Another PC vs Mac ..With a twist...

Tarekith · Post by **Tarekith** » Wed Sep 07, 2005 4:55 pm

subterFUSE wrote: I don't really care about the OS. I'm a Windows expert, and Windows XP works great. If I owned a Mac, I would be a Mac OS expert. I'm just good with computers, so I have no problem learning new software. Maybe Mac OS is more stable?... I don't know how to answer that, because Windows XP is so stable for me, I can't even tell you when I had a crash.... because I don't recall ever having a single one.

But for me.... I don't really care which platform I use, or anyone uses... I just care about finding a high-quality computer, with good performance vs. price. Mac simply does not offer good performance vs. price right now.... not as far as I'm concerned, at least. So I'm still using PCs. When the new Intel gear arrives, I will give Mac strong consideration again.

Well said man, exactly how I feel.

atomic · Post by **atomic** » Wed Sep 07, 2005 5:07 pm

robin wrote:
subterFUSE wrote:
but what does it say about an Operating System when i (and so many others) would rather use the one that comes with the "year 2000" G4 1.5ghz than my old machine... the Athlon 64 3700. (both were equally priced mind you)

i think it says alot.
i can turn up at a gig lift the lid on the powerbook and come out of sleep in 2 seconds, fire up Live, plug in my usb audio card and uc33 and i'm ready to go.

i'm not sure a PC is that simple but if i'm wrong then shout as i'd like to be proven wrong.

It has not been that simple working with my very stable IBM laptop. I just have to make sure that my soundcard is plugged in and turned on before i power up the pc or for some reason Live has a problem with the numbering the outputs correctly. Now if this is a pc vs. mac issue i dont know. It could just be a Live issue. My point though is that even if the mac was more "simple" to use it just could not run my synths. Sooooo it just could not do the job. I like the idea of having the choice of using minimonsta on a stage without my computer bonking out . Mac laptops just cant offer me this so they are not an option no matter what they cost. I guess if they where dirt cheap I could buy a couple of them in that case I may use mac. I look forward to the intell macs though. I also look forward to running osx on my "beige box" i think the next couple of years are going to be very intresting in the computer world. I hope that apple plays there cards right or i think they may be in big trouble. If people can start running there os on the pc there selling point is taken away from them. Sure there will be many who will just buy a mac because they want a mac but there will be alot of people who (if the mac hardware stays priced the way it is)will opt for running osx on "the beige box" instead and save alot of cash. Just a thought. But hey what am i thinking I tunes is the bomb right?! and apple just might have enough advertizing to keep people thinking that there intell chip is better then the other intell chip because it is in a pretty box.

d-plate · Post by **d-plate** » Wed Sep 07, 2005 8:21 pm

My PC NEVER crashes. Wow, I must be an alien or something, with the power to turn pcs into solid machines...

montrealbreaks · Post by **montrealbreaks** » Wed Sep 07, 2005 8:53 pm

john gordon wrote:ok,but the bottom line is when your sitting in a coffe shop macs will get you more
chicks.nobody can argue with that!!!!!!!!

Yeah, but they'll either be granola fed, hairy legged crystal aligning, gaia spiritualist, Hare Krishna chanting, tribal tattoo sporting man hating feminazis in black... or...

bubble-gum popping, uber trendy, fendi bag twirling '80s flashback, too hip to talk to you snotty rich girls with iPod plugs surgically implanted in her ears, only to come out when the cell phone goes on.

No thanks.

Not that I am one to criticise I suppose... My preference is for a PC using, Northern Canadian bushwoman who chops wood, drinks beer, owns (and knows hot to use) powertools and studies Martial Arts developed by the Russian Spetznaz.

AdamJay · Post by **AdamJay** » Wed Sep 07, 2005 9:01 pm

another reason i choose to use OSX on stage rather than Windows:
plug-n-play drivers.

both have them, but OSX has an advantage.

I've experienced this problem on both platforms: a midi driver crapping out and no longer responding in Live. be it a UC-33, a UC-16, a trigger finger, or a Motu Fastlane (its happened on all of them at least once in the last 3 years).

Now on both Windows (2000 & XP) AND OSX, you have to turn the device off/on - or if its bus powered, unplug/plug-in.

great, no biggie right? You get the device back and midi control is returned. but in Windows, the driver won't respond from a loss of communication until you relaunch the Live application. in OSX, i can plug it back in and get the functionality back IMMEDIATELY. and i dont have to close/re-open Live like i do in Windows. This is pretty fucking crucial during 90-120 minute long live PA's.

