New Computer for Live 9 - Win 7 or 8 ??

[Guillermo Barrancos]

yeah - if you work in a kitchen design showroom get a Mac or at least get a Mac-like case with nothing in it and gather round it with nicely dressed members of staff pointing at the beautiful pictures while breathing foul coffee and fag breath all over each other

MacOSX is the same thing. If you cannot be arsed to memorize the "Apple key" shortcuts, then MacOSX becomes a cumbersome clickfest OS as well.

[nopattern]

for studio use, nothing beats a well thought out custom PC. I used to supervise a computer music lab at an over-priced art school that threw lots of cash at keeping facilities "cutting edge." my lab had around 40 brand new mac pro workstations running avid hardware along with live8/logic/protools. i don't know if it was the students or the computers but every single one of those things crashed at least twice a week. not just crashing but how do people knock PC about compatibility?? updating snow, mountain lion goat or whatever the fck version it is 10.1.3.4.5.6.4!!!! and then making logic work. There were more version incompatibilities than i've ever experienced as a 15 year pc user.

my self-built desktop pc was about $1100 and it kills any of my friends mac's (i spend a fair bit of time working on music on their computers to make a judgement)

For laptops, if you're getting paid to DJ i'd say get a mac. i know that doesn't quite make sense considering what i stated previously but i've had some pretty bad crashes at the worst possible time during a party on a pc and it's happened over many years. maybe off the shelf pc's in general just suck. i keep playing out with the pc but i've just bought an ipad/dock to replace that

[JohnAppleseed]

I started working in DAWs with PCs, but have been using Macs about ten years now and wouldn't change back. However, if I'd put together a PC based system, I'd make sure that EVERY component, hardware and software, has been field- tested to work together. All the way from the choice of a PSU to 3rd party plugins.

[gnurf]

Win 7 performs better on short buffer settings compared to OSX following this:

http://dawbench.com/win7-v-osx-5.htm

The previous major release of Windows performs better than two major releases of OS X back ;)
I'd like to see Win8 vs. Mountain Lion, since that would be more applicable to current systems. Although it probably won't change anything for me - I'm not having any issues in 10.8.

Anyway, to the thread-starter: If you're comfortable with Windows, stick to it. If you're getting a new computer with Win8, suck it up. If you build your own and have a licence you can use for Win7, that's the cheap way out. I haven't noticed any difference in how responsive Win7 and Win8 are, both in real clean installations and VMs, so the only easily testable thing is boot time. Which really doesn't matter to me, as sleep mode works perfectly well on my self-built PC :)

The basic rule is that if you have to measure a difference to tell it's there, it doesn't matter at all. So buy that pre-built multicore i7 beast with Windows 8 if that's what you're looking at. It'll be faster and better in every way with any OS. Use Consumer Reports as your guideline if buying pre-built, or sites like AnandTech for self-built.

[pencilrocket]

Windows 8 runs faster than 7, and OSX 10.8 is awfully slow comparing with 10.6. So.. you know what it means.

[gnurf]

10.8 is just as fast for me as the previous two.

[miekwave]

If you intend on plan on using low track counts (about 8 or less), i5, 8GB Macbook is fair.
If you plan on using Kontakt and Large session sets (20+ track count), you might consider a windows 8 machine with no less than 8 GB.

Win 8 has more internal "Performance Optimizations" over Windows 7. However if you are not a fan of the Metro interface, you can get "Classic Shell" for Windows 8. I use it and it works wonderfully!

Mine is set up so Win Key opens standard Menu with my most common programs on the same Active screen I have open!
Shift Win key opens the Metro Menu only on my Left screen, which is perfect for me.

The way Windows 8 Indexes is awesome. I open Metro menu, type in any keywords related to the file name I'm looking for and it pops up instantly (Wave Files, Packs, Samples, Old Projects, Etc.)

[The Carpet Cleaner]

Have you looked at windows 8? It's windows 7 with the metro interface slaped on top of it. It's not even working well together! For example, Internet explorer metro and IE desktop don't communicate. Isn't it ridiculous?

So surely a company that create software with such an awkward interface, + the registries + the no start button + UAC + virus everywhere + no proper backup solution = you can't trust / follow this kind of company.

So many uninformed clueless People regarding Windows 8. It's hilarious.

I have been using Windows 8 for over a year now, since Community Preview 1. It has been rock solid! Windows 7 was good, but Windows 8 is better! Much better when it comes to overall performance and responsiveness.

If you use a desktop PC or (non-touch) Laptop, you can completely ignore the Metro Interface and stick to Desktop mode!
You can still create shortcuts on the desktop or use the Metro menu to launch Applications.
I completely ignore the Windows Store (or so called Metro Apps), especially when it comes to Internet Explorer. The IE11 desktop Version is much better.

It's just hilarious that musicians here spend a lot of time memorizing shortcuts for their DAW software, but cannot be arsed to spend a little time Learning the various very handy "Windows key" shortcuts to make the Windows 8 experience even better!

/le sigh

So you updated to windows 8 only to NOT use its main features.
Good.

