In this article we highlight some technologies and products to watch in 2023. While future gazing is notoriously risky but here is our pick of the predictions.
GPU Audio
Some serious noises are being made about using GPUs for audio processing. We think technological advancements will continue to try and leverage GPUs for extra power in audio systems.
You can read the AES White Paper “CUDA Accelerated Audio Digital Signal Processing for Real-Time Algorithms” to find out more about the technology behind GPU audio.
There’s less of a question about if it can be done, the team doing most of the work have made great strides in advancing this tech, the real question is why bother?
There’s far less need for leveraging power out of computers using GPUs than there was when this was first discussed. Apple Macs using Silicon are proving that you can get a serious amount of power out of new generation CPUs, without the need for a 3rd party solution. If you think this is a Mac only advancement then Windows users won’t be left behind because Intel and other manufucturers are responding with chips that are equal and in some tests proving better than Apple Silicon. This arms race for more powerful CPUs can only be good for those of us using computers for professional audio processing tasks.
What native can’t deliver is near to zero latency audio when tracking, this is covered by DSP based recording systems like Pro Tools HDX and UAD Apollo from Universal Audio. It’s unclear if GPU is able to offer a viable alternative in the tracking part of the recording chain. GPU is not dead in the water, far from it, but given the recent advances in CPU architecture it’s less likely to have the impact some suggest.
Un-mixing
As we recently highlighted, the problem of un-mixing audio is easy to understand, but the solution is anything but. For example, doing “Voiceover + Bed = Mix” is easy, and mixing consoles (and latter day DAWs) have been doing this one for a century or so. Swap things around and things like “Mix - Voiceover = Bed” is still possible with a polarity button, but what has been keeping the best minds awake at night is how to un-pick a unified mix into its constituent parts, which at first glance only leaves “ Mix - something = something” to work with.
Being able to deconstruct pre-mixed audio has obvious uses (and misuses) bring the promise of structural changes to the mix for anyone without access to the original tracks or stems. Up to this point, tools’ developers have been careful to reiterate their proper use, and for those tasked by the owner or creator to make mix changes without the assets available, un-mixing is here to stay.
Beginning with RX7 Music Rebalance module a few years back, and having used a few tools over the past year or so, we have noticed an encouraging trajectory with audio quality improving year-on-year. At present, the technology still has its limits which are more than understandable given the task in hand. With this, it is hardly a leap of faith to imagine even cleaner results by the end of next year, jettisoning some of the artefacts that currently give the game away.
AI/ML
We’re going to combine machine learning and Artificial Intelligence together for this entry as while they are different, they sit close together in the minds of the users rather than the designers of such products.
We’ve highlighted AI/ML as something of a ‘next big thing’ for some time and things are gathering pace. We’ve started but there is still a lot to come in this area. The first product which used AI which affected our work directly was Sonnox’s wonderful Oxford Drum Gate. The fact that the plugin can discern the difference between a kick, and snare and a tom means that one no longer has to translate the intention “isolate that tom tom” into terms a conventional gate can use “open the gate when the sound which exceeds -18dB after a band pass filter set to 110 Hz has filters the side chain…”. Just click ‘tom’ and you probably good to go because the plugin ‘understands’ what a tom sounds like.
Waves showed us just how simple things could be with their astonishingly effective Clarity Vx. Turn the knob until it starts to sound weird, back it off a little and you’re done. With single-ended noise reduction! No capturing noise prints in the gaps or other tweaks. All thanks to AI.
LANDR are of course pushing the boundaries of what we can expect of AI and to a degree what we’re comfortable with. There aren’t many audio technologies which make some audio people as uncomfortable as a 70’s car assembly line worker reading about robots..
This kind of learning, where a neural network is ‘trained’ using large amount of data can word extremely well, so instead of a dumb preset which doesn’t take the source material it’s being applied to into account, a more sophisticated solution which uses AI would better reflect the intention of the preset in a similar way to a human operator.
