How much RAM do I really need in a Mac for music production?

[Dr Huge Longjohns]

I just think there's way too many variables to calculate.

Really? Isn't this precisely the sort of data that computers excel at recording and analysing? I imagine plugin and software developers do this all the time, don't they? I don't imagine they just guess at how much RAM their programmes need!

Found this site where a chap is having a stab at trying to make this all a bit more scientific...https://www.learnhowtoproducemusic.com/blog-how-to-start-music-production/how-much-ram-memory-do-you-need-for-music-production

[Folderol]

I don't know the Apple architecture but the advice I was given way back was 'as much as you can afford'. Also, when doing anything time critical, shutdown everything that is not related to the task.

[Hugh Robjohns]

Some time ago, Brendan Gregg wrote a book called "Systems Performance: Enterprise and the Cloud" in which he scaled a CPU cycle up to 1 second and made a table of how long certain things took as a result.

Wow! That's a fascinating chart. Thanks Eddy. Puts things into a scary perspective... but shows how much room there still is for speeding up computer system technology.

[Dr Huge Longjohns]

the advice I was given way back was 'as much as you can afford'.

Yes, funny how the manufacturers all share this point of view with unabashed enthusiasm!

[muzines]

This is what I find so confusing. It’s like Ram is some mysterious force that nobody really understands.

It's just like many things with computing, it's just a lot more complex under the hood than you probably realise.

Surely it’s possible to calculate pretty precisely how much Ram an app like Logic will require to run x tracks of soft synths, x tracks of a specific sample player etc?

Not really, because RAM is dynamic, and there is a whole stack of processes running at any given time which may have reserved memory it's using, not using, memory might be getting released by the OS, the app might be requesting more.

A track in Logic probably has a more or less fixed memory structure in Logic, but what that track requires in terms of actual memory can differ wildy. An audio track with no plugins probably requires a small amount of RAM for buffering purposes. An instrument track, where you have Omnisphere loaded, is going to require a ton more because that plugin is huge, and it will require memory to load in, working memory, and dynamic memory. As you turn features on and off, the memory requirements are changing all the time. And as you get low on memory, the system will start rejigging things around to keep the system running. It may take away previously allocated memory, or refuse to honour requests for more memory.

And all these things are going on in layers - Logic doesn't know what Omnisphere internally is doing, and the same all the way down the stack.

And this is not even getting into the more sophisticated technologies going on with RAM as well.

The best you can do on a running system is look at "how much RAM am I using now?" - but even that is not straightforward, as you'll see with the OS reports. RAM that has been requested by a process for working area, but isn't actually being used by it - is that RAM used, or not? Especially if the system can reclaim it for other things if necessary.

Trust me, it's anything but simple in practical terms, because we are pushing and refining our technology to the limits to extract maximum performance - it's like CPU's that *guess* the likely next instructions and start executing them in advance. Ninja-level stuff.

Another question: we can run external hard drives and graphics cards and UA cards, so why not Ram?

Because it would be like chaining a race car to the back of a bicycle - the race car could only run at the speed of the bike, so it's pointless. RAM close to the processor can operate *way* faster than accessing it across a slow PCI/FW/TB bus - their order of magnitude difference.

[Nazard]

Another question: we can run external hard drives and graphics cards and UA cards, so why not Ram?

Latency, measured in nanoseconds, is the reason that RAM is situated as close to the CPU as possible. Putting it further away, even without the associated connection issues, is not viable on today's fast computer configurations.

Once upon a time, though, you could run RAM on a PCI card, although it acted as a RAM disk, rather than RAM. But the ability to put 64/128Gb of RAM onto many modern motherboards, NVMEs, SSDs, rendered that obsolete.

Incidentally, I put together an Intel NUC last year, (16Gb/i5), and installing the RAM and NVME took under 5 minutes, using only a Phillips screwdriver and an ant-static wrist strap. Apple could easily engineer the Mac Mini to be easily accessible, but that would dent their profitability by selling over-priced RAM and SSDs/NVMEs!

[Dr Huge Longjohns]

it's just a lot more complex under the hood than you probably realise.

No, I appreciate its complexity. As Arthur C said "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic". That's me. I don't even understand how radios work, never mind Apple Macs.

The best you can do on a running system is look at "how much RAM am I using now?" - but even that is not straightforward, as you'll see with the OS reports

You're telling me. This is kind of where we came in. My mac tells me a Logic project is using 2.6gb of RAM but everyone else is saying that a total of 8gb isn't enough to run Logic and OS simultaneously.