[Guillermo Barrancos]

Have you looked at windows 8? It's windows 7 with the metro interface slaped on top of it. It's not even working well together! For example, Internet explorer metro and IE desktop don't communicate. Isn't it ridiculous?

So surely a company that create software with such an awkward interface, + the registries + the no start button + UAC + virus everywhere + no proper backup solution = you can't trust / follow this kind of company.

So many uninformed clueless People regarding Windows 8. It's hilarious.

I have been using Windows 8 for over a year now, since Community Preview 1. It has been rock solid! Windows 7 was good, but Windows 8 is better! Much better when it comes to overall performance and responsiveness.

If you use a desktop PC or (non-touch) Laptop, you can completely ignore the Metro Interface and stick to Desktop mode!
You can still create shortcuts on the desktop or use the Metro menu to launch Applications.
I completely ignore the Windows Store (or so called Metro Apps), especially when it comes to Internet Explorer. The IE11 desktop Version is much better.

It's just hilarious that musicians here spend a lot of time memorizing shortcuts for their DAW software, but cannot be arsed to spend a little time Learning the various very handy "Windows key" shortcuts to make the Windows 8 experience even better!

/le sigh

So you updated to windows 8 only to NOT use its main features.
Good.

Metro is not its main feature. Its just an UI layer for touchscreens. For normal desktop / x86 use you still have the desktop mode for a reason. /shrug

There are a lot of new stuff and optimizations under the hood.

Just tearing an entire OS apart because of the Metro UI is just shortsighted! Especially since you dont have to use it if you dont have a touchscreen.

[su-Y]

I use both platforms on daily basis and I am from a graphic design background - music is a hobby.
Every Ray-ban wearing designer I've seen is always bragging about how you should get a mac to do music/graphic design. Well, the thing is that main software is completely the same - you start your Lieve, you press F11 or Fn-F11 and there is no difference whatsoever what are you doing. The number of problems I run into on mac is quite similar to the number of problems I run into on a pc. I noticed that some VST's I wanted to use were pc only, but working with several audio interfaces on mac is a breeze while on pc it's impossible.

Although mac is better when it comes to software for live video - it has Modul 8, VDMX and most importantly Quartz Composer which is very important if you are willing to do something with VJ'ing. On the other hand if you are making not live video related to music, sony vegas has bpm and quantization options built in and it is pc-only, also if you are doing something in the realm of Autodesk and 3d, PC is definitely a better choice.

The bottomline of my opinion on the matter would be that it is very much a fanboy discussion, like which cameras are better, nikon or cannon, and in the end it just doesn't matter that much since if you are determined you can do that with the same level of success on both platforms.

About windows 7 vs windows 8 - win8 loads faster and is generally snappier and less resource heavy than win7. Also 8's interface is minimal as hell, pleasant on eyes and low on resource consumption. If someone tells you something about metro ui throw a tomato in their face, since you dont use it if you dont want to, you are always in the same desktop environment which looks exactly like win 7, just sans the aero interface and star orb, and you can just use the win button as a launcher button, sic.

[pencilrocket]

wow finally great post.

[h3rtz]

Just to bring in another point of view:

I need to do sound and video. for video I need a very fast machine. what i don't need is a fancy (glossy!)display. I have a lenovo w530 with a fast i7-ivy-quadcore, a 2GB-vram nvidia pro video card, 16gb ram and a 500gb ssd. its very fast and rock solid. I have it for one year now and had around 50 live performance situations with sound and video and no crash during a performance. a macbookpro with the same specs would have cost more than 2000 €. I got my setup for 1500€. for me thats a lot of money (a Push extra). I'm not a windows-fan I really would love to have more money and just spent 2000 or more for a mac. but if you're not looking for design and a thin aluminium-case a pc will do it. but don't buy a "consumer" laptop or pc and be aware that some hardware runs smooth (rme interfaces) an some will make you trouble(motu).

I'm running on win7 and won't upgrade because it's runnng very well and win8 needs 1 or 2 service packs until everything is smooth I guess.

please tell me where you got that machine for that price!

[H20nly]

So surely a company that create software with such an awkward interface, + the registries + the no start button + UAC + virus everywhere + no proper backup solution = you can't trust / follow this kind of company.

that bolded and underlined part is a useless argument.

Q: what is UAC?
A: the same thing your Mac does every time you try to install an application or update... it's an administrator password prompt.

ironically, if Windows users had long since accepted having this password prompt shoved in their face, like Mac users, there would be no talk of UAC being an issue and a hell of lot less issues with spyware and/or viruses.

myth: OS X cannot get viruses and spyware.

The way Windows 8 Indexes is awesome. I open Metro menu, type in any keywords related to the file name I'm looking for and it pops up instantly (Wave Files, Packs, Samples, Old Projects, Etc.)

agreed. i don't own a Window 8 unit but i've had my hands on plenty of them... typing the first few (often just 2 or 3) letters of the application you want is ace... it's a major time saver IMO.



@ yoda - congratulations on your taking the time to make the best choice for you. enjoy your new computer!

[ian_halsall]