I've gotta sound off on the whole Live - MAC vs. PC thing...

[McQ714]

so for all of you who said that vista sucked because the drivers didn't work, that's because 3rd party devs didn't do what they needed to do to fix that.

Right, and it's some stroke of genius then that they wrote great drivers for OSX? Seriously drivers on OSX were always good. I think it's pretty obvious that MS missed the boat with Vista, installing drivers on XP sucks as well, worst part of the experience IMO. Why installing three times is OK I'll never get? hopefully 7 turns out as universally accepted and awesome as the PC fanboys that are beta testing it for them say it is. Hopefully they have a better installation process?

MS doesn't write drivers for M-Audio or Presonus or Focusrite or any other company out there so how can you say that it is MS's fault that drivers didn't work? last i checked, drivers have to be updated everytime OS X has a new version. who said anything about installing anything 3 times? are you referring to having to restart for certain updates? that has nothing to do with driver installation. an installation is an installation. i personally don't care that i have to restart my computer because i turn it off every night anyway. it takes a whole 2 minutes out of my life that i usually do something else with anyway. usually a beverage refill. it's not a pain-staking process by any means.

as for anti-virus software.. i don't run it on my DAW and i don't have any problems. probably because i'm not downloading torrents that i shouldn't be or looking at pr0n.

and i agree... Bosch appliances are hardcore!!! any company that makes jackhammers and could definitely make a kick-ass dishwasher.

[Tone Deft]

even an onboard sound card never matches an external one, the mac onboard sound cards in the laptops outperform nearly any PC card available, in terms of latency and sound plus features, like digital I/O

seriously?

you'd put a Mac onboard soundcard against an RME?

[McQ714]

even an onboard sound card never matches an external one, the mac onboard sound cards in the laptops outperform nearly any PC card available, in terms of latency and sound plus features, like digital I/O

uff, and especially dell, we have mainly dell's at work and they are built like a bloody Trabant (the old east german car pictured here earlier)
and big n' clunky.

you are basing this on what exactly??? your preference of Macs over PCs, perhaps?

AFAIK, Macbooks use Intel HD Audio so that's pretty much every Intel-made motherboard.

hey guess what, my HP laptops have a spdif out built-in...

nothing in a Mac is built by Apple! not the ram, not the hard drives, not the video card, not the cpu... nothing! so what you are arguing is that the components that Apple assembled and installed their OS on are better than the components that Dell assembled and installed Windows on???

[SubFunk]

Bosch appliances are hardcore!!! any company that makes jackhammers and could definitely make a kick-ass dishwasher.

yup, in my eyes the only surviving company with a hardcore german quality attitude...

when they took over midas, yup midas belongs to them... hence they went for OSX in there consoles, they are so hardcore that the protocol previous a license from sony was kicked out and they did in no time a killer protocol themselves (they bought it from sony and altered it to a whole new level AES 50 because the sony standard was not up to Bosch expectations)... in any company that they take over they perform a hardcore quality test and throw out immediately everything that is not 100% german attitude to last and / or survive another 5 world wars or 20 generations. cool.

we need more of those, i like ableton to be one of those, though.

[DrXparaMental]

yeah it's fun. Btw, these are my first mac v pc posts.

It's kinda way easy.

I think it's easy for anyone who's mind is made up. I really like a few of the points raised here by Mac proponents and I am a die hard PC person. But all this "it's less of a hassle" stuff is just nonsense. I know several people that use Macs strictly for music applications and they most definitely have their problems. Defective memory sticks are one of the most common place occurrences. The reason I am impressed by some of the Mac info here is because they are hard facts. But they are all hard facts as related to the OS, not the machine itself.

I doubt VERY seriously that if someone were using any Mac tower whatsoever that they could out perform the PC I built with respect to Ableton Live. When Live goes 64bit, that's another story, but for now, no way.

I have never had a problem with drivers, viruses, "hassles" of any sort. But as i said, I can see a few real advantages that I would personally benefit from via the use of OS X, but not at twice the price.