One of the last gigs i did with a PC running Live was @ Earthcore festival in Australia last year. an Athlon 64 3700 with 1.5GB ram. thing was solid as a rock, but i lost ALL midi control (UC-33 & Yamaha SU700 via Motu Fastlane) in the middle of my set, was forced to close Live (with silence) and then open it back up. Totally disrupted the flow of my set, and really pissed me off.
Now the crowd just saw this as a momentary change in direction, as i did come back in after Live re-opened with more deep material. So it was not an obvious technical issue. But i'm a perfectionist, and i hate it when my Operating System controls the flow of my Live set. Thats my job.

Needless to say, i went back to Macs. This is just one of a hundred reasons i did so.

Now of course Murphy has that law that shit is gonna hit the fan, and you can only do so much to prevent that. And i did everything possible to keep that PC stable, just as i do my Mac. I'm not saying one is more stable than the either. Neither platform is immune to issues.

But in the case of reloading a midi device/driver in the middle of a Live Set, owning a Mac for me is like having a spare tire. Shit will hit the fan on OSX, just like it does on Windows But at least with OSX, the music don't stop.

'nuff said.

DJ Padawan · Post by **DJ Padawan** » Wed Sep 07, 2005 9:05 pm

cosmosuave wrote:I had come to this conclusion the other night while looking at my wife's IBM laptop... I noticed that for the past several years that IBM has always used the shade of black on their laptops while Apple uses white(silver)... As we all know there has always been the PC vs Mac debate well I think now it boils down to this...

black= evil
white= good

Therefore IBM evil vs Mac good...

The good vs evil thread... Why did i pick IBM? They always are recommended as a choice laptop and an expensive one at that...

Okay, allow me to point out the error in your thinking.

Johnny Cash - Black
Luke (in ROTJ) - Black
Batman - Black
James Bond - Black Tux
Boss Hogg - White
Stormtrooper - White
KKK - White
David Duke - White

Therefore Black = Good and White = Bad, Mac = Bad, bad, bad,

Moody · Post by **Moody** » Wed Sep 07, 2005 9:10 pm

Use what works for you. Who cares about anything else.

Sonic-Prophet · Post by **Sonic-Prophet** » Wed Sep 07, 2005 9:11 pm

I have an old G4 1Gig & an IBM laptop, I guess I'm Yin-Yang? Live kicks ass on both of them. My band & I did 2 shows the week before last with the laptop, no mixer/outboard effects; just Live, a motu 896HD, power amp & speakers. Live handled all the mixing, dynamics/effects processing, monitoring & FOH. Not even a hiccup throughout a 2 hour show, & we even recorded at the same time. Did any of you hear that the newest generation Macs will be running Intel chip-sets? A real Mac-head friend of mine also told me that Steve Jobs has been running OSX on a PC for some time now. Personally I prefer my Mac, but I find they both perform well. Check this out:

Macintosh with Intel Inside?

and

OSX PROVEN hacked & running on an ordinary PC

subterFUSE · Post by **subterFUSE** » Wed Sep 07, 2005 9:11 pm

great, no biggie right? You get the device back and midi control is returned. but in Windows, the driver won't respond from a loss of communication until you relaunch the Live application. in OSX, i can plug it back in and get the functionality back IMMEDIATELY. and i dont have to close/re-open Live like i do in Windows. This is pretty fucking crucial during 90-120 minute long live PA's.

That's a good point.

I have noticed that if I want my MIDI controller to work in Live, I must plug it in and turn it on BEFORE I open Live, or else it won't work.

If you can just plug it into a Mac, then that's a distinct advantage.

tribalogical · Post by **tribalogical** » Wed Sep 07, 2005 11:01 pm

montrealbreaks wrote:
john gordon wrote:ok,but the bottom line is when your sitting in a coffe shop macs will get you more
chicks.nobody can argue with that!!!!!!!!
Yeah, but they'll either be granola fed, hairy legged crystal aligning, gaia spiritualist, Hare Krishna chanting, tribal tattoo sporting man hating feminazis in black... or...

bubble-gum popping, uber trendy, fendi bag twirling '80s flashback, too hip to talk to you snotty rich girls with iPod plugs surgically implanted in her ears, only to come out when the cell phone goes on.

Woo hoo!!! Man, you are talking my favorite kind of girls... I knew I bought a powerbook for a reason.......

