With the upcoming expansion of the Apple Silicon range with the next generation of ARM-based Mac computers, with what is being called M1X chips, there is still a problem for audio professionals wanting to embrace the new Apple technology - the need for full native support for all the software we use. Yes, we can run existing software under emulation via Rosetta 2, but that isn’t ideal for what we do. So what is the bottleneck? You might be surprised.

Faster And Faster, But…

The good news is that some software runs faster on Apple Silicon via Rosetta 2 than it does on Intel-powered computers, but the real benefits come when the software we use can run natively on Apple Silicon, especially when we get chips that have more processors and much more RAM, which we expect to see with the M1X chips, hopefully being released in October or November this year.

The Elephant In The Room

But for audio professionals, there is an elephant in the room that we need to address, and that is PACE iLok, which many software developers use to protect their products from piracy and whatever you think about PACE and iLok, brands use iLok to protect their investment in developing products.

For example, although Avid supports Pro Tools running on Apple M1 computers, Avid is being criticised for being slow on updating Pro Tools to run natively on Apple Silicon powered computers.

What you may not be aware of, is that it isn’t all Avid’s fault. There is a problem that is much broader than just one DAW brand, it extends to any software or plugin that uses PACE iLok and that is the lack of native support for Apple Silicon.

Back in December 2020, PACE iLok announced that their piracy protection software was Apple Silicon compatible under Rosetta 2…

“PACE technologies including iLok are Rosetta 2 compliant and have been since end of August.

Since August 24th all developers have had access to Eden 5.3.0 SDKs and end-user software. This release includes many enhancements, these include;

• iLok Cloud improvements

• Service status info for end-users

• Big Sur macOS 11.0 and Xcode 12 support

• Digital signing of arm64 and universal binaries

• Faster logins for large iLok.com accounts

Furthermore, PACE are hard at work on native ARM support and working with all developer partners as they make the transition to new Silicon powered Apple Macs.”

What this means is that any software developer will need PACE’s software to be able to run natively on Apple Silicon, before they can release a version of their software that can run natively on Apple Silicon and this includes Pro Tools and many top plugin brands. It may also be the case that other protection systems being employed by different developers may also present similar challenges for the Apple Silicon transition.

Early adopters like FabFilter and Blue Cat Audio are compatible but as so many premium plugins use Pace’s iLok technology unless that is capable of running natively on an Apple Silicon Mac then a very large number of plugins won’t work fully.

It is our understanding that Apple Silicon native support for PACE iLok is still some time away.

Protecting software with bulletproof technologies isn’t simple. PACE is having to rewrite its systems from the ground up to make its architecture work with Apple Silicon. They have to be sure that everything works all of the time. Their clients are the software developers like Avid and not us, the end-users, their job is to protect their clients from piracy. A reliable system means they can be confident that their intellectual property is safe from software piracy. For many developers, PACE is the only one they fully trust.

It could be easy to get hot under the collar and start throwing rocks at PACE and the developers who choose to use them. We would all love to live in a world without the need for software protection, but the need for these systems lies squarely at the door of the software pirates who seek to deprive developers of revenue by cracking and illegally distributing software.

Rosetta To The Rescue

Some of you may be reading this and thinking ‘hang on, I have a Silicon Mac and I’m running my music software.’ You are correct, but right now that’s because of the magic of Rosetta 2 handling under the hood tasks that enables non-native software to run on your Apple Silicon Mac. We’ve covered this before, but in a nutshell if you have any non-native Silicon software or plugins running, then the entire session runs in Rosetta 2.

However, none of the software you are running is taking full advantage of the new Silicon chip architecture. Performance using Rosetta 2 is impressive and sometimes still better than running on Intel chips. Having seen beta versions of some of the upcoming software running natively we can tell you the results are even more impressive.

The important thing to remember is the word native, if you’re software isn’t running natively then it’s not taking full advantage of the new chips.

As we get more news on the PACE transition we’ll keep the community updated. Suffice to say, we know PACE are working flat out to deliver Silicon support as soon as they can.