Terrible performance on M1 Pro 16 inch Macbook Pro

I’m a maintainer on surge with an M1. If I would be willing to hop into on discord or github and share the logic file i would be happy to try and see where surges time is going.

we are tracking an issue that one of our effects (combulator) has sluggish performance on the M1 max but haven’t experienced things like what you’ve reported, so would be useful.

I have also had these issues with midi files in Ableton Live 11 using some instruments accesses through Kontakt.

I have worked with the Kontakt beta team which has updated Kontakt for M1 compatibility, but there are still some issues especially when some instruments have deeper articulations and complexities than your standard, run of the mill instrument vsts.

This is with MacBook Pro 16, M1 Pro 16GB, 10 cores, Monterey.

Glad to hear you’re having better results with 10.5.1. Currently, I downgraded to 10.6.1 and it’s working perfectly!!! I have a couple plugins that aren’t recognized by the downgrade, but it’s a couple I can live without :)

1. I heard there’s a way to empty cache/plist and rescan to see if Logic will recognize those plugins it’s saying it can’t find, but I’m hesitant to do that and mess something up.
2. its UNBELIEVABLE how absent Apple is with fixing Logic Pro x issues. This isn’t even just in regards to the M1 models, but 10.7 overall. Since they went to 10.7, latency amongst midi and audio has increased in tracking times. I used to be able to do anything I wanted without tracking in low-latency mode (which sucks because it changes the sounds/disables plugins/changes volume levels of mix). so clearly when they updated from 10.6.1 to 10.6.2-3 to 10.7…..they messed something up in how Logic Pro functions and processes plugins. It’s such a shame because I always promote Logic and push it to anyone I know, but I’m embarrassed to do that now!!!

Hi

as I reported earlier I got surge working in the examole shared here by killing the registrar and rescanning the plugins. I have a half baked theory that upgrading from intel only to universal without a registrar kill and rescan is confusing the plugin subsystem but I’m just a plugin dev not an Apple core person.

but it doesn’t hurt to try killing the registrar nuking the plugin cache and restarting logic I guess.

pro max 14” 6tb, 64gb, two thunderbolt 2 displays, logic 10.7.3, Monterrey, focusrite clarett 8+pre paired via ADAT, one main one standalone. Mic’s up to 10 drum mics, two guitars, one direct bass amp, and a vocal channel. After I set a template to default to 48k, for recording, and no more issues, save for “no hardware connected in the focusrite control. Software. No longer running anything in Rosetta (logic) and my plugins are amplitube5 biasfx2, rhino and a host of other IK stuff. Synths, and drum kits. No more slow to wake, or delayed starts, no more cracks & pops

I updated macOS to 12.3 and logic to 10.7.3 the other night. I was able to poke around in a few sessions and although there were a few small hiccups it felt WAY better. Still not 100% sure though. I decided to open Bille Elish "ocean eyes" seeing as that's something apple allows us all to download totally for free and at least we'll all be using the same exact audio files/synth layers ect AND it's all stock plug ins which also massively reduces the amount of variables which would probably help the apple engineers testing this a lot.

When I opened it at first it was starting and stopping without me hitting play or pause as if a ghost was hitting the space bar at random but after I had it open for a bit it seemed to smooth out and from there I didn't have issues. I reduced the sample rate to the lowest it could go and recorded myself singing a dumb little harmony to see how that would work and even that went fine. Throughout this test I never once got the cpu overload message just that strange behavior when I first opened it and then it went away. If anyone else can download that ocean eyes session we could make some meaningful comparisons between machines with a really solid "Control" template if you will.

Just to reiterate I have the M1 16" Max and my interface is persons studio 192. I also use premiere pro constantly and haven't experienced anywhere close to the kinds of issues I have in logic if that helps understand things at all.

Here's to hoping I can get better results when I do further tests.

I'm seemingly one of the few people that had 99% of issues solved with 10.7.3 and 12.3.

Other than my Surge-XT issue, which is fixed when I run native instead of Rosetta 2, my issues are gone.

I'm not sure why the inconsistencies still persist at this point.

System specs:

M1 Max 64 GB 1TB internal, 4TB sandisk Extreme Pro V2 connected via USB-C.

Native Instruments Komplete Audio6 MK2 + Komplete Audio 2 interfaces connected via Anker PowerExpand hub.

Native Instruments Komplete Kontrol S61 MK2 keyboard on same hub.

1080P generic webcam also on same hub.

Machine is on ethernet not WiFi, and is connected to the 96W Magsafe charger.

