Why did you choose a Mac/OSX?

[The Carpet Cleaner]

Don't see what the problem is with UAC... I have it on always, just ask you for confirmation when you install stuff. Only very old software (or badly written software) has a problem with it. What's the difference with the password prompt on OS X when you want to install software??
Yesterday, I installed a security update for OS X, and guess what... it told me to reboot! Again, no difference with Windows 7.
The argument for ugly icons is a matter of choice. If you like OS X icons better, fine. I don't see why this would influence me to buy a mac more than a PC.
When it comes to design, you are right. But, aside from the 27" imac you pay very very dearly for it. When it comes to noise. My Windows PC is very quiet. Not as quiet as my imac, but then again, with a slightly older VGA card, which makes more noise, and a standard CPU fan, this is normal. If I would switch it for the same card as in my imac, it would be about as quiet. I have an antec sonata designer case, which is very stylish looking.
And FYI.. A lot of manufacturers make all-in-ones now. None in 27" (yet), but 22 and 24 are common.

Indeed, with vista and Win7, I always left UAC on. Not a big deal. I was more stating the fact that some applications worked with one user, and not with another one. And then Leed said it was UAC fault.
I still think UAC is a poor concept compared to the password of OSX.
Also, most of the thing you're going to install on macosx will not ask for a reboot. Only when there is an extention/kernel/drivers, or if the program is really shit (like realplayer).

For the rest, I kinda agree with you, but again, you also agree that none of it is BETTER than an imac for example. Not all PCs are noisy, but most of them will be more noisy than an imac. Also, you're right that lots of them now start to do an all in one PC, but how do they compare with the imac ? They are okay, but not as good. I mean, that's my point of view off course. 22 and 24 ' screen are 3 or 4 years old now.
My friend bought a dell, 1 year ago I think (maybe a bit more), to play games and do some uni work. It's powerful, but, the whole experience is messy!, lots of programs were installed at the begining, pop-ups, stuff like that. A fake dock as well. Horrible. Off course you can erase everything and make a clean install, but again that's the little difference that after the end make a big gap.
That's my point of view only

[3phase]

This factor 10 you mention. Is that on the same interfaces on Windows 7 as you tested on os x?

i tested on windows xp and as long nobody can come up with measures that proove windows 7 to be better its not better..

i actually doubt that w7 has improoved theire.. but just do some measurements and help us top get the picture wright...

[ninox_rufa]

http://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=148846

[The Carpet Cleaner]

My iMac i7 27' 8go ram is the technological perfection of all geek/gearhead .
First, its look is stunning. Everything else on the market try to copy it. It's one of the few pieces of technology that doesnt look like rubish.

design is in the eye of the beholder. i don't like their design particularly. esp when it goes design over function
Ok, design is not the objective, but I feel that other company try to imitate the Apple look. Especialy HP. Why is that then?

And also it's ultra powerful. I can run Maschine standolone + Ableton live + Jackosx. Leave all this in a virtual desktop for 1 week without shutting down my project, and in other virtual desktop do other stuff. And I can even launch Starcraft 2, and everything still work flawlessly.

works great everywhere, not just on mac.
On my windows 7 I don't have virtual desktop. Sure I can go and install probably something that acts like Mac OSX or a Linux, but there is nothing like that virtually. And generaly, you have more chances to reboot with windows than with a mac/linux solution

Finally, the screen, 27' with resolution of about 2500xsomething. It's the best screen at the moment.

it's a castrated 30" screen, robbed 10%
It's still amazing compared to the 22'' or 24'' inch that most PC are sold with. Isn't it? I personally haven't seen a PC with a 27'', anywhere, in real. . have you? There is the dell, and recently the NEC. $1000 screens. Never saw them though, so it's not very common. Who on this forum got a PC with this dell or NEC screen ?

Ha and I forgot something : there is no noise from it. The fan is really quite, I can't hear it. and everything is in the screen, so not fucking big tower that blows warm air on my leg during summer and make the whole room an oven.

my systems don't even HAVE fans. and ssds. there is no noise possible to come out of them. oh, and the imac gets ****ing hot. we have the mac department at work, they have 10 of them in a room. it's warmer there than anywhere else since the new imacs.
Ok granted, but it seems that's a custom designed PC, is it? Is the OP into computer parts, this kind of stuff ? I agree you can have much more flexibilty with a PC. You have to think if this felxibility is a plus, or if you're not really gonna take advantage of it.

now for PC, it's noisy, it's ugly (for most of them, some designs are ok), screens are not as good.

you have choice. mine are invisible and absolutely silent. to each it's own.
Mine is invisible as well ^^. Silent, almost Maybe if few years when SSD will be the same price as regular HD. I still would like to know what's you PC specs and stuff like that. Doesnt seems to be a regular PC.