I guess the proof of the pudding will be in the recording. I'm tempted to get an 8gb ram unit and see if it copes but if I get it on 24 months interest free, 16gb is only another £8 a month if you look at it like that.

Confused of Cambridge.

[muzines]

My mac tells me a Logic project is using 2.6gb of RAM but everyone else is saying that a total of 8gb isn't enough to run Logic and OS simultaneously.

I didn't did it isn't enough to run Logic, I said "I don't recommend it", for the reasons outlined.

Yes, Logic is "using" that amount of RAM, but that doesn't mean that amount of RAM is actual RAM. If the system is low on available RAM resource, it will swap to disk. As far as Logic is concerned, it has "2.6GB of stuff it's stored" but it doesn't necessarily know *where* that data is. The system *might* have written the entire thing to disk, and might need to read bits of it from disk every time Logic access or changes some data... Or it might have written some *other* system/app memory to disk, to make space for Logic's RAM requests.

The system is designed to not enforce arbitrary limits. You can potentially run a program and have it request more RAM than is actually physically there on your system - the system will then mange a large swap file on disk that behaves as if it's (slow) RAM. Things will still work, but they'll get slow and your computer will start to feel bogged down.

Let's have a look at Activity Monitor on my (16GB) MBP, which has recently rebooted. I only have Safari (with this web page) and Activity Monitor open (but I do also have quite a few utilities running that I always have).

Physical Memory: 16GB. Cool.

Memory used: 9.5GB (whoa - with just the system running, and Safari and a few running utilities, I've already used *more* than the 8GB that people are suggested is fine... And I haven't even run a big app and starting working in it...)

Swap used: 0 bytes (My system hasn't swapped anything to disk, so it's all operating from RAM).

Now - those memory figures are *guidelines* as things are more complex, but you can take them as a general picture of what's going on memory-wise. If you're running 8GB now, it's worth monitoring this when you boot up and as you're working to get an idea of how much resources you typically need to get your tasks done.

For me, the idea that I can start my hypothetical (8GB) system, and before it's even done anything, is *already* on the edge of running out of breathing space and having to resort to swapping to just keep going is not a good start for a complicated, real-time performance and resource heavy application like a DAW to run in - imo.

Anyway, that's my recommendation, and has been for a while now... ymmv

[Dr Huge Longjohns]

So I do the same thing, just Safari. Physical memory is 16gb, memory used is 6.63gb, swap used is 273mb. So just running the OS and Safari it's still swapping even when the memory usage is nowhere near my 16gb capacity. So why is it swapping?

[muzines]

So I do the same thing, just Safari. Physical memory is 16gb, memory used is 6.63gb, swap used is 273mb. So just running the OS and Safari it's still swapping even when the memory usage is nowhere near my 16gb capacity. So why is it swapping?

Like I say, this is complex. There are all kinds of things that are going on under the hood, and I can't answer a specific example like that. There are all kinds of caching systems that come into play then get released, might be required later, might not be. The system is designed to manage this in ways that will results in the best performance and experience for the user, and you can generally leave it to get on with it.

You just need to monitor over time to get a feel for your resource usage and how your system behaves.

[Johnsy]

From the perspective of the CPU, even RAM is slow.

For an intuitive perspective on memory speed, you might want to look at the animation shown around 19 minutes in to this presentation by C++ guru, Scott Myers,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDIkqP4JbkE

and note his comment:

'From a speed perspective, the total amount of memory in your system is the total amount of cache.'

[Ben Asaro]

Sorry I am super late to this discussion, but my experience may be relevant:

I have a 2012 Mac Mini with 16GB RAM and a 500 GB SSD. I store project audio and DAW data on an external 2TB optical hard drive.

I am running Catalina and the latest version of Logic Pro X.

This system can handle all but the most insane projects. Example: the current project I am mixing is over 13 minutes long, over 100 tracks, with a maximum of about 30 playing simultaneously. I have about 40 aux buses in my mix template and 2-5 plugins strapped across all of them, most commonly the standard EQ and a Waves api 2500 compressor. But I am also running a ton of gain plugins, saturation, multiple reverbs, etc. And CPU meter on this project is just about ticking at 40%.

There is a SLIGHT delay sometimes when pressing play from a dead stop but aside from that it runs just fine.