Running Logic under Rosetta 2 for Komplete Kontrol sake, for now.

I can switch to multiple Chrome tabs, run VLC or Cog for media playback, watch youtube via the Airplay receive function from my phone, no glitches, pops anything. All gone.

"Problems starts when I use imessages, finder, safari, spotify etc. No problems att all when not using other applications."

Ah, that's interesting. I should test specifically with nothing else running—I'm not certain I ever did that (though I likely did). It's extremely rare for me to have only Logic running, to be honest, but it would be a reasonable workaround. (It would also again suggest that it's a system level issue.)

hmm, you seem to be on to something - ive been delaying my visit to the Apple store to replace my MBP M1 Max 16" because since changing to these settings running in native mode (while still running rosetta plugins) I've not been able to get my machine to have any issues - which I have been having for over 6 months now - it would seem the 'Small' setting on Process buffer range has had the most effect?

I did find a solution to my situation. When bounce WAV files out, using the highest quality setting seems to clear up any "blippy" type of sound skips or doubles.

Apparently size matters. Logic has been working just great after changing the processing buffer size/range.

FWIW I'm kind of doing OK on my 14" M1, after some "growing pains" with my MOTU Ultralite 4 interface. I run Logic native (not Rosetta), with Spectrasonics, Arturia, Waves, Native Instruments plugs. One thing that was driving me nuts that I eventually tracked down was that one processor would spike to 100% from time to time using Native Instruments Kontakt and the Giant piano library. But this only happens if that track is the "active" track; I assume it's buffering like **** in case I decide to punch in and play. If I select a more neutral track, say a Logic instrument, it goes away. Performance isn't quite what I'd hoped, but processors hitting something like 40% (sometimes 15% on average), and I'm running my buffer at 128; can't play in on anything more than that, to me. SO, it's "possible", and my feeling is it really shouldn't work this well yet, since among other things, Native Instruments hasn't updated their stuff to M1 yet. I assume that this issue with the one spiking core when using NI Kontakt will likely be resolved when everything is recoded for M1...

I have the same problems thought it was just me and have contacted plug in companies direct. Am having rubbish cpu performance and terrible cpu spikes and loud pops and cracks. I have been running in non Rosetta mode. My friend have said running in Rosetta mode solves a lot of the problems. I will be trying this but defeats the object of m1.

I hope apple get to hear about this and get a fix for this soon.

I’ll throw my hat in the ring - 13” M1 MBP 16GB. Antelope Zen interface (has its own host of issues we won’t go into today…).

I migrated from a Pro Tools HD rig to this laptop and had such impressive initial performance that I packed up the tower and rack units and put the old system up for sale. Now, I feel like I’m trying to work on a ten-year-old laptop; constant popping issues, dropouts, MIDI problems, plug-in issues, crashes, “quit unexpectedly”, etc. I can no longer use my hardware process (Logic mix out through my hardware EQ/comp/summing mixer) without first bouncing the session offline, because it’ll click and pop into my stereo out and render a mix unusable. I am constantly cycling the buffer size and basically living at 1024 unless I need to, you know, actually track anything with minimal effects - which initially wasn’t an issue at all.

Today’s new fun thing is I can’t load Logic with more than one MIDI device connected, so my Prophet and my Novation controller can’t be active at the same time. Logic won’t even load in any of the safe modes until I disconnect one.

I did bump to 10.7.2 but am still in Big Sur, having read many warnings about a Monterey move right now. Though with Logic performing this way, I might just try it.

I‘ve spent a LOT of time observing CPU core behavior and trying variations (day job as software QA analyst helps here!) and have no findings on cause yet. I do observe that it’s typically one core peaking out almost immediately, and some cores report zero usage, and it’s not consistent across plug-in types or manufacturers. There’s also another issue with bus latency compensation where I can’t use my usual, say, reverb and delay send structure because the output of those busses is significantly delayed - and I have cycled and reset the delay compensation.

Apologies for the vent without much in the way of solution - but as an audio professional with decades in the DAW space, something is really really wonky.

Just chiming in to say that Logic is essentially unusable on my 2021 M1 maxed spec 16" MBP. Like others it pops and cracks, randomly crashes, doesn't like to communicate with the audio interface and one of my MIDI controllers. It doesn't matter if I run it in native mode or Rosetta, and use only Apple M1 native plugins or 3rd party plugins. I know it's Logic too, because I don't have these problems when I run stand alone versions of other apps. I hope Apple fixes this soon because this computer was an unholy level of expensive, and it's really quite unacceptable that a flagship program like Logic should perform so poorly.