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Hi guys,

I have been using Garritan CFX grand on my old imac for a while now and really like it. I am, however, considering purchasing an M1 mac and was wondering how (or indeed if) CFX runs on them? I have googled it, but really cannot find a clear, up to date, and definitive answer as of 08/03/22. I am guessing this means it probably is not native yet, but does anyone know if it runs via rosetta?


As an aside, if it does not run on M1 machines, what are some good alternatives that do?

Thank you for your help!

There are a couple of threads worth reading here:
http://forum.pianoworld.com/ubbthreads.php/topics/3198459/1.html
http://forum.pianoworld.com/ubbthre...-trouble-free-garritan-cfx-computer.html

Tl;dr: It's definitely possible, and pretty easy to get a flawless Garritan CFX solution running on an M1 Mac. I have one on an 8/256GB Mac Mini.

My update as of March 8, 2022 is NOT to install the Apple Silicon Aria Engine 2.01 update if you have Aria Player installed and are experiencing a note-off bug with the sustain pedal down (as that bug "infected" my CFX install until I re-applied an older CFX update).

I have Garritan CFX Abbey Road and a Mac Mini M1 16/512GB.

The program hasn't been updated to the M1 architecture yet but runs perfectly in Intel mode under Rosetta.

It runs in standalone and as a AU in Logic flawlessly.

Even if it is running in Intel mode the CPU barely works. These new Apple silicon are excessively powerful and....completely ***silent***.

I haven't heard the fan on my Mac Mini M1 yet. It feels like running my programs on an iPad.

Yep, Apple silicon is extremely impressive.

The recently announced Mac Studio models look great, and will surely be crazy powerful.

I'm still happy with entry-level my M1 MacBook Air, though - fantastic little laptop.

Cheers,
James
x

The point about it running silently cannot be overstated IMO.

I play 4-6am in the morning, essentially in the dead hours while the entire house is asleep. I can hear my daughter's rock/gem tumbler running in the garage at the other end of the house. I can hear when the LED drivers in the ceiling lights above the piano exhibit electrical whine. I can hear the hot water heater in the kitchen start to boil. But I have never, ever heard the Mac make a peep. No fan, no clicks, no hum...it's as Jupiter16 says, completed, dead, silent. For a VST machine mounted on a DP, that's such a huge boon.

Sounds spooky. It’s amazing how quiet the world is when you remove the ambient noise of daytime activity.

Apple makes great products and their M1 strategy is brilliant. I have a Mac Mini streaming Tidal and Qobuz under Roon and I have never heard the Mini except for its little chime when it boots. At some point, I’ll upgrade the Mini to a newer Mini, which is even better for streaming, from what people have said.

Jupiter16, what buffer size do you use? I can set it to 32 on my MacBook Pro 2015 2.8Ghz but there are little glitches from time to time.

Sorry to go slightly off topic, but I have a question for the VST players who use Macs.

Unfortunately, though the screen reader VoiceOver is built into the Mac's operating system, it can be very buggy and the over all experience is not good, compared with that on iOS and iPad OS. So if Mac is really as good as you say, for me, the only way to make it work is to run Windows on Mac.

In this scenario, how would you judge the experience of, especially, M1 Macs?

Note: my Dell is still up and running 3 years in, and so I have no intention of upgrading anytime soon. But like I said, I feel Mac is a power that I will need to look into should I ever be in the market for a new laptop a few years down the line.

Thanks!

I think the Mac advantage is at least as much due to software and full stack vertical integration, compared to just hardware. I don't know if you even can run windows (do they still support Boot Camp? Parallels? Fusion?) on the M1s, I've not done soon for years.

It's really too bad hearing about the issues with Voice Over, I recall Tim Cook reality touring the focus the company put oh accessibility.

When it comes to VSTs, I've always taken the view that it just needs to reach a level of "good enough". That is, low latency, no artifacts. After that, there's no real benefit of your focus is just to play. It's not like an gaming rig where you can always be chasing another 20-50fps with the newest upgrade.

Agreed.

You can buy Parallels to run Windows on a Mac. But I would not recommend it for you David particularly given vision challenges; please spend your time focusing on music.

I ran virtual machines for years. Virtual machine can get time consuming and expensive as updating schedule is on "their" time.

Performance may seem to vary from week to week from Mac updates, Windows updates, VM updates. Eventually, the VM software may get updated for the glitches, but not forever. Although your laptop might be good for well over 5 years, don't assume good VM support will continue for so much time.

Disclosure: Both me and family members worked for a large VM developer.

I use a M1 macbook and its fantastic as a vst & music software machine.
- silent
- runs my preferred piano vst (natively with the newest Kontakt)
- supports 2 webcams, I use 2 cams for my online piano lessons
- runs most iPad software, there are loads of great iPad music apps

For me, its a big unexpected surprise to want to run iPad and mac software together at the same time on one machine. M1 mac makes this possible.

M1 mac does NOT run Windows at this time, at least not in any easy or well supported way. Windows for ARM might be supported on M1 mac in the furture but this is not certain.
I have no experience with voice over.