pc? mac?

forge · Post by **forge** » Fri May 07, 2004 10:26 pm

Anonymous wrote:thanks for all the great responses-- to clarify, i am currently running ableton on my pc desktop ( as well as pro tools reason, reaktor absynth etc) the only reason what i am considering the powerbook is to become more comfortable with it (i currently only use them for music at my high school) my college is mac only, but one of the things that i am fuzzy about is the mac vs pc thing in the professional world-- i know that pc is better for ableton, but if every job that i have is based arouda mac, then i think it makes good sense to go the mac route now rather than later... almost everything i read in Remix, Mix, and Electronic Musician is about the mac (in the hardware profiles of artists)
macs look better and are more reliable, pc's are faster and cheaper (and morecomfortable for me at this point)

thanks again,
ryan

back in the day mac was the one, but those days are gone, the only reason it might be that way now is because of what people started on and carried on. When I started in hard disk recording the powermac 7200/7300 were the only machines that could really cut it, but because pc components down to the case and fans are now built in sweat shops in the far east it just works out that PCs are the more bang-for-buck option. I'd love to own a porsche, but it's only worth it if you can afford to insure and service it.

forge · Post by **forge** » Fri May 07, 2004 10:31 pm

and as for being more comfortable, don't worry the beauty of OSX is that it's easy to use. if you have a PC at home and Mac at school you'll be better off because you can do both. The studio I work in started Mac with Logic years ago, but now they're PC with Cubase SX becase it's much more practical - put it this way, we have an old logic audio 3 (mac) dongle and it will cot £500 uk pounds to upgrade to logic pro, while we can use it to crossgrade to cubase SX 2.0 PC for £200. GO Figure. The PCs work day in day out and would cost alot more if they were macs, it's just the way it is.

globalgoon · Post by **globalgoon** » Fri May 07, 2004 10:32 pm

where did you you get your pismo upgraded and how much?? (I'm in the UK too)

forge wrote:yep - if you're buying a laptop then all the software and configurations will be done at the factory for that machine so it will be solid as a rock and if you're installing all legit software you shouldn't have any stability problems
but you'll get alot more power

Macs are nice but I'd wait untill the G5 laptops are coming out before I'd get a laptop as you really can't argue with the benefites ofd having a more powerful machine

I just recently got an upgrade back of a pismo powerbook (the last black model before the aluminium so now it's a 1 gHz G3 with 1gb ram - it's not G4 I know so no altivec etc but I was still very impressed by how quick it is. I love it, I really enjoyed using it, but I just got the native instruments Komplete bundle and was sequencing it in Tracktion and I was enjoying myself, getting a groove going, but it hit a wall. I transfered accross to my PC laptop which is a superstore cheap athlon 2200 with 1 gb ram and I was shocked. It really meant the difference between working with as many plug-ins - waves, native instruments, reason and tracks as I wanted.

but then the Mac feels like more of a musical instrument - but I guess I'm wanting a musical instrument and recording studio combined, and the PC is much more powerful

I know it's an unfair comparison, but I've read alot about mac laptops hitting a wall and it is a simple unfortunate fact that powerbooks don't even compete when it comes to power especially when you consider my Laptop is almost dated in the PC universe as it's about a year old and the new ones are much faster.

I really like OSX and would much prefer to use the mac if I could, I like the way they handle audio, If I could afford to spend the money I'd get a G5 desktop, but for a laptop I'll have to stick to the PC any day, you might not miss the power on the mac if you don't know any better, but to be able to basically do what you want with no limitations to me cant be beaten and when I got across to the PC again I thought 'can't argue with that' it's not even in the same league.

If you can hold off till the G5 PBs it might be worth thinking about, but then Apple do seem to be quite a way behind in the laptop respects so I don't know - you'll probably always be a step ahead on the PC.

Kodama · Post by **Kodama** » Sat May 08, 2004 12:19 am

To answer your orignal question, there is NO problem getting music software for Macs.

