PC or Mac?

[redglass]

Hi folks,

I'm always wondering when musicians start discussing the Mac vs PC question, as it is about technology vs. technology. At least in my opinion.
But the discussion misses the aspect of creativity. Creativity has nothing to do with technology.

But anyhow, if you want to know how different DAW systems run and perform on Mac and PC, please read this:

http://dawbench.com/win7-v-osx-1.htm

Thanks for the link MrMoney! Some of that information went a little bit over my head, but it was a very interesting read nonetheless. I do think that creativity has little to do with technology, however I also think that modern music is mostly a product of technology that exists today. You can really find the latest hi-tech stuff being used in pretty much any genre of music, in the studio and in a live performance.

I agree, but my creativity is not depending in a technological question like Mac or PC!
Among a few other things the link shows that DAWs perform better on PC Win 7 64 Bit than on MacOSX especially with shorter latenties. This Research does not say anything about aspects like usuability, interface design, so emotional aspects, that make people decide when buying their product.

[Linear Phase]

Hi folks,

I'm always wondering when musicians start discussing the Mac vs PC question, as it is about technology vs. technology. At least in my opinion.
But the discussion misses the aspect of creativity. Creativity has nothing to do with technology.

But anyhow, if you want to know how different DAW systems run and perform on Mac and PC, please read this:

http://dawbench.com/win7-v-osx-1.htm

Thanks for the link MrMoney! Some of that information went a little bit over my head, but it was a very interesting read nonetheless. I do think that creativity has little to do with technology, however I also think that modern music is mostly a product of technology that exists today. You can really find the latest hi-tech stuff being used in pretty much any genre of music, in the studio and in a live performance.

+ 1

Like the man says, "I'm not getting involved in this silly argument, but fyi, windows 7 is amazing."
I agree, but my creativity is not depending in a technological question like Mac or PC!
Among a few other things the link shows that DAWs perform better on PC Win 7 64 Bit than on MacOSX especially with shorter latenties. This Research does not say anything about aspects like usuability, interface design, so emotional aspects, that make people decide when buying their product.

[pencilrocket]

No one pick DAW by its color or icon. Functionality is all. Same goes to machine. The faster it runs, the better the machine is.

[Machinesworking]

I opened up a store bought pc to see what i would find inside. I found an generic brand mp3 player next to a hamster on a wheel. I looked inside a mac and found an entire gnome network. The only thing that disturbed me is that all the gnomes looked like Steve Jobs. Everything was running smoothly on the pc until the hamster died. The gnomes reproduced and the mac lived on.

[pencilrocket]

Yeah. The hamster does tame the most highend CPU and most heated GPU for laptop in the market, the hamster does protect laptop from spills, while the lazy gnomes watching movie. All the hamsters you saw was bought in illegal pet store.

[Earwax69]

I got a strange sound coming from my pc from time to time. Could it be that my hamster suffer from Irritable Bowel Syndrome? It's sound like belching and flatulence to me. I have been giving him the normal hamster diet food. Anyone else have this problem?? Maybe I should buy a snail and backup my pc...

[sporkles]

[oslonovski]

Well, apple is the only manufacturer, that still makes laptops not friggin' dvd players.

[pencilrocket]

no blu ray shit

[H20nly]

I'm not knocking Apple for this, but it's true. the sheer number of hardware options available to a PC user vs. a Mac user is like comparing iTunes to Tower Records at this point.

Umm, you're aware that Tower in it's heyday had a much larger and more diverse selection than iTunes has even now right?

Also, not to join this shitfest, but Apple is a hardware company that also makes it's own operating system, so comparing OSX and Windows has always been awkward at best. The lines got blurred a bit when OSX went X86, but it remains a hardware company.

i am aware of Tower's former glory... that was why the last three words of my post were "at this point"

in regard to hardware, yes Apple is a hardware company... maybe that's why there isn't as much 3rd party hardware available for a Mac. *shrugs and leaves to feed hamster*

[Khazul]

Win7 works 5 times faster than OSX in music territory.
http://www.dawbench.com/win7-v-osx-6.htm

People keep quoting this on various forums like this guys is some god like expert or something.
It is a test of some DAWs that are already known to work well on windows vs osx.

This is the ableton live forum - surely the most valid comparison is between Live 8 on current OSX (Lion) and Live 8 on current Windows 7/64?

Ive done alot of test when I first got my MBP in early 2011 and later when i switched to lion - no significant difference in performance for Live (see the Live 8 performance thread). My personal experience with a variety RME and NI audio interfaces is that Live 8 is more stable on OSX than on good quality PC with the plugins that I use (from fabfilter, spectrasonics, NI, D16, sylenth1, SPL, waves and a bunch of other). However I know of a number of users who have claimed the opposite with their hardware (maybe old mac, different audio, different plugins etc who knows?).

