Hi, my old 2012 Mac mini is starting to get tired, Gig Performer 4 overall runs great but the Mac crashes occasionally. So I’m ready to jump up to a new Mac Mini, of course the M1 is tempting. When Gig Performer 4 was first announced, I remember reading somewhere (I thought on the main announcement website) that it was native M1 compatible and ready to go… looking around now, I can’t see any information or chatter about running GP4 on the M1… no ones seems to be discussing problems or issues (which is good) but no one seems to be discussing it working either… any feedback on this? Am I better staying with the Intel Mac for now?
And while I’m on that subject, just a quick side question… I’m not a ‘Mac’ or ‘Windows’ loyalist, I would consider a Windows workhorse if GP4 works reliably on that… any opinions on that appreciated as well.
Thanks
Regards
Lou
Yes, GP4 runs natively on Mac M1. I don’t have one, but there have been forum posts from users running it. The issues people have are not with GP, but with the plugins they are using that are not M1 compatible. AU versions of the plugins seem to be the exception, which will work.
See here for more info:
https://gigperformer.com/gig-performer-4-cant-find-or-use-plugins-on-the-new-mac-m1-processor/
This works because Apple automatically invokes Rosetta if you try to load an Intel AU plugin - presumably they did this so that their hosts would continue to work on an M1 with existing plugins.
I wish they would have done this for VSTs and VST3 as well.
While reading this post, I was wondering: what is exactly the difference between a AU, VST en VST3?
I know AU is only for OSX, but is there a difference in how the plug-ins are working?
Current m1 processor limited to 16gig which may not be enough unless your plugins work w predictive loading. A new upgraded m1 processor that can more ram is rumored.
I have a MacBookPro with M1. GigP v 3 works perfectly in Rosetta mode.
I had a gig recently, 0 issues.
I will use GigP v 4 asap
Since all plugins are still Intel mode I guess I will need to use GigP in Intel mode again.
But I am not worried: v3 was perfect
Hi Furio,
please provide a bit more details related your set-up / plugins.
I have on old Mac with 8GB with some CPU heavy plugins (Synth / B3) and would like to understand if 16 GB are ok or if it would be better to wait for the next version of M1 with more GB.
It would be also usefull to have some info about your pre M1 system and the improvements you get with M1 (CPU load)
CPU heavy is different than RAM heavy. Getting more RAM won’t help with a plugin that just requires more cpu cycles.
of course … sorry for being a bit sketchy …
The question is: How performs a M1 with 16 GB compared to a 5 year old mac with only 8GB RAM related to CPU heavy plugins as well as related to RAM needs for sample based plugins.
I would expect that for the usual usage the 16 GB are sufficient but the CPU load may be the limiting area as long as you have the one core limit.
Yeah, don’t get too hung up on that…multiple cores are not a panacea, because of dependencies. Unless one is trying to do something really crazy, this is more of a theoretical issue than a practical one.
Besides, you can always create multiple GP instances.
Like I did yesterday for my in ear mix,
Used a 2nd instance, was working wonderful.
I am using a MacBook pro M1 with 16 giga Ram and 2 Tera SSD. Very expensive.
Two weeks ago I had a gig with 25 songs, out of a list of 60. We are a cover band playing Costello, Clash, Joe Jackson and similar.
I used extensively Kontakt for pianos, IK Hammond B3X, Lounge Lizard Rhodes.
U-he Repro 1 and 5 for synths, but also Arturia Pigments such as Arturia Mellotron. IK Sampletank for a CP70.
Absolutely no problem. Using Rosetta because all plugins are not yet M1 based.
I never had an issue, if a plug-in is detected by GigP it is perfectly usable.
Two exceptions: MassiveX and Iris2 which are not working at all.
But this is happening with Reaper or LogicPro too, it is not a GigP issue.
I am coming from an infamous windows i7 gaming notebook where I had huge problems with audio performance. So I cannot help you with previous Mac performance.
I can only report that trying to play same concert using Mainstage was a nightmare because of memory management.
With GigP I don’t care at anything but designing my sounds and play.
I used version 3 because I didn’t want to test things just before the gig.
During next weeks I will test everything with version 4
I must add that session file was with all 60 songs. I didn’t delete anything just in case some last minute changes. I didn’t need to use preload feature.
I used 2 midi controllers (Studiologic SL73 and Native Kontrol S 61 mkII) with Audient Evo8 as audio board.
I am feeling quite comfortable with this new setup.
Thanks for the detailed feedback … very useful…
As I’m using more or less the same plugins (IK / uhe / Arturia…) it looks like the M1 would be a good replacement for my old MacBook.
And yes … they are very expensive! So I may need to live with my old Mac for some time.
Important update after using my files with GigP v4.
GigP is now fully M1 compliant and distributed as universal application.
If I open GigP v4 as M1 native I have a big surprise: all vst or vst3 not native don’t work.
Plug in manager sets them as inactive.
But all AU versions work perfectly.
This happens for all Arturia and Native plugins, for example.
If I tell to MacOS to open GigP v4 as Intel mode (using Rosetta) all vst work again.
If plugins are M1 native (Pianoteq and U-he) vst or vst3 work well.
So I switched GigP to Intel mode to reuse my old gig files.
Is something logical?
Do other guys here see this effect?
This is well know and we published a blog article about it two months ago
https://gigperformer.com/gig-performer-4-cant-find-or-use-plugins-on-the-new-mac-m1-processor/
Oh… Sorry I was not careful enough to check on blog. Yes, everything is as described there.
Not a big issue, because GigP v4 works well with my existing gig files in Rosetta mode…
We refer to that link right at the beginning of the thread.
It is very frustrating that Apple choose to automatically run Rosetta for AU plugins but not for VST plugins. Obviously they did that so that their M1 versions of Logic and MainStage would keep working but it was kinda of a sleazy move to not consider that there are other DAWs in the universe, IMO
I am not surprised.
Apple moves always thinking to be master of their system and neglecting other players or file systems.
When I received an iPod as gift 18 years ago and discovered it couldn’t play my huge collection of FLAC files, I uninstalled iTunes and promised to avoid any Apple hardware purchase.
I had to change opinion one year ago after battling with an expensive windows notebook, incredibly powerful but completely unable to produce serious audio.
Now after some months I can say that an M1 MacBookPro has an incredible power for music production, using Rosetta or with native code.
Every plugin producer supplies an AU version together with VST.
So using GigP in native code or with Rosetta allows perfect live execution of all plugins.
This means that OS is incredibly robust for this purpose.
I blame Apple for being not open, but they did a masterpiece with new processors and translation layer software.
We can easily survive waiting all developers turning to M1 native code.