Hardware Help - Do I move back to PC?

[logic_user99]

Ok, so this question has been plaguing my nightmares for some weeks now. Do I move back to PC?

I've got, at present, a 12" Apple PowerBook (G4 - 1.5ghz / 1.25gb ram) and I love it very much. It's seen my right for about three years, and seems to be running fine with all the recent software updates (Live 7X and Reaktor 5X).

HOWEVER! For gigging (and most musical applications from here on in) it's just not big enough (both in power and in stature). The screen's 12" which, from a portability standpoint is awesome, but it's only 12". Get me? Also, it is max'd out as far as RAM/HDD etc etc goes which means if I try to run anything other than a couple of AU plugins and one or two grain delays, it goes crying to it's momma.

I know that PCs are beleaguered with problems and I do hate having to fanny around inside a machine's code to get the results I want, but they're SO MUCH CHEAPER! To get a slim-profile PC with a 15/17" screen is going to cost me near-as-dammit £1000 less than getting a new Mac. Also, getting something with comparable power is going to cost less than the pound of flesh I'd have to sell to get going.

Is making the move back to PC something that I'm going to regret? Or is the power-vs-screen-vs-cost one which I'd come to terms with? Haha. I can't say that I'm sure about it, but I do know that my machine is now stretched to it's limits when running in Live.

Thoughts? Charz.

[hambone1]

I just bought an MBP from the Apple Refurb Store for £920.

Lovin it. It's so much better than I thought. I'm using it instead of my G5 for just about everything now.

Leopard is brilliant, and so is running XP on Boot Camp. FW800 rocks, too.

I personally wouldn't swap to Windows just to save a few hundred quid, especially if I were using Logic!

[logic_user99]

This is the thing; I'm now 'out of Logic'. Haven't used it for maybe, well, 6-8 months?

I'll have a looksee at the refurb store and see what they can offer... and t'bay.

[Atomikat]

Refurb is the way to go...MBP rocks !!!

[popslut]

I know that PCs are beleaguered with problems and I do hate having to fanny around inside a machine's code to get the results I want...

I don't know what PCs you've been using but that doesn't sound like my experience in the slightest.

I bought a PC laptop in 2003 and I've been using it for gigs almost every weekend and it has never crashed once on stage in all that time.

I haven't "fannied around" with any of the "code" - it's just a standard XP Pro install with no changes.

Nobody else "fannies around" with the machine's code either. Some people might make changes to the operating system on the advice of various websites but in my experience these offer no improvement in performance whatsoever so I don't bother.

For the record I don't care which computer you buy.

I just don't buy all this "PCs are beleaguered with problems" bullshit and feel compelled to challenge it wherever I see it.

Good luck with your purchase.

[logic_user99]

I don't know what PCs you've been using but that doesn't sound like my experience in the slightest.

I bought a PC laptop in 2003 and I've been using it for gigs almost every weekend and it has never crashed once on stage in all that time.

I haven't "fannied around" with any of the "code" - it's just a standard XP Pro install with no changes.

Nobody else "fannies around" with the machine's code either. Some people might make changes to the operating system on the advice of various websites but in my experience these offer no improvement in performance whatsoever so I don't bother.

For the record I don't care which computer you buy.

I just don't buy all this "PCs are beleaguered with problems" bullshit and feel compelled to challenge it wherever I see it.

Good luck with your purchase.

Somone jizz in your ear, popslut?

I'm glad you don't care The last time I used a PC for making music was back in 2001 when I was at Uni, and that POS was crashing on me all the time.

Anyroad, I'm gonna have a look at the refurb store. (cheers, hambone & atomikat)

[forge]

I know that PCs are beleaguered with problems and I do hate having to fanny around inside a machine's code to get the results I want...

I don't know what PCs you've been using but that doesn't sound like my experience in the slightest.

I bought a PC laptop in 2003 and I've been using it for gigs almost every weekend and it has never crashed once on stage in all that time.