I hope this information is helpful!

[Dr Huge Longjohns]

Thanks Ben, what processor does the Mini have? How many cores etc?

Are any of your tracks using sample-based instruments? These seem to be the things that really eat up the RAM.

[Ben Asaro]

I am on my PC at the moment, when I fire up the project later today, I will let you know!

I am a 99% hardware synth user, I rarely use soft synths, amp sims, etc and when I do, once I have a sound I like I Bounce In Place immediately. (Commit lol)

[muzines]

This system can handle all but the most insane projects. Example: the current project I am mixing is over 13 minutes long, over 100 tracks, with a maximum of about 30 playing simultaneously.

The situation changes pretty quickly if you're primarily using software instruments though. Audio tracks are very light compared to eg playing a fat chord with overlapping notes in Diva or Omnisphere or something...

You end up doing a lot of freezing/bouncing which slows the workflow down (depending on how you work, etc).

[Ben Asaro]

This system can handle all but the most insane projects. Example: the current project I am mixing is over 13 minutes long, over 100 tracks, with a maximum of about 30 playing simultaneously.

The situation changes quickly quickly if you're primarily using software instruments though. Audio tracks are very light compared to eg playing a fat chord with overlapping notes in Diva or Omnisphere or something...

You end up doing a lot of freezing/bouncing which slows the workflow down (depending on how you work, etc).

Understood, and I agree, hence why I said it may be relevant and I hope it helps!

My Mac's stats:
Mac Mini (Late 2012)
Processor: 2.5 GHz Dual-Core Intel Core i5
Memory: 16GB 1333 MHz DDR3

[Dr Huge Longjohns]

Yeah that's a similar system to mine. Drop some Alchemy tracks with Space Designer and it'll soon fall over.

[Dr Huge Longjohns]

This is interesting, Mac Mini on a Logic stress test, not really samples-heavy though...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74oo4yz7pcY&t=9s&frags=pl%2Cwn

Love to see what various forum members get on this test, you can download it. You just see how many tracks you can run before it crashes. I could do six or seven at a push.

[Ben Asaro]

Yeah that's a similar system to mine. Drop some Alchemy tracks with Space Designer and it'll soon fall over.

LOL no doubt! But switching to a SSD definitely made things a lot smoother!

[wireman]

Another question: we can run external hard drives and graphics cards and UA cards, so why not Ram?

The further you go the longer it takes to access, be that withiin 'cpu', package, to another package's memory, over PCI etc. Not sure if you count it as 'external' but I once purchased a VME extension memory board with a few (8?) MB of RAM in it for a few thousand pounds.

But why bother, you can buy servers with huge amounts (tens of TB) of RAM but likely not with a price, noise or power requirement that you will want in a studio. The memory configurations we see for Macs are those that Apple think there is a market for.

[ConcertinaChap]

Interesting discussion but I don't think anyone's mentioned future proofing yet. You will have noticed that the RAM requirements of software never decreases over time. In general it increases. Assuming you'll be wanting any computer you get to last a good few years then it should either be easy to upgrade the RAM or you should incorporate extra RAM for future need. Or so I think.

CC

[ManFromGlass]

good point. it seems we get to enough RAM to run existing software and plugins and then the next generation requires more RAM.
Is it sloppy or inefficient coding? Is it the nature of the beast because cool new features require more RAM?

[muzines]

Is it sloppy or inefficient coding? Is it the nature of the beast because cool new features require more RAM?

It's mostly because people keep demanding new features, and new features help sell new copies or updates. If you're adding code, adding graphics, adding new libraries to do new things, you have bigger apps, more features than require working memory and so on...

In the 80s, it was possible to have commercial software that was 50K for the application. These days, the *icon* for the application is many time that size...

[John Willett]

Interesting discussion but I don't think anyone's mentioned future proofing yet. You will have noticed that the RAM requirements of software never decreases over time. In general it increases. Assuming you'll be wanting any computer you get to last a good few years then it should either be easy to upgrade the RAM or you should incorporate extra RAM for future need. Or so I think.

Agreed - when I buy a new Mac, I always get the fastest processor option and have the maximum RAM possible.

[Dr Huge Longjohns]

That would get you 768gb of RAM and a 28 core Xeon W processor boosted to 4.4ghz. With a 1TB ssd that would come to just £37,899. (inc VAT). I'm sure we all wish we had your money John!