THE NEW MAC PRO & AUDIO

Finally, a new Mac Pro! In the form of a small, matte black (for now), UFO-like cylindrical shape – OK, OK, dustbin – 17cm in diameter and 25cm in height (that’s not much bigger than a roll of paper towel).

This new machine has most likely left a few high-end DAW users dismayed because there is no longer any PCIe card expansion capacity. However, the upside is the inclusion of the new Thunderbolt 2 connection, which dramatically increases the available bandwidth for each connected device. With the inclusion of six ports, allowing a total of 36 devices to be connected, it should more than make up for the loss of the three available PCIe slots on the now ‘old’ Mac Pro.

Being that Thunderbolt has been around for a while now, we already have available at our fingertips great thunderbolt-equipped audio interfaces like Apogee’s Symphony 64 | ThunderBridge, Avid’s HD Native Thunderbolt, and Universal Audio’s Apollo series, which are excellent options for all but those in need of a large amount of IO, or full ProTools HD power. To alleviate this, I’m predicting more Thunderbolt options like ProTools HDX and RME HDSP sometime in the not-too-distant-future, but whilst we wait for these, there shouldn’t by any issue with using Thunderbolt to PCIe expansion chassis’ such as those from Magma and Sonnet Tech.

Other than the PCIe card expansion, notable omissions are a lack of Superdrive (which was inevitable), Firewire (we knew that was coming, and you can still get Thunderbolt to Firewire adaptors) and the ability to rackmount it (though Macbook Pros will handle most mobile work, and you can always just use a U47 shockmount if you get desperate).

Aside from this, the increased power of the machine is a good step forward, with up to 2x faster processing and memory bandwidth (which should help with a general power boost). Added to this, there’s new flash-based storage which connects through an internal PCI Express buss (rather than the previous method of a SATA connection), which should dramatically increase data transfer rates for audio recording, playback, and general file/operating system/application load times. Perhaps we won’t need the traditional two-drive setup for OS and Audio for much longer?

And the magic question you ask — the price? Well, we’re in the dark on that one too as Apple hasn’t released it to-date, but watch this space for more information as it becomes available, and keep your eyes peeled for more conclusions and real world tests in the AudioTechnology’s Mac Notes column.

— Anthony Garvin