If Mac had any real balls, they would make their OS public like Microsoft does, but truth is, it's just the perfume on their pig that gets the job done.

[Tone Deft]

yeah it's fun. Btw, these are my first mac v pc posts.

It's kinda way easy.

it's all hot air.

must be great since you don't use Live and only come to the forum to chit chat on OT. it's great isn't it?!?! fun fun fun!!

[Tarekith]

I think he means internal PC card.

[AceLuby]

The cost arguement is pretty worthless.

Recently I bought a 13 MBP with 4 gb of ram and 500 gb hd for $1400. I tried to configure a $600 inspirion with the same specs including all the bells and whistles that come with a mac by default and I arrived at $1300. So yeah, the difference was insignifant. The illusion is caused because Mac computers come with with more fundamental stuff by default.

Core Audio insignificant with another sound card?

Someone try to sync Ableton and Renoise at the same, transferring between all of them, all while being able to record into any of them at any time without downloading a ton of bizzare software and get back to me to tell me how you did. We can compare our methods.

We could do the same experiment syncing two networked computers together.

Could you expand on the $700 worth of stuff you bought for your PC to make it up to snuff w/ your mac? Seems like a lot to me.

I just bought a 2.2Ghz intel core duo, dedicated graphics card, 17" monitor, 300 GB HDD for $800 w/ a bag. With my already purchased audio interface I'm running Live seamlessly.

That being said it seems like what you are doing is far more complex than my simple 'record into Live and output the loops'. For what you are doing it probably is worth paying double the price so that you can sync to other machines, other software, or anything else you want to do more simply. For me, and most newbies who just want ableton to run smoothly, spending twice as much on a computer that will do the exact same thing is just throwing money away.

I just did it again, go to Dell, and select their inspiron (only 13inch available) and just configure it to include all the stuff Mac my mac has plus the stuff it has by default.


Pick a 2.26 ghz processor or cloeset thing to it
4 gb of ram
Give yourself the premium operating system (OSX gives you access to everything + software suite)
Give yourself the 3 year warrenty
Integrated Webcam
500 gb harddrive
The upgraded DVD+RW reader (the mac drive is actually quite more complex then this)
Give yourself the better battery (the osx battery actually outlasts this thing by about 7 hours)
Give yourself the middle ground sound card (even tho core audio is astounding)
Add blue tooth
Add a Wireless N Card
Throw in a printer (they all come with printers)

I got:
Inspiron 13
Starting Price $1,587
Instant Savings $250

Subtotal $1,337

You are basically saving less then 100 bucks. You are paying more if you don't get that "instant savings" whatever that is.

And as far as "what I do," reguardless core audio is far more powerful and flexible for a broad range of audio solutions then direct sound or asio4all.

1st off you aren't going to get the best price from Dell, but that's a whole other story.

1) Why would I 'need' to get the premium operating system to run what I want other than to jack up the price?
2) Why do I 'need' a webcam to run Ableton Live or anything else music related?
3) The bigger battery is also unnecessary, but I always plug my laptops in whenever possible.
4) Again, what blue tooth devices do you absolutely 'need' to run Live?
5) Throw on a printer? Seriously, you're being swayed because they include the price of a printer in your purchase?
6) I don't get product insurance and the fact that most Mac people say you NEED to get it isn't helping their cause. In 3 years I could get a completely new computer and STILL be under your initial 'investment'.

It's ok though, if I could afford a Mac I would. I just can't swing that kind of cash for a computer. Maybe when I'm famous I'll upgrade to one. Until then I'll spread the cost around over a few years through upgrades and new PC's. To each his own as long as the music still plays.

[Machinesworking]

MS doesn't write drivers for M-Audio or Presonus or Focusrite or any other company out there so how can you say that it is MS's fault that drivers didn't work? last i checked, drivers have to be updated everytime OS X has a new version.