Everything about Mac hardware and Mac OS X are excellent, except for the processor.

Winterpark · Post by **Winterpark** » Sat May 08, 2004 1:40 am

ryan,

i'm not going to get into the debate, cause i use both formats. but i gotta say, that if you are needing a laptop for college where everything else is mac based.... dude you gotta get a mac laptop. It'll make your life so much easier. Networking... transfering files between computers... it's just easier if it is all on the same format.

regards,
am

drush · Post by **drush** » Sat May 08, 2004 1:41 am

forge wrote:put it this way, we have an old logic audio 3 (mac) dongle and it will cot £500 uk pounds to upgrade to logic pro, while we can use it to crossgrade to cubase SX 2.0 PC for £200. GO Figure. The PCs work day in day out and would cost alot more if they were macs, it's just the way it is.

WHERE can you still find that SX crossgrade?? i can't find them anywhere.

forge · Post by **forge** » Sat May 08, 2004 2:48 am

[quote="globalgoon"]where did you you get your pismo upgraded and how much?? (I'm in the UK too)

I ordered online from www.powerlogix.com

I had to send the daughter board and live without it for a month - but that was because while my order was in for the G3 900 chip, they announced a new 1gHz upgrade with 1mb cache. The cache seems to do a good job of making up for lack of G4/altivec. I was really impressed with it. And because I already had my order in I got $30 off.

the 1gHz upgrade is about $359 the dollar at the moment is a little over half a pound so that's about £190 - but watch out for the VAT man - when they first sent me the FED-EX box to collect the board they put on it 'computer parts for upgrade'so I got no VAT charge, but this time (final delivery) Fed-ex sent me a £50 VAT bill!!

so ask powerlogix if they can put that on the label for you, but if you have a pismo I would really consider getting it as they are still considered one of the best mac powerbooks and you can really bring it up to speed - I stuck 1gb ram and a \CD/RW and a bigger hard drive in it so now it's a pretty good machine - IMO better than the ALU machines as it's flexible/upgradable - shame i's not G4/altivec and non upgradable video card (unless you get one of those PCMCIA cards->dvi).

forge · Post by **forge** » Sat May 08, 2004 2:50 am

drush wrote:
forge wrote:put it this way, we have an old logic audio 3 (mac) dongle and it will cot £500 uk pounds to upgrade to logic pro, while we can use it to crossgrade to cubase SX 2.0 PC for £200. GO Figure. The PCs work day in day out and would cost alot more if they were macs, it's just the way it is.
WHERE can you still find that SX crossgrade?? i can't find them anywhere.

sorry, I'm in the UK, but usually the states is more competetive???!!! There must be some online shops that do it there.

Pitch Black · Post by **Pitch Black** » Sat May 08, 2004 11:54 am

am wrote:

Networking... transfering files between computers... it's just easier

Joining in on am's chorus, If you hold down the T key while powering up a Mac it boots as a firewire drive (takes only 10 secs too).

You plug it into another Mac and your drives and partitions pop up on the other guys desktop. Easiest thing in the world to drag n drop files......
When finished, unmount the drives by dragging their icons to the trash (its ok, really) and power down your Mac.

Sorry if y'all know this but I keep showing it to my Mac friends and they hail me as a Mac genius, so I guess I'm addicted to the glory

search Mac Help for "Target Disk Mode" for more info

BTW last year I sent out album projects to 10 different remixers, not one had a PC. Your mileage may vary, but food for thought.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sun May 09, 2004 11:39 pm

So if you don,t give a damn what other people think why are you getting so angry.. hahaha

Per Boysen · Post by **Per Boysen** » Mon May 10, 2004 12:09 pm

forge wrote:Macs are nice but I'd wait untill the G5 laptops are coming out before I'd get a laptop as you really can't argue with the benefites ofd having a more powerful machine

This used to be how I was thinking as well - until Apple dropped the prices by 20 to 25% some weeks ago. Then I emptied my savings on a 1,25 G4 PB. For me, working daily on a G5 platform it's a good thing to be maximally compatible when on the road (PB). I'm not saying that my PC's are not compatible, well actually I would say that OS X is very "PC-ish" and compatible with any windows network. My main application, besides Live, is Logic so that's another benefit from using mac (Logic PC ended with last years version, as we all know).

