New MACs on ARM CPU's - Pianoteq on IOS

I'm not sure the move from Intel to ARM will be without some headaches (remember the Motorola to Intel transition...) Personally, I will certainly not hurry...
But sure I'm not in the "I want the last Mac. Now." category ;-)
I'll keep my Airbook for a while, alongside my "other Intel" (Windows) machines.

Well if pianoteq runs on Big Sur (and I’m pretty sure it does from posts on gearslutz) then it will run on the new macs - how well is the question.

That is indeed the question.

I’m also very curious to see what Modartt’s plans are regarding its long-term plans for the Mac platform. Rosetta 2 will work for a couple of years I would guess, but beyond that Modartt would need to have an Apple Silicon version to stay on the Mac platform. Since the Linux/ARM version of Pianoteq is already available, Modartt should be able to ship an ARM-based version of Pianoteq on short notice.

The Scoring Notes blog recently had a post about how some scoring software will make the change, and mentioned that applications using QT won’t be ready to transition to Apple native until next year:

“For instance, it does not appear that Qt, the cross-platform application framework upon which Sibelius, Dorico, and Musescore are dependent, will be updated to natively support M1 until later in 2021, which means these products will likely be running under Rosetta on M1-powered Macs for a good while to come. (When an application is released with both native Intel and Apple Silicon support, it will be packaged as a “Universal 2 Binary”.)”

IIRC, Pianoteq has been written using the JUCE framework since version 3. I haven’t seen any word of how JUCE will handle the Intel to Apple Silicon transition, but the Audio Developers Conference (put on by JUCE) is next week, so hopefully more information will become available soon.

Philippe/Julien: are you ready to share any details of your plans for the Mac transition to Apple Silicon?

Great to hear! I couldn't have hoped for better response. (I'm about to order a new M1 Macbook air).

Very much looking forward to arm64. Keep up the good work.

This would be great. I use an iPad for all my sheet music and chord charts. If I could simultaneously run Pianoteq there as well, that would be perfect.

Does this mean we'd be able to install PTQ7 on iPad Pro?

Of course the new mini is going to be more than sufficient! I am still using a 2012 quad core mini, and is's still keeping up with PT7 (even at 96KHz, if I keep polyphony down to 96 and buffer to 192). BTW, I am thinking of getting the new mini too, and will definitely order it with 16gb of ram...because it cannot be upgraded later.

Agreed Burakim!  I bought a Mac Mini and ended up sending it back a couple of days ago due to incompatibility issues.  Such a shame as it's a lovely piece of kit.  I'll possibly dip my toes again in a few months when other companies have had a chance to try and get to grips with it.

In my case, I had issues with Logitech mouse and keyboard which I could have got around by purchasing Apple M&K but most critical was my Focusrite 18i20 which wouldn't work on the M1 chip (it's fine under Big Sur, it's the silicon that's the issue).  For those who also own Focusrite audio interfaces, this was the note that the company put out a few days ago:

Update: 24th November 2020

At time of writing Focusrite products are not supported on Apple Silicon-based Mac systems as we are aware of some issues.

Once we have completed verification of the compatibility status of our current products we will update this article, until then we would recommend against relying on using such a system in conjunction with your Focusrite product.

I have only owned my Focusrite 18i20 for a few months so have no clue about their longer term abilities wrt to driver updates etc. To be fair, it appeared that the Mac Mini could see/recognise the Focusrite, I could clearly see it's entry under the USB connections.  It was just the Focusrite Control software told me there was no equipment connected.  Frankly, I have no idea whether it was Big Sur or the new silicon which didn't want to play.

I called Apple tech to try and troubleshoot it but the response was I should have checked all my equipment/software for compatibility conformity before purchase.  Luckily, their returns policy is first class but as I said previously I may have another go a few months' down the line when Logitech and Focusrite have had a chance to look at the M1/Big Sur combos.

PT7 loaded under Rosetta 2 just fine.

BTW - any idea whether MOTO driver support is any better?  I have a MOTU M4 sitting around that I could use at a push.

Thanks Luc.  Much appreciated.