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MacOS Sonoma is here. What's working/Not working

Alex Fraser

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Hey all.

A thread I think those of us living dangerous and exciting lives on brand new OS releases might appreciate. Having ran the Somona public beta on and off for the last few months, here's what I've found to work so far.

Logic Pro:
Seems to be fine, tested on both an Intel MbB and M2 Pro.

Kontakt (latest):
Again, appears to be fine.

Native Access 2:
Always problematic. I've had problems running this on Somona but as the software title is generally unreliable, I can't really say either way.

Spitfire Player and Installer:
Appears to be working fine without issues, at least on the titles I tested.

As usual, please take the above with the huge caveats such statements deserve and make your own calls etc. Would be great if we collated official manufacturer updates in this thread. I'll update the OP with anything valuable.


Software Vendor Updates:

Native Instruments:


Avid:

Steinberg:

Finale:

Production-Expert Summary:

Sweetwater Guide
 
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So it's out already? Probably a good time to upgrade from Monterey to Ventura then. :)
I don’t know if you’re joking but I literal just did this tonight. I was a day late so I had to find the Ventura download in the mac app store lol.
 
Rumour has it old RME firefaces still work fine too. But I’ll hold off update until there are a few more reports of success 😉
 
I cant see any reason to ever update to Sonoma unless I want some new animated screensavers. Is it just me or is this the weakest OSX release in recent memory?
I'm not sure there's ever going to be a "must have" from hereon out, just incremental improvements. If you're fully sucked into the Apple ecosystem, there's lots of "nice to have" additions. But nothing worth torpedoing an extensive setup for.
 
Slate's Virtual Mix Rack is completely and utterly broken in Logic on Sonoma at the moment. Huge graphical glitches
 
I cant see any reason to ever update to Sonoma unless I want some new animated screensavers. Is it just me or is this the weakest OSX release in recent memory?
It's not just you :) The headline features seem to be pretty superficial, since a major release is when they get to make breaking changes. Game Mode on Apple silicon caught my eye, but it won't help with Logic. I've not gone through everything yet, but I suspect a lot of the work is behind-the-scenes... e.g. some of the developers' notes sound like general "sorting stuff out", but will still break some apps.

As ever, the reason to upgrade is for security updates. Ventura and (for a while) Monterey will get updates too, but Sonoma will get most attention, incl. rapid responses; it already looks like it has security fixes that haven't (yet?) made it into Ventura or Monterey.
 

Post
by https://www.motunation.com/forum/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=13518 (papageno) » Tue Sep 26, 2023 12:37 pm at MOTUNation.com:

Update: on 2021 16'' M1 Pro MacBook Pro: everything so far keeps working after 13.6>14.0 update.

Motu UltraLite mk3 Firewire-only
Finale 27.3
NotePerformer 4.1.0
Keyboard Maestro 10.2
Alfred 5.1.3
Plogue Bidule 0.9785
Digital Performer 11.22
StreamDeck XL with JetStream Finale

 
I don't feel that myself, though I'm a pro software engineer rather than musician. Some of the defaults may be a bit "fluffy", but a couple of tweaks in Preferences and Ventura's been fine for me, and for other developers far as I know... I used to think we were the fussiest users on the planet, but VIC is forcing me to revise this opinion ;) Joking aside, it's an inherently personal thing, so just offering another data point.
I'm pretty adaptable. I seldom complain about sample libraries but rather focus on what they do. However, I find Ventura to be a pain even when trying to access formerly easy things like User- Library to access Pref Panes or Cache.

In terms of its efficiency, I don't see any great gains compared to Monterey. I had an M1 mini and it had less bumps than the M2 Mini Pro to be honest. :(
 
Cubase 12 on the surface appears fine.

Most importantly for me is My RME Fireface 800 still works impeccably using the FireWire > Thunderbolt > USBC daisy chain.
Rumours of FireWires demise in MacOS are still unfounded.
 
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