Screw this...I'm going Mac...

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
Lo-Fi Massahkah
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Post by Lo-Fi Massahkah » Fri Aug 05, 2005 4:20 pm

Lofi- I meant that I wouldn't want to pay $1500 for a PC laptop and never be able to go online with it. I used to use a PC but I was a bit of a worm magnet. Got a bad case of Masterblaster that rendered my PC useless, and that was through a hardware router with Norton Internet Security software. I was hacked to pieces.
I must be the luckiest bastard with a PC! I've been running Intel or AMD since 12 years back, internet since 1995 and music apps about 8 years. And I've had one virus/worm/whatever that seriously destroyed my system....

...then I ghosted and was good to go in a few hours!

Since a couple of years, though, I am running AVG Free antivirus - but once installed it sits there and does it's job. For free - not too much hassle...

I'm not trying to stir up a storm here, 'cause just like Noiseontopause, I'm a sucker for estethics. And if I'd get some good arguments, I might very well go for a Mac!

Cheers,
Mikael

noisetonepause
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Post by noisetonepause » Fri Aug 05, 2005 4:34 pm

Forgot about spotlight, Spotlight is great. I keep all my IM conversations logged cos every once in a while I'll get an email address or a phone number or someone will say something funny or whatever that I need to remember - and usually I'll remember a sentence from that conversation. Type that into spotlight and the log file comes up. Neat.

Exposé and Dashboard I don't use, though. I can see why some people would like them but it's not for me...

With the latest version of OSX you can supposedly use more than one audio interface at a time with one app no matter if the manufacturer supports it or not; seems amazing but I haven't tried it yet. Also, inter-application MIDI is easy as 1-2-3 and I've never had any problems with it. As I understand you need some 3rd party tool to do it on Windows, but I dunno..

Another note about the hardware BTW - supposedly the Firewire/USB power supplies in Macs are better (cleaner and steadier) than in yer average PCs. As I use peripherals that only take power from these busses, this is probably a good thing. Wouldn't know for sure though... also, how's the on-board audio in your PC laptops? Last I heard (ages ago!) they were all a bit useless re: noise and latency... On my iBook though it's good. I probably wouldn't use it for mixing (it's slightly less clear and has less bottom end than either of my two iPods, which is all I've compared it with), but it's hiss free and low latency so I use it quite often. Would've loved an input to go with it, though!

If you wanna compare setup instructions between the operating systems, btw, check out the procedures for setting up a mobile phone as a GPRS modem via bluetooth. On macs, it's a two or three steps - on windows, it's pages...

-Paws

futureproof
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Post by futureproof » Fri Aug 05, 2005 4:52 pm

Sales Dude McBoob wrote:Lofi- I meant that I wouldn't want to pay $1500 for a PC laptop and never be able to go online with it.
why not...I do all the time :)

Sales Dude McBoob wrote:I used to use a PC but I was a bit of a worm magnet. Got a bad case of Masterblaster that rendered my PC useless, and that was through a hardware router with Norton Internet Security software.
that sucks....I havent had any problems though (knock on wood) just using AVG and zone alarm.

Sales Dude McBoob wrote:With PCs you constantly get these computo-speak dialog boxes. What good is a dialog if you can't understand the language they are speaking? Example: "EXE error blah-blah. Then Blah BLah on for a whole paragraph of blah". What fucking ever. I'm not an IT person. I'm a person.
I know what you mean...I hate that too. thats why I just do simple maintenance once in a while to help prevent that.

anyways,seems like you guys have some pretty decent reasons for using macs...happy to see were past the "i do music so i have to use a mac" days. :D
"THE biggest differences between Live 3 & 4 are the things that Live 4 have that are missing in Live 3"

-some dude on KVR.

Sales Dude McBoob
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Post by Sales Dude McBoob » Fri Aug 05, 2005 5:19 pm

anyways,seems like you guys have some pretty decent reasons for using macs...happy to see were past the "i do music so i have to use a mac" days.
Yeah man, something we're learning is that you gotta keep it positive around here. For the last couple days I've been hearing the theme music to General Hospital in the backround every time I log onto the forum. [Note: to non-Americans... General Hospital is a soap opera and the theme music is very dramatic and sad]

Lo-Fi Massahkah
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Post by Lo-Fi Massahkah » Fri Aug 05, 2005 5:34 pm

This must be the most balanced and harmonic Mac/PC discussion ever! :D :D :D



...and this is my 300th post! :lol:

Cheers,
Mikael

kabuki
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Post by kabuki » Fri Aug 05, 2005 5:46 pm

It never occured to me that all the useful, free apps that come with my Mac are good reason's 9since I take them for granted).

iMovie, Garageband (not that I will ever use it), iDVD, Sherlock (look up ANYTHING in a proprietary window - Movie listings, definitions, maps, etc all localized), MIDI/Audio set up (so robust and simple it should be concidered a separate app), Fontbook (I prefer Suitcase), iPhoto...

They all work so well within the OS.

I really don't see the point of Dashboard Widgits though.
15" PB 2.5 Ghz, 4 Gig RAM, 750 GB HD, Live 9 still no cue points or program change messages?!?. Doesn't do shit.

Sales Dude McBoob
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Post by Sales Dude McBoob » Fri Aug 05, 2005 5:59 pm

I really don't see the point of Dashboard Widgits though.
Last night I was going through the sound banks on the MX4 soft synth. I was looking for presets I liked and could use in a live situation. There were tons of sounds, and only a few that I would like. About 1/3 through the process I realized that when I looked back I couldn't remember all the names of the sounds I had liked, even though they all had unique names. So I was like "shit, I need to go find a scrap piece of paper and jot the names down." But then I remembered the post-it note widget. I clicked on the dashboard and wrote them down there. Simple. Yeah, that's something you can do with 'Notepad' but it's that much easier.

noisetonepause
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Post by noisetonepause » Fri Aug 05, 2005 6:05 pm

Lo-Fi Massahkah wrote:...and this is my 300th post! :lol:
PAH! NOOB!