Windows 7 is stable, but its interface is outdated.
The system folder hierarchy is so old and doesn't make any sense. If you have more than one user on you computer, it's purely shit, some applications will work, some other will not. Everyting is a freaking mess, the system panel is absoluty terrible, icons are ugly.
you have to get an anti virus otherwise you always risk something.

none of this is true, esp the antivirus. i lived for years without antivirus (since vista beta 1). i have it now for legal reasons (have to have some "proof" that i don't have viruses).
Ho yes, me too actually, I've never used an anti-virus. Does that prove PCs are safer than Macs against anti-virus ?

Another thing : mac osx has time machine, the more conveniant way to backup your data.
You can backup with windows, but it's not as smooth as time machine. Read about it and you'll see how big is the difference.

i have windows home server, backs up all my machines at home to one central place, allows all my data to be at one central place.

the difference is big. in favour of microsoft. yeah, i read a lot about it.
How does it work? Does it save automaticaly every hours? and if you delete a folder, an ableton project for example, can you just take it back in a noob interface, in 2 minutes? or do you have to reinstall you whole systeme to take back the project? Also, does it come with Windows, I mean is it free or is it something that you have to buy, like an anti-virus. Cause time machine is free you just need an external hard drive and that's it ?

Anyway, for music production, there is no reason to not using a mac. It's just better.

to quote famous djsynchro: it just works. on windows, AND on macs.

so there is no reason to actually use a mac. both just work.

Exactly my point. Both just work. And I'm sure 10 years ago people were doing music on computer as well. Here we're trying to see on which computer it's better/easier.

[c5_convertible]

I still think UAC is a poor concept compared to the password of OSX.
Also, most of the thing you're going to install on macosx will not ask for a reboot. Only when there is an extention/kernel/drivers, or if the program is really shit (like realplayer).

Why do you feel UAC is a poor concept? It is more secure. In it's default setting, it will stop all running programs when it asks for confirmation. No chance of another application injecting the ok button, or a password. On OSX this is possible. Also, I much rather click "ok" then type a password.

Reboots on Windows are also very rare nowadays. Only when a driver is changed, or when a file is locked it needs to edit. Or, as you put it, with shitty applications.

How does it work? Does it save automaticaly every hours? and if you delete a folder, an ableton project for example, can you just take it back in a noob interface, in 2 minutes? or do you have to reinstall you whole systeme to take back the project? Also, does it come with Windows, I mean is it free or is it something that you have to buy, like an anti-virus. Cause time machine is free you just need an external hard drive and that's it ?

The built-in backup does not take backups every hour no. But it doesn't need to as you have a feature called restore points, and previous versions. You set a directory to make restore points every hour. If you delete something, or want the previous version back, you right click, choose previous version and that's it.
Windows backup itself if you want to restore from a backup you created is also quite easy. You just select restore, it will ask you want you want restored. I'll grant you, this was not possible in XP, but therefore I'm not defending XP. I feel that Microsoft has done a very good job with Windows 7.

As I said in one of my first posts, I feel that either one is good. Just not one that sticks up much higher above the other. A lot of the arguments against windows (or OSX) are done with little or no background in both systems, and that is wrong. I know both quite good, and have 30 years of experience with computers, which puts me in a good position to evaluate both. Both have weaknesses, and both have strengths. Both are very stable, and the looks... THat's a matter of opinion. That doesn't make one worse or better than the other. It would be like saying an audi is faster than a mercedes because you feel the audi looks better.
btw... I drive a mercedes, which is much better looking than an audi, and therefore faster

[davepermen]

except on midiclock output..its actualy grizzly what a windows machine puts out there.. 2 ms jitter on the clock is standard..can get even worse..

in comparison on mac with propper interfaces like mt4 or moto or rme 0,16 ms..

factor 10 better

well, you're the only one moaning about the midi timing issues all the time, and you are on a mac.. the irony is amazing..

other than that, that's not important for everyone. for people with huge collection of external devices, it might be (without questioning if your claim is true, haven't benchmarked, haven't had the need).

but it sure is a point, if true (i just believe you in this for now)

[davepermen]

Ok, design is not the objective, but I feel that other company try to imitate the Apple look. Especialy HP. Why is that then?

hm, except for the consumergrade envy, i don't see any hp that copies. silver-black, rugged. nothing apple at all. but of course, focusing in all the 1000nds of different products on the ones that look like apple helps to see "them copying apple".

oh, and why? because people are dump. if it looks like something famous, they buy. that's what the envy is for.