Blind Source Separation is a phrase which is probably going to be unfamiliar to most but that might well change if this tech delivers what it promises. The progress being made in noise reduction has impacted areas outside audio production, one are in particular where it has made an impression is in forensic audio. Tools such as iZotope RX has long been a central tool in forensic audio. However, applying the same principles as found in audio production that it is better to capture it right than to try to fix it in the mix, we were intrigued by a project, and new company which has developed which seeks to fix the problem of improving intelligibility of captured audio by, rather than removing the unwanted audio, excluding it from the capture stage.
This technology is an offshoot of CEDAR audio, who when they saw the potential of ‘Blind Source Separation’ formed a new company AudioTelligence. Using a compact mic array, the Isolate mic, and some clever tech AudioTelligence can capture the desired sources (usually people speaking) and exclude other audio. This is very different from using a directional mic and source selection can be automatic to manual and can even track subjects.
Designed in part to develop better hearing assistance to counter the ‘cocktail party effect’ where with age people find it increasingly difficult to isolate conversation in noisy environments, beyond better hearing aids this technology is potentially very useful for interviews ENG crews and even as an alternative for single shooter video. With the potentially huge market of hearing assistance this clever use of hardware and software has the potential to be a very significant technology.
A New Apple Mac Pro And More!
Until October 2022, we were expecting to see the next round of Apple Silicon computers which would include the computers for which there isn’t an Apple Silicon powered version. However, we learned that it would be 2023 before we will see Apple Silicon powered Mac Pro and more.
Mac Pro With M2 Ultra Chips
At the Mac Studio launch event back in March 2022, Apple made it clear that the Studio was not a Mac Pro replacement. Apple senior vice president of Hardware Engineering John Ternus confirmed that a Mac Pro is coming "another day" to clear up any confusion about the future of the Mac Pro product line.
Interestingly, Mark Gurman revealed a tidbit about the Mac Pro development in his interview on YouTube with Vadim Yuriev, saying…
“They also had an M1 Mac Pro ready to go months ago. But they scrapped that to wait for the M2 version.”
In June 2022, we learned that Apple has been testing a Mac Pro, codenamed J180. This machine is expected to include a successor to the M1 Ultra chip used in the Mac Studio computer.
When it comes to design, it is being suggested that the new Mac Pro will only see a few design changes, with the main change being getting rid of the current Intel Xeon chips as part of its plan to make the entire range of Mac computers powered by Apple silicon.
In the WWDC 2020 keynote address, Apple said that the Apple silicon transition would take two years. However, with the passing of WWDC 2022 in June, it’s now more than two years since Apple announced the transition from Intel to its own chips. Even if we start the clock from the point that the first Apple Silicon Macs were announced in October 2020, it’s still more than two years from that point.
Even though Apple teased a new Mac Pro at the Peek Performance event in March 2022, the current Mac Pro is still running on Intel chips.
As to when to expect the new Apple silicon-powered Mac Pro, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo tweeted that a new Mac Pro would ship in 2023.
However, Mark Gurman had a slightly different take on this. In his interview with YouTuber Vadim Yuriev, Mark said that he thinks the Apple silicon-powered Mac Pro will ultimately be announced at the end of the year and then released in 2023.
In his October 23rd Power On Newsletter, Mark said this about the new Apple Silicon Mac Pro…
“Onto the Mac Pro. That new high-end machine will include chip options that are at least twice or four times as powerful as the M2 Max. Let’s call those chips the M2 Ultra and the M2 Extreme. My belief is that the Mac Pro will be offered with options for 24 and 48 CPU cores and 76 and 152 graphics cores—along with up to 256 gigabytes of memory.
In fact, I can share one configuration of the Mac Pro in active testing within Apple: 24 CPU cores (16 performance and 8 efficiency cores), 76 graphics cores and 192 gigabytes of memory. That particular machine is running macOS Ventura 13.3.“
One week later, in the October 30th edition of his Power On newsletter, Mark Gurman had this to say about the only Mac that is yet to see an Apple Silicon version, the Mac Pro…
“The first Apple Silicon Mac Pro is clearly running behind the company’s own self-imposed timeline. When it announced the transition to homegrown chips in 2020, Apple said the move would take about two years. The revamped Mac Pro, coming next year, will clearly miss that schedule.