I definitely gotta hit the local cafe......... now, where'd I put my flak jacket and kevlar pocket protector....?

peace,
tribalogical

montrealbreaks · Post by **montrealbreaks** » Wed Sep 07, 2005 11:24 pm

tribalogical wrote:
montrealbreaks wrote:
john gordon wrote:ok,but the bottom line is when your sitting in a coffe shop macs will get you more
chicks.nobody can argue with that!!!!!!!!
Yeah, but they'll either be granola fed, hairy legged crystal aligning, gaia spiritualist, Hare Krishna chanting, tribal tattoo sporting man hating feminazis in black... or...

bubble-gum popping, uber trendy, fendi bag twirling '80s flashback, too hip to talk to you snotty rich girls with iPod plugs surgically implanted in her ears, only to come out when the cell phone goes on.
Woo hoo!!! Man, you are talking my favorite kind of girls... I knew I bought a powerbook for a reason.......

I definitely gotta hit the local cafe......... now, where'd I put my flak jacket and kevlar pocket protector....?

peace,
tribalogical

Heh. I should have figured you'ld be down with chicks like that - you're from California, and there's no shortage there from what I hear!

Even though I live in Montreal, I haven't hooked up with one of those French Canadian chain smoking, super gorgeous fashion maven, slutty roman catholic, thick accent swearing in English like a wounded pirate, 'her mom's only 16 years older than her and is just as hot' type girls.

When it comes to what platform they use? They use men. God bless 'em!

neomodo · Post by **neomodo** » Thu Sep 08, 2005 8:47 am

Um - doofi'

that's plural for dooofuses...

my laptops are Blue, Silver and Red - They are intel and amd based computers. One is running the latest version of Darwin - (don't ask) - One is running SuSe 9.3 and the other XP pro - I haven't tried to see if live would install on the darwin box - doubt it - so my Microsoft PC is the portable digital audio machine.

Now if I remember correctly the white powerbook is lame and a few years ago when they had the orange and blueberry powerbooks - well they were gay (and I don't mean homosexual... just gay) - Wouldn't give one to my grandma.

So perhaps Apple = Totally Gay
and PC's = not that -

That's a pretty good analysis no? and no need to even go into the performance debate....

WAKE UP PEOPLE APPLE WANTS YOUR MONEY AND WILL DO ANYTHING TO GET IT JUST AS MUCH AS ANYONE ELSE DOES... THey are not sanctified, they are not better they aren't necessarily worse either - it really depends on the application of them. Sadly, even though OS X is one hell of a powerful OS - most of the user base for MACs consists of people that will never EVER understand much less use any of that power... Pathetic if you ask me... I'll put money on the fact that 99% of the mac users on this board don't even know anything about unix, things like troubleshooting in single user mode are unknown, ROOT is probably foreign notion to them and they freak out whenever anything goes wrong with their system... Oh my god IT's bwoken... its bwoken!! and what do they do?

Reinstall the OS - every time -

robin · Post by **robin** » Thu Sep 08, 2005 9:12 am

AdamJay wrote: great, no biggie right? You get the device back and midi control is returned. but in Windows, the driver won't respond from a loss of communication until you relaunch the Live application. in OSX, i can plug it back in and get the functionality back IMMEDIATELY. and i dont have to close/re-open Live like i do in Windows. This is pretty fucking crucial during 90-120 minute long live PA's.

But in the case of reloading a midi device/driver in the middle of a Live Set, owning a Mac for me is like having a spare tire. Shit will hit the fan on OSX, just like it does on Windows But at least with OSX, the music don't stop.

'nuff said.

So i'm not just mad then. OSX does have that advantage. This is exactly the reason I prefer macosx over xp.

To re-iterate I always try to be platform agnostic but if a clear advantage shows itslef to me I go with it. OSX to me has that advantage (for me, if pc/xp is your bag mor epower to you, err literally).

@neomodo it is precisely because I;'ve worked with unix machines for 15 years that I also prefer macosx. A lot of my colleagues (I work in grid-computing in a university computing dept.) are also making that decision to go macosx. Despite the fact that the hardware, though nice, is a little slow. That should say something.

ok that's enough from me. i think this thread is a cut above the usual platform war flame-athon tho. nice one.

and yeah Moody has it right (see above).

hoffman2k · Post by **hoffman2k** » Thu Sep 08, 2005 9:32 am

You know what's really funny about these threads?

Pc users always need to point out that they are winning (the argument)
Mac users always act like they have already won.

Personally i feel,.... Since tiger came out. There is no need to argue.
The only argument a pc user can give is "i have more power".
Whoopty-freaking-doo

Maybe the price of a mac. Which is relative.
With all the money i spend on useless things...
I'd be a hypocrite to bitch about paying a little more for something i really want.

amo · Post by **amo** » Thu Sep 08, 2005 9:37 am

Wow ! come on guy's ! ya know it is much better !
no matter what, it wins by far !

Stop babbling and face the truth. YOU are twisted.

Another PC vs Mac ..With a twist...

Re: Another PC vs Mac ..With a twist...