I usually don’t upgrade to new versions of macOS until Steinberg and other music software developers have confirmed that their applications and plugins are compatible. And I never install beta versions of macOS.
However, macOS Sequoia includes a number of very useful features such as iPhone mirroring and all the AI stuff that I would actually use. This is a welcome change considering the past few macOS updates haven’t offered many compelling new features, at least to me.
So I’m curious to know if anyone is running the beta version of macOS Sequoia successfully with Cubase 13 Pro on an M-series Mac? I would really hate to upgrade my M1 Max MacBook Pro only to have to spend several days reinstalling the current macOS Sonoma and hundreds of applications and plugins.
If anyone has been brave enough to install the beta version of macOS Sequoia, please let me know your experiences with Cubase Pro 13.
I have a cloner to dupe my computer to. I used that as a startup disk and then did the update to sequoia. Running a session right now with some weighty CPU plugins. so far it’s pretty solid… Intel I9 MBP 32GB 8 Core
That’s good to know that you can still run macOS Sequoia on any Intel Mac. Apple can be so cavalier when it comes to dropping support for “older” Macs. (Of course, Microsoft is also getting into this habit by needlessly dropping support for Windows 10 in 2025.)
I still have a 2015 15" Quad Core i7 MacBook Pro that I never got around to selling that is in absolutely mint condition and has been upgraded with a 2TB SSD (in addition to the stock 16GB of RAM) with an almost new replacement battery. It’s still perfectly useable and could easily run Sequoia. In fact, I have it sitting on top of my “upright” electronic piano in my living room to quickly capture chord progressions and so forth when I am practicing piano.
It’s only Intel’s back to 2018. My ‘end of the era’ 2020 i7 Mini is at the end of the supported list for this one, but that got replaced last year with an M2 Pro. Im kinda shocked it’s still there to be honest but its not quite THAT old yet (unless you count the outdated CPU they used for it).
I skipped it this time, but Monterey, Ventura and Sonoma were pretty damn smooth for being betas. I think I ran into an issue with one particular companies plugins with Monterey (their registration/authorization stuff was having some write/read issues), but I let them know and they had it fixed the day it was released to the public. Other than that, those two OS’s were solid during beta.
So tomorrow is the release day for macOS Sequoia I believe?
September 16th
Any issue with Cubase seen yet? Plugins etc?
Since around 2015 I’ve never update until I’m positive everything just works.
I only just updated to Sonoma about 2 months ago.
I might be quicker with this one though.
They usually release on Tuesdays… The RC was just released last week, along with the iPhone announcement, there might still be another week before the release. Sonoma and/or Ventura went through a couple RC’s before the final.
I’ve been running the beta version of Sequoia for the past couple of weeks with Cubase Pro 13 without any issues, or at least none that I’ve come across.
Although this doesn’t have anything to do with music production, the iPhone Mirroring feature in Sequoia is pretty cool. Just being able to arrange my iPhone app icons on my Mac is worth it alone. And the fact that iPhone notifications can be displayed on the Mac is also useful, IMO.
I had to upgrade my iPhone 13 Pro to the beta version of iOS 18 in order to get the mirroring to work. Although this is a minor thing, the new Dark Mode icons look awesome on the iPhone.
FWIW - Installed the RC today since the final looks like it IS coming out tomorrow. So far so good. Had to update my UA Connect for some reason, it took forever to start and then wouldn’t load for some reason. iLok and everything else seems ok. Gotta go dive into a couple of projects now and make sure, only had time to test out Wavelab and the standalone Halion/Groove Agent. Amazingly, AudioFinder still works!
What kind of interface are you using?
I have a UR28m which is fantastic interface but the latest Yamaha driver produce pops and clicks and I guess I’d be rolling the dice on support for the previous drivers.
Might be time to upgrade.
Still using the old System Extension driver as well. Thankfully Apple still hasn’t killed that off, and I don’t need to go buy the new 828 just yet.
(My 24-25 year old Emagic AMT8 is still working too haha)
So, very very unlike me since the mid 2010s… I decided to just upgrade.
Partly cause I now have a external DAS storage system so I knew I wouldn’t lose anything.
Anyway… Cubase seems to be running just fine.
I’ve spent the afternoon messing around. I’m building an orchestral template so I did some more of that and then made a quick 8 bar thing using various instruments without issue.
I then opened up another project with Superior Drummer 3, a bunch of audio tracks, spoonable smart EQ, the Andrew Huang transit plugin, many instances of the SSL channel strips as I have all those controllers, soothe 2, Kontakt, plugin alliance plugins blah blah.
…and no issues at all.
In fact, this is a bold statement I know but I think it was running better.
Are you used to seeing the red square for the audio buffer overload?
Me too. If you watch any YouTube video they will permanently have a red square sitting there with buffer overload.
Well for the first time in a couple of years that was gone. (apart from when I was loading a Kontakt instrument while the track was playing.)
the Audio driver just seemed more stable.
So far the only issue I’ve run into is with a single plugin, TAL Sampler, and I do not know if its because of TAL’s update on Monday or Sequoia as both happened at the same time. Its not loading any of the saved settings when you open a project. Thankfully the previous version works just fine in Sequoia, and I have all those drum kits saved as presets anyways. Oddly its not remembering like last used folder entries when you save/load and seems to not be able to find samples despite them being in the same place they’ve always been (and you have to browse to find them again). Seems like there’s a path or permissions issue he missed when he did it.
are you noticing a more stable audio performance?
Myself and many others are used to seeing the audio meter shuffle around and then drastically peak every 10-20 seconds.
At the moment it’s just bubbling around the 25% mark with no drastic spikes.
For the most part everything is exactly as it was on Saturday when I was still running Sonoma.
EDIT: And this is why I love Patrick/TAL, already updated TAL Sampler to fix yesterday’s little hiccup. Apparently the ‘state loading’ was related to the framework updates he did and had nothing to do with Sequoia…
Im kinda shocked it’s still there to be honest but its not quite THAT old yet (unless you count the outdated CPU they used for it).