don't think it will make much difference for me

I do have a MBP M1 Pro laptop but just haven't done much audio work on it.

(or video for that matter) I don't have an external display to use with it and it is just so not fun , to try to work on a 14" screen, being used to 54" of screen real estate .....ah yes 1st world issues

One guy on DUC also reporting ADC issues in 2023.3 but not in 2022.12 beta (same session)

[Joseph Hanna]

Sorry for the short bulletin last night. I had a work emergency and just wanted to get this out there so those that may want to hold off, can. Almost all plug-ins develop a strange distortion and if left open long enough, it builds into what I'd describe as clock problems. A rhythmic, repetitive distortion. That's with no audio present. There are some plug-ins that appear to work. I run Studio One without Rosetta and it's workin' fine.

I did all the usual quick-fix stuff but no luck. I'll uninstall and re-install today and report back ASAP. Also, I wanted to add that Pro Tools will not open in Rosetta. So, at least for me, there's no safety net.

[Joseph Hanna]

Ok, I found the culprit(s). More my fault than anything else. On the way off chance that someone finds themselves in the same boat here's the scoop. Normal Pro Tools updates leave the i/o section and the peripheral sections untouched. I believe that was the case on my first install of 2023.3. On the second install, the peripheral setup was wiped out. So one of my midi devices (the Faderport) was sending out midi data that Pro Tools didn't know how to handle. Softsynths would just get this barrage of midi data and that turned into distorted, regurgitating noise, and ultimately into feedback. I merely had to rebuild the peripheral section and everything got rock solid.

There are however some plug-ins that are not recognized in the native silicon version. Sound Toys Echo Boy is one of them.

The other snag was in booting in the Rosetta mode Pro Tools crashed hard on a pair of plug-ins I demoed over a year ago. Why the new Pro Tools version was so intent on crashing when scanning old unused plug-ins, I have no idea but it was merely a case of hunting down all of the tentacles of those plug-ins and deleting them.

Other than some missing plug-ins it really is blazingly fast and an encouraging step forward.

[jim1960]

Originally Posted by Joseph Hanna

Ok, I found the culprit(s). More my fault than anything else.

I'm glad you figured it out.

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by Joseph Hanna

Ok, I found the culprit(s). More my fault than anything else. On the way off chance that someone finds themselves in the same boat here's the scoop. Normal Pro Tools updates leave the i/o section and the peripheral sections untouched. I believe that was the case on my first install of 2023.3. On the second install, the peripheral setup was wiped out. So one of my midi devices (the Faderport) was sending out midi data that Pro Tools didn't know how to handle. Softsynths would just get this barrage of midi data and that turned into distorted, regurgitating noise, and ultimately into feedback. I merely had to rebuild the peripheral section and everything got rock solid.

There are however some plug-ins that are not recognized in the native silicon version. Sound Toys Echo Boy is one of them.

The other snag was in booting in the Rosetta mode Pro Tools crashed hard on a pair of plug-ins I demoed over a year ago. Why the new Pro Tools version was so intent on crashing when scanning old unused plug-ins, I have no idea but it was merely a case of hunting down all of the tentacles of those plug-ins and deleting them.

Other than some missing plug-ins it really is blazingly fast and an encouraging step forward.

That is good to know, I guess I will try installing at least on my M1 MBP

And speaking of Apple silicon I was playing around with comparing some video editing in Final Cut Pro X and did get some better rendering times with the M1 Pro machine over my Intel i7 iMac (but not as much as i thought I would) I am on OS 13.2.1 on both my machines

So on a music video & slideshow of one of my original songs, I have been including the lyrics Using the FCPX titles FX called "Far Far Away" Which is the FCPX scrolling text effect, that is like the Star Wars opening text effect ( "In a Galaxy Far Far Away")
And it is (Far and Away ) the most CPU intensive and slowest rendering FX, I have run into in FCPX.

So for one 4 word lyric line (with centering and spacing moves as well as the scrolling effect itself ) it took 10.01 minutes to render on my Intel machine
And took 8:41 minutes on the M1 Pro machine which is approx. a 26% improvement (--I admit I hoping for more like 50% )
NOW it could be that if I did the entire song and then rendered that % might go up ???? I will doing that today and will input the all the rest of the lyrics and then render and see what the relative time difference is , and report back

[KevWind]

Although I imagine the Pro's here already know this for any of us home types
using Pro Tools and are wondering about the whole " Native silicon and Rosetta thingy .
And given the number of panicked posts over on the DUC about plugins not working in 2023.3

I thought this post from the DUC (about PT 2023.3) was pretty simple clear and concise


"Ok, let's explain Apple Silicon again: M1 / M2 processors are different animals than Intel processors. Apple Silicon processors (M1/M2) need arm64 coded software to run natively on the processor. However, you CAN run x64 (intel coded) software on M1/M2 processors, with Apple's Rosseta2.

Well Pro Tools 2022.12 was the first version that could run natively on Apple Silicon processors, however it loads with Rosetta2 by default. When opened with Rosetta2, Pro Tools scans all your x64 (Intel) coded plugins.

