A few questions before buying a friend's macbook

[fisto]

Hi abes,

i'm a windows only user but i'd like to buy a macbook cause i've read that they are more reliable on stage.
So i have to know if this is true. Here are some questions:
1. Is it true that on osx yo can unplug your midi controller while live is running and plug it back and the controller will be recognised without restarting live. Also can i start live first and then plug my usb-controllers and will live recognise them, and will my mappings be still ok?
2. Is there a free pendant to bome's midi translator on osx. I know osculator but its not free (i always thought it was) And can this do the same that bomes midi translator does?
3. Is osx really better or more stable for live-dj-ing or performance (please an objective, technical answer if possible, not asking the fanboys . Is it crash-safe when using only live and osculator for example?

infos are much appreciated as i could get a 1.5 year old macbook for a great price, and i'm a total macnoob.
Thanks in advance!
Fisto

[fisto]

Ps: should i go for snow leopard or just leopard?

[Tarekith]

1. Is it true that on osx yo can unplug your midi controller while live is running and plug it back and the controller will be recognised without restarting live. Also can i start live first and then plug my usb-controllers and will live recognise them, and will my mappings be still ok?

>>> Yes, it works like that, though I still would not recommend doing it on purpose. <<<

2. Is there a free pendant to bome's midi translator on osx. I know osculator but its not free (i always thought it was) And can this do the same that bomes midi translator does?

>>> I don't know of anything free. <<<

3. Is osx really better or more stable for live-dj-ing or performance (please an objective, technical answer if possible, not asking the fanboys . Is it crash-safe when using only live and osculator for example?

>>> Debateable. You can have a stable Windows system too if you keep things in tip top shape and only use stable plug ins. <<<

infos are much appreciated as i could get a 1.5 year old macbook for a great price, and i'm a total macnoob.
Thanks in advance!
Fisto[/quote]

[fisto]

Thank you tarekith. So i gonna have to think about it as i have e good xp machine and it always worked well, just the last time i had a few dropouts while i was browsing for tracks in the live-browser. It was not due to the harddrive as i have a 7200 rpm drive and there was no "red D" in the right corner. I was using bome. autohotkey and live. Now i'm just using live and bome but wasnt djing since i changed the setup. Maybe the dropouts came from the vibrations of the sub. Also one time the in a poor club, the powersupply went down and as my fasttrackpro switched off and on again my live crashed. So i thought it would be a good idea to swithlch to mac for performances.......hmmmm i guess i have to think about that for a while. The price is 400€ so its not too much but.....i don't know.
I hate such decisions .
Thanks for the answer.

[hacktheplanet]

Stability...

The latest OSX is rock solid for me, but I've been getting occasional crashes in Live 6 and a few other random applications. On the other side, Windows 7 is a HELL of a lot more stable than its predecessors. Haven't used it with Live however. And yeah, if you take care of your OS it will stay nice and snappy for you.

[leedsquietman]

TBH, stability means different things to different people.

For example - I have Vista Ultimate SP2 on my home computer (and XP on my older machines) and it runs better than XP did for most things and runs great with Live, Cubase, Renoise, Reaper and Soundforge. Many people will tell you Vista is pants, and with some justification in many cases, but this is the most stable setup I've had and all of my software and plugins runs super stable under it. Windows 7 has a better reputation than Vista, but not everyone is enjoying rock solid stability with it, a lot depends on the device drivers written by audio/midi vendors for win 7, which as in XP and Vista, can vary in quality. With so many hardware combinations on PC, no o/s will ever be 100% stable. Sometimes, small ridiculous things such as a badly written graphics card driver or a chipset or BIOS update can bring down a system.

I worked with Macs for over 8 years with Logic, Cubase, PTHD and found OSX typically to be a solid platform and for DAW work, very reliable, although it's not infallible and will futz up occasionally - most of the problems come from plugins and sometimes software, but OSX has much better native drivers for audio and MIDI, but to be fair most PC products have reasonable alternatives such as ASIO (for audio).

[swett]

It's an awesome machine for sure, buy it, but be prepared for a long and frustrating transition. There is no way around it; it WILL drive you crazy for some time. Both systems have their strengths and weeknesses.

[fisto]

Thank you for your opinion guys.
I was testing this plug/unplug-thingy (which i decscribed above) yesterday with another friends macbook, and its cool to be able to unplug a controller and plug it back without restarting live. This is a big plus when it comes to dj-ing in clubs where you sometimes have to change the positions of the controllers when taking over the set as there is mostly only little space in the dj-booth.
I have a great i7-WIN7-desktop machine (runs great), but for the performance-thing i guess I'll go for the macbook.

Thanks again for helping me decide!
Cheeers