But I think we have a pretty clear reason why, and it’s not a bad thing: The machine will be superior to what Apple originally intended to offer.
As I wrote recently, my belief is that the first non-Intel Mac Pro will have options for 24 and 48 CPU cores and 76 and 152 graphics cores—along with up to 256 gigabytes of memory.”
What Has Changed Now?
Back in June 2022, we learned that the Apple Silicon-powered Mac Pro was also expected to offer the option of the M2 Extreme, which is expected to be two M1 Ultra chips combined, just like the M1 Ultra is two M1 Max chips put together. Using the M2 Extreme would offer a beast of a machine with the following spec…
40-core CPU (32 performance cores and 8 efficiency cores)
Up to 128-core GPU
Up to 64-core Neural Engine
Up to 256GB of RAM
1,600GBps memory bandwidth
This would enable Apple to offer two Apple Silicon powered Mac Pro desktop computers…
An M2 Ultra option with 24CPU cores, 152 graphic cores and up to 192GB of unified memory.
An M2 Extreme option with 48 CPU cores and 152 graphic cores.
However, in the December 18th issue of his Power On newsletter, reliable source Mark Gurman from Bloomberg announced that…
“The company has likely scrapped that higher-end configuration, which may disappoint Apple’s most demanding users — the photographers, editors and programmers who prize that kind of computing power.
The company made the decision because of both the complexity and cost of producing a processor that is essentially four M2 Max chips fused together. It also will help Apple and partner Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. save chip-production resources for higher-volume machines”
There have also been concerns that if Apple hadn’t done something, the Mac Pro price would be so high that very few people would want to buy it.
“Based on Apple’s current pricing structure, an M2 Extreme version of a Mac Pro would probably cost at least $10,000 — without any other upgrades — making it an extraordinarily niche product that likely isn’t worth the development costs, engineering resources and production bandwidth it would require.”
Instead, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman believes that the new Apple Silicon powered Mac Pro, when it is released in 2023, will rely on the M2 Ultra SoC but still retain its unique features offering easy expandability.
MacBook Pro 14 And 16-inch With M2 Pro And M2 Max Chips
Back in June 2022, we learned that Apple had been testing a 14-inch MacBook Pro with M2 Pro and M2 Max chips codenamed J414. It was suggested that the M2 Max chip is expected to have 12 CPU cores and 38 graphics cores, up from 10 CPU cores and 32 graphics cores in the current model, with up to 64 GB of unified memory. Similarly, they have been testing a 16-inch MacBook Pro with M2 Pro, and M2 Max chips codenamed J416, with the M2 Max expected to have the same specifications as the 14-inch MacBook Pro version, and it is now considered that these MacBook Pro computers will get a simple upgrade, no redesign of additional features.
In a recent edition of his Power On newsletter, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reported…
“I’m told that the new iPad software update and the first version of macOS Ventura add support for the latest iPad Pro models and the next versions of the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro. The high-end laptops will get the first M2 Pro and M2 Max chips, more powerful versions of the standard M2. Changes to the laptops will be otherwise minimal.”
It is also being suggested by Mac Rumors that the new M2-powered MacBook Pro laptops could have faster RAM…
“The current 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models are equipped with LPDDR5 RAM from Samsung, with the M1 Pro chip providing up to 200 GB/s of memory bandwidth and the M1 Max chip topping out at 400 GB/s. On a speculative basis, it is possible that the next MacBook Pro models could be equipped with Samsung's latest LPDDR5X RAM for up to 33% increased memory bandwidth with up to 20% less power consumption. This would result in up to 300 GB/s memory bandwidth for the M2 Pro and up to 600 GB/s for the M2 Max.”