On my windows 7 I don't have virtual desktop. Sure I can go and install probably something that acts like Mac OSX or a Linux, but there is nothing like that virtually. And generaly, you have more chances to reboot with windows than with a mac/linux solution

windows by itself does not technically need a reboot for anything anymore. and while i had virtual desktops even before osx had it, i always drop it after a while for not having the use. on a mac, i guess i would use it, as the windows management is rather primitive.

It's still amazing compared to the 22'' or 24'' inch that most PC are sold with. Isn't it? I personally haven't seen a PC with a 27'', anywhere, in real. . have you? There is the dell, and recently the NEC. $1000 screens. Never saw them though, so it's not very common. Who on this forum got a PC with this dell or NEC screen ?

i hate it that it's 16:9, robs you height (which you need in about any app. there's a reason why mice have a vertical scroll wheel). but yeah, it's a nice all in one box. which i personally don't like. i like choice, thus i like the screen separate. and i've seen better than that 27".

but it IS a nice system. a bit on the heavy side (had to install a lot of those), but else nice.

i never say macs are bad. they're just not the only thing good. and, depending on the use case, there might be better fitting. pc's provide more options.

Ok granted, but it seems that's a custom designed PC, is it? Is the OP into computer parts, this kind of stuff ? I agree you can have much more flexibilty with a PC. You have to think if this felxibility is a plus, or if you're not really gonna take advantage of it.

it's a choice. one can use it, or not. the gain of it is, i payed around 500$ for having a core i5 3.33ghz 4gb ram 80gb ssd silent invisible system to run live on at home (24" 16:10 screen).

i don't even get an ipad for 500$ here.

i like that option.

Mine is invisible as well ^^. Silent, almost Maybe if few years when SSD will be the same price as regular HD. I still would like to know what's you PC specs and stuff like that. Doesnt seems to be a regular PC.

see above. and i have ssds since two years now. i can not look back. got a new laptop at work. has no ssd. is slow as hell use an ssd for your system. use another hdd for the data you don't touch. perfect..

i have it now for legal reasons (have to have some "proof" that i don't have viruses).
Ho yes, me too actually, I've never used an anti-virus. Does that prove PCs are safer than Macs against anti-virus ?

i think pc's are more "aware" of what can happen to them (or at least, microsoft. they sure went trough attack hell). macs aren't aware of attacks much. every hack-event shows that macs are hacked within minutes. vista/win7 often survives quite long. so yeah, i see them more secure.

how does it work? Does it save automaticaly every hours? and if you delete a folder, an ableton project for example, can you just take it back in a noob interface, in 2 minutes? or do you have to reinstall you whole systeme to take back the project? Also, does it come with Windows, I mean is it free or is it something that you have to buy, like an anti-virus. Cause time machine is free you just need an external hard drive and that's it ?
it's an own system. a home server. it's like a fancy nas, with backups of the pc's at home, and such. and while windows has time machine like behaviour since years (called shadow copy), the interface is not nearly as nice, that's true. but winhomeserver is a different beast, more like time capsule on steroids. it has 4.5tb worth of save duplicated data on it (and that's why all my clients only have an ssd, no need for local storage on a gigabit lan). check out my webpage to see some photos.

it's nothing like time machine, but it provides the same security.

haven't had to reinstall any system so far since win7 rollout. haven't had to reinstall a vista, just as well. not any of mine, nor my friends, family, etc.

oh, and antivirus is free and from microsoft by now, just in case.. it's called microsoft security essentials.

Exactly my point. Both just work. And I'm sure 10 years ago people were doing music on computer as well. Here we're trying to see on which computer it's better/easier.

and i say they're about equal, with tiny pros and cons everywhere of course. so in the end, better and easier for the OP is the one system he knows best. the one system he knows what to do when it doesn't work. we had non-working macs, and no one had a clue what to do, then. for non-working pc's, even on stage, i can fix anything. has to be the reason i'm always invited

(and it's fun to fix a broken harddrive where all the sound of a friend is on at 3 o clock in the morning with 1000nds of people in front of the dj booth.. NOT! but we got it working, and rocked for some additional hours.. )

[davepermen]

I still think UAC is a poor concept compared to the password of OSX.
Also, most of the thing you're going to install on macosx will not ask for a reboot. Only when there is an extention/kernel/drivers, or if the program is really shit (like realplayer).