With the launch of Pro Tools 2023.3 , Pro Tools opens as Silicon native app, and it won't scan / can't use Intel coded x64 plugins. If you still have a lot of intel-coded plugins, go to your Mac's App folder, right click on the Pro Tools app, click 'show info' and check the 'Open with Rosetta' box."


My quandary now is I would like to try it on my M1Pro MBP (But Not yet on my Intel iMac) which means I will have to run it off the MBP's internal Sound Card (Not my Avid Carbon interface) Given with the Carbon any new PT version will install new Carbon firmware and Carbon will only work on that PT Version.

[Joseph Hanna]

Originally Posted by KevWind

Although I imagine the Pro's here already know this for any of us home types
using Pro Tools and are wondering about the whole " Native silicon and Rosetta thingy .
And given the number of panicked posts over on the DUC about plugins not working in 2023.3

I thought this post from the DUC (about PT 2023.3) was pretty simple clear and concise


"Ok, let's explain Apple Silicon again: M1 / M2 processors are different animals than Intel processors. Apple Silicon processors (M1/M2) need arm64 coded software to run natively on the processor. However, you CAN run x64 (intel coded) software on M1/M2 processors, with Apple's Rosseta2.

Well Pro Tools 2022.12 was the first version that could run natively on Apple Silicon processors, however it loads with Rosetta2 by default. When opened with Rosetta2, Pro Tools scans all your x64 (Intel) coded plugins.

With the launch of Pro Tools 2023.3 , Pro Tools opens as Silicon native app, and it won't scan / can't use Intel coded x64 plugins. If you still have a lot of intel-coded plugins, go to your Mac's App folder, right click on the Pro Tools app, click 'show info' and check the 'Open with Rosetta' box."


My quandary now is I would like to try it on my M1Pro MBP (But Not yet on my Intel iMac) which means I will have to run it off the MBP's internal Sound Card (Not my Avid Carbon interface) Given with the Carbon any new PT version will install new Carbon firmware and Carbon will only work on that PT Version.

I dunno as there appears to be a fair amount of mystery and quite frankly, finger-pointing, goin' on surrounding silicon compatibility. I haven't done a full inventory of what plug-ins are not showing up in Pro Tools but there are certainly a number of them missing. Avid points the finger squarely at the plug-in developers but as an example, Sound Toys (Echo Boy) does show up in Studio One which is running a non-rosetta, full silicone version, but does not show up in the non-rosetta, full silicon version of Pro Tools.

That doesn't sound like a Sound Toys problem to me unless Studio One has some sort of internal wrapper that converts non-silicon plugins. Sounds like a Pro Tools problem to me.

I'm comfortable patiently waiting for things to be worked out but only because I have a fully compatible version of Studio One to fall back on. On the plus side, Pro Tools is running really well, fast as can be, and looks and feels great. I'd just be wary if one relies on certain plug-ins that are not yet compatible.

Kev, I don't do much video editing (some but not a great amount) but I do a ton of photo editing and my Topaz Labs and DXO PhotoLab applications are blazingly fast. Still makes me chuckle at just how fast the Mac Studio processes what was a rather slow process on my iMac.

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by Joseph Hanna

I dunno as there appears to be a fair amount of mystery and quite frankly, finger-pointing, goin' on surrounding silicon compatibility. I haven't done a full inventory of what plug-ins are not showing up in Pro Tools but there are certainly a number of them missing. Avid points the finger squarely at the plug-in developers but as an example, Sound Toys (Echo Boy) does show up in Studio One which is running a non-rosetta, full silicone version, but does not show up in the non-rosetta, full silicon version of Pro Tools.

That doesn't sound like a Sound Toys problem to me unless Studio One has some sort of internal wrapper that converts non-silicon plugins. Sounds like a Pro Tools problem to me.

I'm comfortable patiently waiting for things to be worked out but only because I have a fully compatible version of Studio One to fall back on. On the plus side, Pro Tools is running really well, fast as can be, and looks and feels great. I'd just be wary if one relies on certain plug-ins that are not yet compatible.

Kev, I don't do much video editing (some but not a great amount) but I do a ton of photo editing and my Topaz Labs and DXO PhotoLab applications are blazingly fast. Still makes me chuckle at just how fast the Mac Studio processes what was a rather slow process on my iMac.

Humm So I assume the silicon version of Sound Toys for Studio One is VST 3 I wonder if it is the AAX plugin format, that is the issue ? Question if you switch back to Rosetta in PT does Sound Toys show up ?

I have no doubt that certain applications are way fast on Apple silicon
Is your Mac Studio M1 Max or Ultra ?

And over all my M1 Pro MBP is noticeably faster on a number of things. BUT I was simply surprised it was not that much faster on that specific effect rendering in FCPX I am speculating that if I switch off "auto back ground rendering" in FCPX -- type in, space and position, the rest of songs lyrics that % of speed difference will increase .. over just line by line