But all applications Ryan did mention are also available on PC, so I think he would be happy whatever platform he keeps on with. However IMHO there is one last argument for going Mac and that is OS X. Some years ago, when I switched from Mac to PC, I was hoping for BeOS to be the future audio system that will provide integrated handling of midi and audio on the system level. But Apple effectively killed Be by not letting go of the new (by then) G4 Mobo spec's and today it is OS X that offers midi and audio streaming at computer OS level. I would guess that an explosion in cool audio software developement have only started now and this will all be happening on OS X. So that's why I left my IBM ThinkPad for a PowerBook

Feeling quite safe by knowing that Ableton is up to Altivec optimating next Live version and that I can always use the Freeze buttons in Logic to work on huge project that only dual G5s will be able to play back un-freezed.

thnx

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Thu Jun 10, 2004 2:12 pm

if you wanna work like a pro - get a mac.

if you wanna make dada sound - get a pc

marcelus · Post by **marcelus** » Thu Jun 10, 2004 2:24 pm

>when you overload your cpu ,to have a mac or a pc is the same it >crashes anyway.

i don't agree. audio IO seems to have higher priority under OSX than under XP (with RME CoreAudio vs ASIO) (+ they won't usually crash with well written drivers)

this means less crackles when overloading on the Mac, but UI less responsive..... it's a detail i know but i wanted to point it out

of course you'll say the pc will accept many more effects & tracks before being overloaded ..... iknow i know...

my take is that the best for gigging would be a portable dualprocessor lunchbox pc with flat screen. why ? because dual processor guarantees UI responsivity doesn't depend upon Audio CPU load. this is why my dual 800 g4 sometimes feel better than my single processor PC. i allows you to be less careful about cpu load.

robbmasters · Post by **robbmasters** » Thu Jun 10, 2004 2:35 pm

Anonymous wrote: macs look better and are more reliable, pc's are faster and cheaper (and morecomfortable for me at this point)

Well, you can get PCs that looks as good as Macs, but obviously beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
And XP PCs are widely regarded as being as reliable as Macs.

On the other hand PC's aren't always faster - it depends on the application (Live 3 may be faster on PCs, but Live 4 should level the playing field).
And cheaper? Again, not always...

OK, I'm deliberately playing devil's advocate to show that there are few absolutes.

However, you'll note that I missed out "more comfortable for me at this point". That is important, and I think it's one of the best reasons for choosing an OS.

Another is will it run ALL the applications you want to use? E.g. do you want to use Logic or Sonar?

Finally, compatibility. While many applications are cross platform, your life will be easier if you go for the same platform as your collaborators.

So go for the platform that best suits your requirements (and budget). There is no absolute "better" platform.

loophead · Post by **loophead** » Thu Jun 10, 2004 2:45 pm

I tried to stay out but you guys are a bunch of asses ! The only post here that helped is from "AM". The point is not the debate of whos faster, whoes sister has better legs or any off that crap. I know some of you are not teenagers ! Remember college ? Not just running Ableton guys !

Get a mac so you will be FULLY comapatable with everyone else at school. Dont be a dope. Try sending documents back and forth, email between pc and mac and see what you are in for ! Networking the two is a joke.

As a developer on a pc for 10 years I am Happy Happy to be on a mac. Jobs/Gates and any other prick aside. But thats not the point here is it ? The point is not putting our needs inside his head !

BUT YOU ARE GOING TO SCHOOL ! GET THE SAME THING THATS IN EVERY TEACHERS HANDS, EVERY LABRATORY, AND CLASSROOM, AND EVERY OTHER STUDENTS DESK !

The rest of you clowns stop confusing the lad !