Using a Mac on a CP 650

[Marco Giustini]

I can give that a go - would x86 drivers work correctly in such a VM? Such as: can you connect to a CP750 VIA USB with that setup?
Windows 11 ARM is translating x86 nicely so if you don't need drivers, that actually works beautifully, boots in seconds and it's very responsive even on a low-spec Mac.

2.5m on an M3 Max might translate into those 7 minutes on more common machines

[Marco Giustini]

I've got myself an FTDI compatible USB cable, it's based on the FT232RLN. macOS doesn't need drivers apparently, Windows 11 ARM does and are available.
The 650 app installed and connected fine under Windows 11 ARM in Parallels.

So that is also an option.

Screenshot 2026-08-30 at 20.33.29.png

[Lindsay Morris]

Wow, Many thanks for ALL those responses...I sort of had a weenie bit of luck using the Mac Book with a USB to Serial adapter but ended up grabbing the radio station Win 10 laptop and using that on the Serial port and got in OK.
But the difference in speed between the rather older Win 10 laptop and the Mac Book Air was very noticeable...the Mac was all over the Win 10 machine which is now rather old as compared to the Mac Book.

Now to have a bit of a play about with the 650 and see how I go.

[Marcel Birgelen]

Ok! Still I'm not really able to comprehend what you're trying to achieve, but if it's using the Dolby Setup App, then Windows 10 will be the easier route than using the Mac, as it avoids the entire "running Windows on Mac" episode.

I've got myself an FTDI compatible USB cable, it's based on the FT232RLN. macOS doesn't need drivers apparently, Windows 11 ARM does and are available.
The 650 app installed and connected fine under Windows 11 ARM in Parallels.

So that is also an option.

Great, and thanks! Probably a better route than mine, since Windows for ARM will need just have its system calls wrapped by Parallels. In this case Windows will do the x86 emulation, but only for the Dolby app, which will probably result in a better overall performance.

The thing is, I've never really bothered trying Windows for ARM, since my Windows footprint has become pretty small... and I'm not even sure if I have a license. My current Windows 11 license started as a Windows 10 license once...

[Marco Giustini]

Marcel,
Bear in mind I have installed "Tiny11" under Parallels which is a stripped-down version of Windows 11 ARM - I would only use W11 for those apps which don't have a macOS version (HELLO, NEC, QSC??) and I have to say the W11 ARM VM starts in seconds and is very responsive even with an older macbook and only 8GB of RAM.

The whole process of installing W11 on the mac was surprisingly painless and everything worked. The biggest challenge was to create the tiny11 image, they provide a script but not a finished ISO for obvious reasons. But you can just go ahead and install a regular W11 image of course.

If your windows footprint is small and you don't need special USB drivers to work, give that a go, it'll work very well on your M3 MAX!

For those who might be interested, this is the tiny11 project: https://github.com/ntdevlabs/tiny11builder

[Lindsay Morris]

Marcel,

Just wish to "tweak" the Eq settings to suit my setup.

The last time I had anything to do with a CP650 was about 12 years ago when I had my cinema converted from film to digital so driving the thing is a bit hazy as been more deeply involved with a FM community radio station doing that technical work for 9 years.

The most recent was shifting the FM transmitter to a new location as the tower the antenna WAS on was deemed unsafe which turned out to be an absolute nightmare with all the compliance and regulatory requirements.
Only one item left to instal and commission is a standby 200 watt Exciter/Standby transmitter but can only be done when weather is fine as the transmission gear is in a free standing air conditioned equip cabinet at the base of a 30M lighting tower.
When its wet nothing can be done

[Ryan Gallagher]

If I had a more modern mac at home I'd give the VM methods a try just for curiosity sake... but I'm relegated to a 2013 laptop here, it can't do that lift... but if you have an older intel mac like this another option is to just dual boot it with Win10.

Not quite dual booting, but I installed Win10 on some older intel mac desktop hardware at home. It's still my fastest DCP-o-Matic machine at home due to the dual proc and 12 cores. My power bill hates using it though. ;-)