As to when we might see the new M2-powered MacBook Pro laptops, Mark Gurman had this to say in his October 30th 2022 Power On newsletter…
“I’m told that Apple is aiming to introduce the upgraded models—including M2-based versions of the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros—in the first quarter of calendar 2023 and has tied the launches to the upcoming macOS Ventura 13.3 and iOS 16.3. Those software updates are expected to debut between early February and the beginning of March.
Apple has rarely launched new products in January or February during recent years, so I’d expect the new Macs to be announced by the first half of March. That aligns with the planned ship dates for the corresponding software, but also makes sense in light of Apple’s recent history of launching new Macs during that month, including the Mac Studio this year.“
So there we have it, the new MacBook Pro laptops are tied to the 13.3 version of macOS Ventura, and that looks like March 2023 at the earliest.
Mac Mini with M2 And M2 Pro Chips
Interestingly, the high-end Mac mini model is still the Space Gray model with an Intel processor from 2018, currently making it and the Mac Pro range the only Apple Mac computers still powered by Intel chips.
Although Apple chose not to announce an M2 Mac mini at the same time as the M2 MacBook Air and 13-inch MacBook Pro this year, we expect Apple to announce new M2-powered Mac minis at the October Event.
Back in June 2022, we learned that Apple had been testing a Mac mini with an M2 chip codenamed J473, with the same specifications as the M2 MacBook Air, which was aimed at replacing the M1 Mac mini.
However, since then, it is now expected to be a simple upgrade of the current M1 Mac mini rather than the redesign that has been suggested in the past by sources such as Jon Prosser.
Back in March 2022, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo tweeted, “I think the new Mac mini in 2023 will likely remain the same form factor design.”
Then in July, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman was interviewed by YouTuber Vadim Yuriev, in which Mark said of the new M2 Mac mini…
“I don’t think there’ll be a redesign to the Mac mini. I actually don’t know where the rumors of a redesign came from. I think those are also going to be spec bumps. If you look at the Mac Studio, it looks like a double-height Mac mini.”
Earlier in October 2022, in his Power On newsletter, Mark Gurman has this to say about the M2 Mac mini…
“Apple is working on an M2 version of the Mac mini, which will be the first update to the company’s smallest Mac in two years.”
In his last Power On newsletter of October 2022, Mark Gurman said this. regarding a new Mac mini…
“A new Mac mini remains in development, and the company continues to test versions with the same M2 chip as the 13-inch MacBook Air and MacBook Pro, as well as an M2 Pro chip, which hikes the CPU and graphics counts. If Apple indeed launches the M2 Pro variation, we can expect the company to probably wind down the still-available Intel model.”
Note that, yet again Mark says nothing about the time scale for the release of the M2 Mac mini, but we believe it is unlikely that a new Mac mini will be released before March 2023.
What About The iMac And iMac Pro?
If you are looking for a new iMac, you may need to wait for a lot longer. Apple discontinued the iMac Pro back in 2021, and then it discontinued the 27-inch Intel-based version of the iMac in March 2022, leaving the 24-inch iMac with the M1 chip as the only remaining iMac model. The view is that, for now, Apple has effectively replaced the 27-inch iMac with the Mac Studio and its matching Studio Display, with some sources suggesting that Apple has suspended high-end iMac development.
Mark Gurman is not one of them. In an edition of his Power On newsletter, he outlined that Apple is working on at least two iMac models but is skipping the M2 chip and going to the M3 series of chips. He suggests that Apple will likely launch an updated 24-inch iMac featuring the standard M3 chip in late 2023 and that they are continuing the development of a high-end iMac…
“I also still believe that Apple is working on a larger-screened iMac aimed at the professional market. I'd imagine this will use a variation of the M3 chip, likely an M3 Pro and M3 Max. That would match the chips inside of the MacBook Pro. I don't think the combination of a Mac Studio or Mac mini plus an Apple Studio Display cuts it for many pro users who want more screen real estate.”
But that date of 2023 may slip as the M3 family of chips are expected to be built on TSMC's 3nm technology, unlike the M1 and M2, which are currently built using a 5nm process. So if you waiting for a new iMac or iMac Pro, you are going to have to wait until late 2023 or even 2024.