I haven't "fannied around" with any of the "code" - it's just a standard XP Pro install with no changes.

Nobody else "fannies around" with the machine's code either. Some people might make changes to the operating system on the advice of various websites but in my experience these offer no improvement in performance whatsoever so I don't bother.

For the record I don't care which computer you buy.

I just don't buy all this "PCs are beleaguered with problems" bullshit and feel compelled to challenge it wherever I see it.

Good luck with your purchase.

overall I've had much the same experience as you, but the problem with PCs is that they are unpredictable because of all the billions of hardware configurations and I have had one or two over time that havent co-operated for no apparent reason and I have wasted weeks of my life that I will never get back

Macs arent perfect either, but it does make total sense that the more variables you remove the better chance you have of getting a stable system

but the most stable computer I've ever owned was a Medion cheap bastard laptop from Staples in Basildon - well, I say cheap, it was 1000 quid in 2003 but comparatively specs wise it was a cheapy - until it died completely last year

in fact there are things I'm sure it handled better than my new core2duo HP one, even though this is supposedly at least double the CPU

I put my own 1GB ram in it and also a 7200rpm HD in it - I'm pretty convinced the latter had a fairly big influence on the performance actually

[popslut]

Somone jizz in your ear, popslut?

You asked you silly cunt.

[Machinesworking]

There is something inherently funny about someone with the moniker logic_user99 not actually using it. Are you going to change your name to Live_user2000?

No seriously, Logic is too cheap and useful to abandon just because Live is more fun and PCs are cheaper. Get a macbook or macbook pro depending on what you need.

Even if only for Strip Silence, or the MIDI event editor, you can find uses for Logic as a glorified audio and MIDI editor for Live.

[logic_user99]

Somone jizz in your ear, popslut?

You asked you silly cunt.

No? Guess the painters are in then...

Fucker.

@MW - I wouldn't say Live is more 'fun'. I think it just works better from my writing perspective. Have spent far too many years trying to track ideas, and it all comes out in a very 'traditional' way. Logic just ain't made for improvisation (my machine won't take Logic 8, anyroad).

Strip Silence is good, but Live's 'Slice to MIDI' does the same (if not better) job.

Lord, wish I'd never asked now...

[djadonis206]

I just bought an MBP from the Apple Refurb Store for £920.

Mac user...an MBP?

a MBP. While it's noted you can use the word 'an' before a non vowel beginning word it's no common.

Mac users...

[djadonis206]

Somone jizz in your ear, popslut?

You asked you silly cunt.

there's that word again.

I love how the English (or the people over there, as I so often call them) interchange the use of the word cunt from friend to foe.

Kind of like how we in America use the word nigger. Friend, or foe.

A big up for the internet, word to my cunts!

[adventurepants_]

its always funny when mac users make generalisations about pc's even though they know zero about computers in general, and had a crap time with one pc back in 2001.

well try using a Powermac g3 running system 8.5 in 2001 (at a blistering 500mhz), and tell me how shit pc's were at the time. yikes.

[adventurepants_]

overall I've had much the same experience as you, but the problem with PCs is that they are unpredictable because of all the billions of hardware configurations and I have had one or two over time that havent co-operated for no apparent reason and I have wasted weeks of my life that I will never get back

dont forget that you chose to do that forge. anyone who does PC for a living could have fixed your problems easily and quickly, and much cheaper than two weeks of your time.

everyone fancies themselves a pc expert with no training, and when they get stuck with a PC problem they blame it on the system rather than their own lack of experience. would you start taking apart and tinkering with your air con unit, and when you had problems with its innards start blaming the design of it, or your own lack of knowledge? fuck that, youd just ring the air con guy to come fix it.

[Machinesworking]

Strip Silence is good, but Live's 'Slice to MIDI' does the same (if not better) job.

Not if you actually want to remove the silence in an audio file and cut it up into pieces at the same time, which I find myself doing every once in a while. In that case, Strip Silence is golden.

To each his own though, all DAWs have strong points for sure.