UAC is better than the password, for two reasons: one, it's on a secure desktop, where only your local keyboard and mouse work. that means, no one can put in a some keyboard sniffer or what ever.
two: it does NOT force you to enter your password everywhere. doing so would train people to "just enter the password", which would allow social hacking: put up a same looking password box on a webpage, and people would just enter it.

uac is controversial, but the choices are well made.

oh, and windows does not really need any reboots. they do a reboot after windows updates if it's kernel related, else you would not need a reboot for ANY driver anymore. installers just still ask you for it. and stupid applications. but normally, you can run windows for months/years, except if some system update needs a reboot. NO 3rd party app, driver, hardware should need a reboot. a lot do out of laziness (they put something in autorun and don't manually run, they just reboot to let autorun do it's job, etc..).

[Daim]

I use one because it looks good. But this doesn't compensate the bad file browser compared to windows and the lag of proper software.

There's not even a DTS-codec available

[The Carpet Cleaner]

OK, fair enough, you guys have good arguments too

First time in my life I see a Mac/PC that is not a call to arms !

For UAC tough, I think for example, with a password, if someone use your computer localy, you know they can't modify something. With UAC, anybody around ca press "ok".

Alors, in the same way, UAC train people to just click yes yes yes ok. I think even more thant Macosx because they ask that so many times when you want to install or sometimes want to launch something.

There is one thing I like from windows 7 : the wall paper, they did a good job on it. And that's it

I'm also looking forward SSD, but I think it's a bit too expensive atm.

cheers

[leedsquietman]

I have used Mac for 8 years plus at work every day and PC at home for years and both work just fine.

I am not sitting on one fence making sweeping generalizations about one or the other. Choose whatever works for you.

I already mentioned the improved MIDI protocol on OSX and less jitter on the list of pros and cons I did for each platform, although typically it's not a huge deal given that many people edit and quantize after the fact anyway, although for Live performance it is more advantageous.

[3phase]

except on midiclock output..its actualy grizzly what a windows machine puts out there.. 2 ms jitter on the clock is standard..can get even worse..

in comparison on mac with propper interfaces like mt4 or moto or rme 0,16 ms..

factor 10 better

well, you're the only one moaning about the midi timing issues all the time, and you are on a mac.. the irony is amazing..

other than that, that's not important for everyone. for people with huge collection of external devices, it might be (without questioning if your claim is true, haven't benchmarked, haven't had the need).

but it sure is a point, if true (i just believe you in this for now)

that live is wobbely n external clock is old.. that it glitches as clock master is new..was perfectly fine since 2 years..

osx wasnt allways much better than windows regarding the midiclock timing.. there was times wher booth apple and windows was in the 2ms jitter domain...

and 2ms clock jitter is too much.. it sounds tired..

as posted before.. a reaktor ensemble i made to measure clock jitter.. so windows 7 people ..please test the actual state in windows land
http://tinyurl.com/2w9qcv6

[H20nly]

Not all PCs are noisy, but most of them will be more noisy than an imac.

how many iMacs variations are there?

if you think about it, this statement just says something like - 31 flavors are cool but they aren't all chocolate. Mmmm chocolate.

[The Carpet Cleaner]

Not all PCs are noisy, but most of them will be more noisy than an imac.

how many iMacs variations are there?

if you think about it, this statement just says something like - 31 flavors are cool but they aren't all chocolate. Mmmm chocolate.

Are you comparing noise to flavours? Do you anybody who like noisy computer?

[leedsquietman]

If you want to hear noise, try a first generation, single core G5.

Electronic audio interference problems

Early versions of dual processor G5 computers have noise problems. The first one is ground loop-based interference,[5] which sometimes causes noise leaks into the analog audio outputs. This bug was fixed in Rev. B G5.

The second noise problem came from the 'chirping' sound, which can be triggered by fluctuations in power draw. For example, showing and hiding the Dock makes a brief chirp. Many had blamed the power supply used in the G5 as the cause, but this theory has never been confirmed. A very effective work-around is to disable the CPUs' "nap" feature using Apple's CHUD Tools, but this was not recommended by Apple. This noise problem was not fixed until the dual core generation of G5s was produced. The power draw fluctuation was later attributed to the lack of power management features in the single-core processors.[6] Apple eventually posted the chirping bug information on its support site.[7]

Although the noise problems did not prevent the affected computers from working, they were problematic for audio professional and enthusiasts alike, especially for the liquid-cooled models, which had been expressly designed as mechanically quiet for discerning listeners.

As someone who worked with an early liquid cooled G5, I can tell you it was like being at the fucking airport. We had to get a specialized acoustic case at a couple of hundred dollars to handle it. Thanks to a Sound On Sound article, we were also able to reduce it a bit with some info they published.