They work every time, and rarely need updates for problems. Apple suck at attracting developers, but they lay out how to make a driver for your hardware audio card or MIDI etc. very well. Windows is a hellish environment for this compared, if you simply look at results.

who said anything about installing anything 3 times? are you referring to having to restart for certain updates? that has nothing to do with driver installation. an installation is an installation. i personally don't care that i have to restart my computer because i turn it off every night anyway. it takes a whole 2 minutes out of my life that i usually do something else with anyway. usually a beverage refill. it's not a pain-staking process by any means.

Audio drivers on XP. three instals to 'bless' the system in many cases, so three restarts, never could understand that?

as for anti-virus software.. i don't run it on my DAW and i don't have any problems. probably because i'm not downloading torrents that i shouldn't be or looking at pr0n.

Looking at porn while working on my DAW is mandatory, what kind of POS computer do you have? so yeah PCs suck!

[Tone Deft]

I think he means internal PC card.

I hope so.

the difference between mac and PC are far outweighed by the variance in the idiots that use them. it's kinda like people complaining about sound quality when the work they do isn't polished enough to push the limits they're complaining about.

still, you can get dinged by a chipset or one wonky setting. people with IDENTICAL macs don't get the same performance. explain that.

[SubFunk]

If Mac had any real balls, they would make their OS public like Microsoft does

you see that is exactly what they do right and clever. not making it 'public'

[aburgener]

Am I the only one turned off by the look of the current gen MBP line? They look great in photos and stuff but then when I see them in person there's just something really boring about the aluminum. I wish they'd consider other finishes or metals for the chassis... aluminum is stale to me. A macbook with a magnesium finish like the hp 5101 netbook, for example, would look badass.

[Machinesworking]

it's all hot air.

must be great since you don't use Live and only come to the forum to chit chat on OT. it's great isn't it?!?! fun fun fun!!

It's not Monday.

[Martyn]

Fact is having to run an anti virus program while your DAW and browser are open, sucks.

Not fact for me matey, runs without a hiccup, always has. Dunno where you get your 'facts' from really.

I can't quite believe this thread, i thought all this shit died out ages ago. I sat back and opened the virtual popcorn too when this thread started and thought it was going to be a valid look at how platform biggotry had at last died out in favour of common sense, alas, it seems not.

The OP started this thread because he'd got a nice system running and wanted to express a bit of surprise that some of the things he'd heard about one platform being better than another seemed to be bollocks, maybe it is, maybe it's not. The PC platform's worked extremely well for me for close to a decade now.
Most of the bullshit about needing to use Mac to be 'cool' seems ever more hollow to me these days as people who think themselves 'cool' turn out to be 'wankers' merely concerned about how they look instead of not caring about such twattery and simply coming up with something that sounds different. I've never been 'cool', never run with the pack, always been interested in artists who thought differently to the mass. I guess sheep will be sheep, always followers, concerned about whether they'll be accepted if they do something a different way to the 'cool' bullying peer group.

There are a lot of happy PC users that are regulars on this forum, most wise enough to stay out of this sort of tired argument (apart from stupid ol me), it's not worth chiming in really it's been thrashed to death a million times.

Many moons ago, when I was learning to surf at my local beach I noticed a guy on twinnie catching loads of waves, far more than I was, I paddled up to him and said "great board! it really catches waves well doesn't it?" he turned to me and snorted "it's not the board, it's the person on it" and paddled into yet another wave. I felt pretty dumb, but he was very right, on many levels.

</rant>

[Tone Deft]

it's all hot air.

must be great since you don't use Live and only come to the forum to chit chat on OT. it's great isn't it?!?! fun fun fun!!

It's not Monday.

it's amazing that the same people can argue the same shit over and over and over again and not learn to change their tact, learn to disagree or learn what the whole topic boils down to. it's the same shit over and over again largely from the same people. it's also largely the same people that only post OT, go figure.

I wouldn't take computer advice from anyone that's posted in this thread. the ones that do know this stuff haven't posted in it. lol irl.