Apple M1 Chip MacBook and SD3 latency

[marksil1]

Sorry for a total noob question but I have not seen much on here about the new Apple M1 chip laptops. I am a new SD3 user using a Roland TD-50 to trigger SD# residing on a new MacBook. The latency is so bad as to make it unplayable. I have no doubts that I just need to adjust settings on either the laptop and/or the TD-50 to remedy this, but I cannot find a good source of information about what to set, where to find the setting, and what actual numbers to try with the latest Roland driver for the M1 laptops.

If someone could either tell me this information or point me in the right direction it would be much appreciated.

Thanks!

Mark

Superior Drummer 3 version: 3.2.4
Operating system: macOS Big Sur (11)

Topic

[pumpkinking]

I know this is not exactly your question, but hopefully a usable datapoint.  I am using SD3 with a mac mini with the M1 chip and my audio device is the headphone jack – the reported latencies are: “Output latency: 4.2 ms” and “Buffer latency: 5.8 ms”.  These latencies are good for me.  When I tried to use bluetooth it was awful.

Are you using the headphone jack on your laptop?

Thanks, Joe

Superior Drummer 3 version: 3.2.4
Operating system: macOS Big Sur (11)

[marksil1]

I was using the headphone jack on the TD-50. That is a good idea though. I will try doing that and see how it goes.

Superior Drummer 3 version: 3.2.4
Operating system: macOS Big Sur (11)

[Jonathan Neville]

One thing that would help out a lot is if Toontrack would make M1 versions of their software.  After spending all this money on Toontrack, they completely ignore the fact everyone is quickly migrating to ARM.  I don’t think they realize all PCs will be moving to ARM, even intel machines, in the future.  All Macs are now arm only.

Other companies such as Reaper FM are being proactive and allowing people to beta test ARM versions of their applications…

 

BTW – don’t forget to go into your audio settings and set your buffer to 64 samples.  Other companies allow as little as 16 samples.  For some reason, Toontrack will only allow you to go down to 64 samples.

1

Thanked by: Mauricio Leyzaola Guerrero

[John]

Jonathan Neville wrote:

One thing that would help out a lot is if Toontrack would make M1 versions of their software.  After spending all this money on Toontrack, they completely ignore the fact everyone is quickly migrating to ARM.

Hi, it’s an ongoing process. At the moment EZkeys and EZmix 2 are M1 Silicon Native. Other products will follow as soon as possible.

BR,
John

John Rammelt - Toontrack
Technical Advisor

2

Thanked by: Mauricio Leyzaola Guerrero and kingmissile

[Jonathan Neville]

Thanks for the update!  Can’t wait to get a hold of an M1 version and will definitely buy some upgrades to go along with a native version.

[Mauricio Leyzaola Guerrero]

Do you guys have a roadmap or estimate when this is going to happen? I just sold my intel mac, acquired a m1 mac-mini just to play music and latency is noticeable. I wouldn’t mind to pay for the upgrade, if it is a real native application for arm mac.

SD3 is great in sounds, but weak in Mac OS integration. Not even CMD+, opens the preferences.

[Brad]

Mauricio Leyzaola Guerrero wrote:

Do you guys have a roadmap or estimate when this is going to happen? I just sold my intel mac, acquired a m1 mac-mini just to play music and latency is noticeable. I wouldn’t mind to pay for the upgrade, if it is a real native application for arm mac.

SD3 is great in sounds, but weak in Mac OS integration. Not even CMD+, opens the preferences.

Superior Drummer 3 has been native Apple Silicon since 2021-09-07. What interface are you using? What are the buffer settings?

Superior Drummer 3 version: 3.3.3
Operating system: macOS Monterey (12)

Mac Studio M1 Max, RAM 64 GB, 1TB Drive, OSX 12.x/13.x and Windows 10 (VM)
DAW: Studio One Pro (always up to date)
DTX Express III (Extreme triggers), Nektar LX88
OWC Thunderbay Mini (4 X 1TB Sata SSD), Express 4M2 (4 X 2TB M.2 SSD), Envoy Express (1TB M.2 SSD)
Presonus Quantum, Faderport & Faderport 8
Black Lion Sparrow Mk2 A/D, FMR-RNP-RNC, MIDI Xpress 128, BM5A, KRK VXT4, Equator D5
2020 Macbook Pro 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD Audio(mobile rig)

• The post has been modified 2 times, last modified 2 years, 9 months ago by Brad.

[Tian_4]

I’ve been struggling with this for months where I was stuck on 512 buffer size with an RME Babyface and Macbook 16″ M1 Pro. Using Studio One I could see that SD3 was causing weird CPU Spikes that made crackling sounds, but in general was low in CPU Usage.

Just out of luck I tinkered a bit in the SD3 Performance settings and set the CPU Cores to 1 instead of 4 that I had it set to earlier and that solved the issues I had. Now I can comfortably play on 32 buffer with no issues at all, not even nearing 20% cpu in spikes.

Hopefully this can be of use for someone else with the Mac Silicon and SD3 🙂

2

Thanked by: log0ut and gregtoon

[gregtoon]

Tian_4 wrote:

I’ve been struggling with this for months where I was stuck on 512 buffer size with an RME Babyface and Macbook 16″ M1 Pro. Using Studio One I could see that SD3 was causing weird CPU Spikes that made crackling sounds, but in general was low in CPU Usage.

Just out of luck I tinkered a bit in the SD3 Performance settings and set the CPU Cores to 1 instead of 4 that I had it set to earlier and that solved the issues I had. Now I can comfortably play on 32 buffer with no issues at all, not even nearing 20% cpu in spikes.

Hopefully this can be of use for someone else with the Mac Silicon and SD3 🙂

This has also solved my crackling problem on 2021 MBP M1. I can go as low as I want on the buffer and no issues at all. Before, I’d even have issues at 512 bytes.

Thanks!

Superior Drummer 3 version: 3.3.7
Operating system: macOS Sequoia (15)

[Author]

Replies