;)

Lo-Fi Massahkah
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Post by Lo-Fi Massahkah » Fri Aug 05, 2005 8:01 pm

noisetonepause wrote:
Lo-Fi Massahkah wrote:...and this is my 300th post! :lol:
PAH! NOOB!

;)
Cheers, my danish friend! :D

/Mikael

kineticUk
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My Opinion on the PC Mac Thing

Post by kineticUk » Sat Aug 06, 2005 12:43 am

As I have had both a PC and Mac for music, I would say I spend less time swearing ready to throw my PC out of the window because of temperamental XP, but have alot less power when it comes to having plugins on my mac due to mac processor speeds.
I love my mac but I think it is because I am used to OSX now and it does what I need it to do ie doesnt crash which lets me make music more.Because I dont really use too many plugins before i record them to audio I can survive. I would like to be able to use plugins without worrying about the load but what can you do?I will wait for intel to make the processors before i buy another one.
Benefits of PC when they are properly set up would be the processor power which is way ahead even of the G5s IMHO as long as you build the PC yourself from quality components.
With macs things tend to work first time without so much getting involved in configuration.The drivers seem pretty solid as does the OS (compared 2 XP) and it is very nice to use.
Some people hate macs some hate windows pcs...
I am not a hater of either platform but do love making music on my mac and OSX as I can do that without so many problems. :)
Bottom line if you know nothing about PCs and just want to make music Mac OSX = Easy It works
If you are good with computers and like tweaking yours and know your shit
PC = More Processing Power
Last edited by kineticUk on Sat Aug 06, 2005 2:20 am, edited 3 times in total.

Living_Fiction
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Re: My Opinion on the PC Mac Thing

Post by Living_Fiction » Sat Aug 06, 2005 12:46 am

kineticUk wrote:As I have had both a PC and Mac for music, I would say I spend less time swearing ready to throw my PC out of the window because of temperamental XP, but have alot less power when it comes to having plugins on my mac due to mac processor speeds.
I love my mac but I think it is because I am used to OSX now and it does what I need it to do.Because I dont really use too many plugins before i record them to audio I can survive. I would like to be able to use plugins without worrying about the load but what can you do?
Benefits of PC when they are properly set up would be the processor power which is way ahead even of the G5s IMHO as long as you build it yourself from quality components.
With macs things tend to work first time without so much getting involved in configuration.The drivers seem pretty solid as does the OS and it is very nice to use.
I am not a hater of either platform but do love making music on my mac and OSX as I can do that without so many problems. :)
Read my "PC specs" thread. In fact, everyone read my last post on there.

Machinesworking
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Post by Machinesworking » Sat Aug 06, 2005 2:21 am

I don't think anybody has mentioned this, but the OSX browser is miles above XP in usefulness. Basically OSX is a better OS than XP, I don't think that can really be debated, maybe next year or two when Longhorn comes out people can argue, but OSX right now is in much better shape than XP.

In terms of we audio people the Audio Midi Set up includes built in Network MIDI, so you can send MIDI between macs via ethernet without third party software.

The major thing PCs have is the chips IMO, IBM and Motorola fucked Apple in production and speed, and we who used macs, plus were interested in speed had to suffer. For any application that uses duals, the problems aren't that bad considering Apple's dual machines, but the truth is the powerbooks are slow, dead reliable, and packed with decent features, but not too fast.

Now with Intel making chips for Apple, what is going to keep people like us who use laptops as instruments using PC? Seriously, I doubt that the Intel powerbook will be anything less than dead sexy, and the OS requires no maintenance to speak of. MIDI and audio are treated as important enough by Apple to be included on an OS level, the damn things might be expensive, but they really are turnkey out the box.

What I really like about windows is it's ability to run on roll you own PC's, and use AMD chips, but because of that ability I think it suffers a bit in it's approach, things can and do get a littel weird sometimes.

From a purely aesthetic veiwpoint, XP is designed for business's, and it shows in the GUI, I get tired just looking at it.

Anyway I wonder what these conversations will be like next year when OSX runs the same chip as XP? I'm sure price will still be an issue, but I have a hard time believing anybody can think that XP has anything on OSX?

PS, Don't take this personally, it's just my opinion, I'm just somebody who prefers OSX, that's all. :wink:

hoffman2k
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Post by hoffman2k » Sat Aug 06, 2005 2:30 am

Machinesworking wrote:I don't think that can really be debated, maybe next year
that'll be fun :lol:



Machinesworking wrote:or two


Leopard on intel macs. While vista still doesn't have something like spotlight....
Discussion is already over. :wink:

subterFUSE
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Post by subterFUSE » Sat Aug 06, 2005 2:49 am

I've read that intel is customizing a 64 bit monster processor for Apple.

I wouldn't count on it. The Apple account is worthless to Intel in terms of sales numbers. Accepting the Apple deal was nothing more to Intel than an ego boost.

Mac accounts for less than about 2% of the computers worldwide. Do you think a company the size of Intel would make accomodations for that? Not bloody likely.


Expect the new Apple computers to utilize the upcoming Intel dual-core architecture such as Yonah.

Steve Christian
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Post by Steve Christian » Sat Aug 06, 2005 3:03 am

I recently dumped my PC for a G5 Mac w/Logic 7 and Ableton 5. Best decision I ever made. :wink:

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