TAXI.com

I see it available via Mac Update... but I'm hesitant to upgrade since my Logic/Kontakt setup is running just fine right now.

Yeah, I haven't dared yet. NI seems to have issues.
https://www.native-instruments.com/en/s ... lity-news/

I haven't either. Until I get an email from my plugin guys, I won't.

I'm new to Yosimite, but I'm on Yosimite, for the nonce.

I'm with these fellers above.

no need to upgrade until NI and UA have qualified all their stuff to run in El Cap. I expect that will be at least a year (for UA anyways).

naturally this is some matter of personal opinion, but considering upgrades in software (assuming your hardware doesn't limit you):

1) you can't work if you system is messed up. So that means a complete running backup copy of your startup drive. If you are considering going to El Cap, that would mean a totally complete backup of Yosemite that you could either a) drive swap to be your startup drive if your existing startup drive went down or b) temporarily run as your startup drive and copy the contents back to your usual startup drive and continue operation.

2) there isn't enough in a new OS to bother upgrading most of the time. Sure , OS 9 to OS X was a landmark. But not OS 10.10 to 10.11. So for me its pretty comfortable as long as I am not running the OLDEST OS version that is currently supported. Recently plugin companies have started removing support for OS 10.8 (Mountain Lion) leaving the oldest usable one Mavericks OS X 10.9.5 which is what I am currently running. So sometime soon I am going to have to spend the time to finish making my Yosemite startup drive which will put me in the middle ground again, not on the bleeding edge, but not on the edge of being unsupported either.

3) Keeping copies of all operating system install .dmg or images - You will see that as soon as the newest version of OS X comes out, Apple completely removes any way of downloading or even buying the older OS on a DVD (unless you buy a pirate copy on eBay). So every time Apple comes out with a new OS version, its worthwhile downloading the .dmg / image and storing on a mirror raid backup system (or similar). They are only about 5 or 6 GB and the insurance that you buy is huge IMO. At this point - I have Mavericks, and Yosemite backed up in this fashion. One of these days I will get around to getting El Cap. This all relates back to point #1 - having everything you need to resurrect your system in the case of ANY mishap.

4) DAW - this is the one area where I often upgrade pretty quickly, as the new features are too good to pass up (with Logic anyways, and Pro Tools has started tossing in all kinds of stuff to their vanilla line-up to try and get people to spend). In Avid's case, they don't bother requiring the latest OS version to install the latest Pro Tools - which is actually good as the newest version of Pro Tools often is a buggy nightmare. Apple on the other hand will often do silly things like come out with Logic 10.3 and require you to be on El Cap to install it. Again this is one case where I will wait (and oh it hurts not to be the coolest kid on the block) but at least the many $k invested in the other 3rd party stuff will still run, and most of the time, that is the most important part.

So Just opinions - but its worked very well for me.

If you are buying a new mac and it comes with the latest OS and you don;t want to try and install an older OS over that drive, then I feel your pain.

My new iMac came with El Capitan. On firing it up for the first time, the update to 10.11.1 presented itself, and I updated. Installed Kontakt and my other libraries and the system is humming along just fine.

I understand wanting to play it safe, though, given the initial problems El Capitan had regarding audio units.

I've been running El Cap since early betas (and a separate drive) and now I'm running full time 10.11.2. Everything is working fine here, no issues. Now that MOTU has released a beta midi driver, my system is working as well as Yosemite. But, if your system is working well, I would tend to leave it be.

Cheers,
kc

Update on the NI situation. I just recieved an email from NI where they write:

Please note that the compatibility issues connected with Mac OS X 10.11 El Capitan are now resolved.

The latest OS X 10.11.1 update fixes the issue where Native Instruments Audio Units plug-ins did not pass the AU validation and therefore were not available in Logic Pro X.

Considering I'm still using Pro Tools 8 and an '09 macbook; even updating to Yosemite was a mistake. Pro Tools now has this bug where the list of inserts, buses etc. aren't visible until you scroll over the entire list with your mouse.. and if you scroll back up they disappear again. I've adjusted to this bug and I don't want to know what other bugs I'd have to adjust to with El Capitan...

Maybe if I nail some listings I can afford a new mac desktop with brand new pro tools! Haha