[Breaks Dude]

So funny. I tour as a DJ and just about every city I go to and every opening DJ I meet has a MBP. Talk to any of them and they'll tell you they're "broke". Funny stuff. I have a $700 Win 7 laptop PC and am not broke. How do broke people buy $2500 MBPs?

I will say I own two iPads (including the new one) and an iPhone 4S (bought it for my GF). If you've been around computers enough, getting Windows 7 stable is a non issue. The list of Macs I've owned is a mile long, starting with the Mac Plus right up to the G5s. When I built my new studio tower last April, cost was not a concern and I was seriously considering an i7 MBP with Thunderbolt but ended up building a Win7/64 PC with 32GB of RAM, a 256GB SSD and i7 2600k for around $2,100 - and that was with me TRYING to spend money. LOL. It is, by far, one of the fastest machines I have ever used.

I wouldn't mind having a new MBP and am not opposed to getting one in the future, but the cost keeps me away. I've gotten my $700 Sony Vaio DJ rig pretty stable.

One thing I do like is Apple's uniformity where one can buy keyboard overlays, docking stations, laptop skins...all really cool. Their aluminum wireless keyboard and Magic Mouse/Magic Trackpad are absolutely elegant works of art IMO. One thing they are good at is industrial design. I am jealous about that at times but I like having the cash in my bank account.

[Khazul]

No easy answer to this for everyone - we all have different needs, different existing experience and investments. There is no general one is better than the other however for specific cases, I do still think one can be better than the other by a significant margin.

The differences to me come down to:
- Do you like to use OSX or windows?
- Does your existing or planned choice of software and hardware work better on one platform or the other (cubase/PT are terrible on OSX, Live same on both, logic is OSX only for eg)?
- Can you afford the mac (it isnt really more expensive compared to a comparable quality pc in the same form factor, however a good-enough PC can often by found/built for far less.)
- With some PCs and particular many PC laptops, is it good hardware and BIOS for audio? - PCs and particularly small form factor and laptops can be a bit of a lottery for audio use and/or do you have the PC build/install expertise and desire to research/build/maintain a good audio PC. At least mac are a small number of hardware compinations that are well known.
- Viruses - the usual thing against windows - In the past 6+ years I have never had a virus on any of my internet connected PCs and laptops. I have however always been running fully upto A/V software and latest windowws updates. I also run A/V software on my mac - just in case.

I think that if your audio machine needs suggest a good high performance laptop and you run Live, and you can afford it, then I do you are better with a MBP (or even an MBA if you need something ulta-portable). If you need is for a full desktop workstation type machine, and you can choose good components, confident to build/maintain etc then you cant beat a self build PC for perfromance and money. For small form factor, all-in-one type machines, then I hugely favour the mac-mini and iMac over the offerings you typically find in PC world etc for audio production use.

I you are running Live - then as I said, I personally have found OSX to be more reliable and less hassle (histoically Im a windows user and developer, so I have no probvlem with maintaining PCs). For cubase or PT then I would favour a solid PC desktop.

My main production workstation these days is my 2011 mac book pro 17 - it suits my needs for performance and portability and relaibility and in the end its also a very relaible windows 7 laptop as well to suit my IT work needs. Having got used to OSX (particularly Lion) as actually miss alot of mac functionality when Im using windows on non-apple hardware.

Both OSs are very good these days and easy have strengths and weaknesses. I personally think OSX has more useful tools for an audio producers (easy audio midi config, inter-app routing etc), and windows is a far richer OS for many other uses.

If you have a load of other apple gear (iPhone, iPad, Apple TV etc) then having a full apple OSX based computer is also useful just because they all work so well together.

For general daily use (web, email, office type apps), these days I tend to use OSX more than windows because OSX boots far quicker and I quite like many aspects of OSX and find the apple apps good enough for most uses (and I have OSX version of MS office), but I wouldnt use OSX in an enterprise context, and I choose windows for gaming etc.

[ttilberg]

I'm glad to see some of the new windows based laptops with the backlit keyboard. That was a huge winner for MBP in the club environment. I also was surprised when I didn't have to restart software to get it to recognize newly plugged USB/Midi devices the first time that mistake happened. I've had the low end MBP for a year now and enjoy it substantially. I run both Windows and OSX on it.

That's about all I have to say about it. I use both very frequently, and would recommend either to anyone. Like everyone is saying, pick whatever the fluffernutter you want. I am going to hell for contributing to this thread. Sorry.

[illsub1]

Agreed. I run both, Win7 for games and osx for everything else. 64 gig partition for windows. 2011 MBP 15" with top graphics card and 8 gigs of RAM. Been rock solid and a powerhouse for both purposes.