Thinking about making the change to mac....

[JAMM]

I used PC,s en macs and i prefer mac. In pro-studio,s there is a mac....Almost every musician with a laptop on stage is using mac. the highlighted apple logo always looks so great on a dark stage;) but serious..stability on stage is the most important thing for me so mac is my choice.
Also every install of software works like a charm and audio/midi latency is great on mac.

The downside is that you pay more cash for mac. Also NOT saying that PC,s are not stable! so erverybody....have fun with your PC,s and MACS.

[luzil]

fan boys? isnt it rather fanboy like to live with a computer regardless of bad bad timing, virusses and and unstable os that you should reinstall every year to keep it smooth?

what are the advatages of windows pc´s for musicans? except that they might be cheaper..?

but this is only true for low end machines... highend pc´s are usually the same or even more expensiv than apples..

ther are pc laptops out there that go well above 5000.- euros ... some special models even more...

strange argument, u get more power for ur $ by upgrading/builidng ur PC than buying a new mac, thats a simple fact.

just look the "live performance thread". one of best threads here, because u get an objective picture of current status quo and no typicals win/appple fanboy/hater jabber. macbooks perform consistently worse than pc notebooks, probably OS X is not so optimal as the pretty old XP, on Win 7 my performance Test was another 2% faster.

The only reason to me seems design and stabilitiy. I never had a bluescreen on XP, live itself crashes sometimes with some vst. Just make a clean install of Windows, use a non IE Browser. Cost u one hour

[SubFunk]

probably OS X is not so optimal as the pretty old XP, on Win 7 my performance Test was another 2% faster.

this is the one point no one is really interested in, it's the most uninteresting factor of a computer based system.

stability, workflow, easy maintenance, etc., etc. are all way more important for stress free work then some even 10% more speed.

i would still take OSX over windows even if it would need walking sticks.

that actually reminds me how funny i find that whole performance test race.

how about to rather creating per test time a beat or melody instead?

and because i am a loudmouth [berlin style] shameless bastard

===> that was all done on a wonky Live 8 version (loads of headache! and crashes galore) and an old, slow, not so shiny (anymore) and slightly bent (from crashing onto a stone floor when he was just 2 month old) MacBook Pro ===>

http://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=133026

[luzil]

well, on win 7 everything loads faster for me, will buy a SSD in future, that will add too. Long loading of another live set or sampled instruments hurts my workflow. Also i can run more tracks without worry. And if i would have bought a macbook pro with expensive 2.8 core duo and a pc with lower GHz yields the same performace, this is a bigger disadvantage to me. The CPU prices go up nonlinear. A macbook is hard to upgrade and if i buy a new notebook, than for at least 4-5 years upwards. I also like to hear whats so super on the apple workflow? Live is the same if u run win or OS X in the background. On windows i have autohotkey, i can make shortcuts and little helpers for everything i want and how i want. I doubt i can get a better workflow than this. The 10 multitouch gestures u can program on a apple arent a big help to me.

[SubFunk]

yeah whatever, i am sorry i am just in a damn good mood and find lately any tech talk mumbo jumbo just utterly useless and super funny, including myself...

now i gonna party like usually. a MF.

where is the champagne again?

p.s. i basically only seek for a system that does not go into my way of releasing my ideas fast and stress free, that's all.

damn, where did i put the glass again?

[3phase]

My new computer will run Windows 7 and be home built, Macs are for losers. As long as I'm running a PC that's 0.03gHz faster than a Mac, total win in my book. OSX is for losers who can't build their own PCs. What a waste of money, sheesh.

loosers that have real music hardware and want a computer that can keep up with that?
A functional unit istead a big bulky puzzle box?...
and i wonder that you consider desktop computers at all.. i thought music is a laptop only game by now except you have a rental studio...

and wirh laptops apple isnt really that expensiv in relation to good pc hardware...

[3phase]

just use whatever and MAKE MUSIC

No arguments there, I'm still working my head around the technology every day. I come from a 20 year background of punk/ska playing shitty old guitars through whatever amps were available. I really find it hard to incorporate the technology into forming the sound I have in my head...much harder than back in the day, when one of the lads would simply have told me to shut the fuck up, stop being an artsy wanker and just PLAY!.....Good days...and just to reiterate, I have and do use both platforms...but to be honest, what exactly 64 and 32 bit means to making music is 1. totally beyond me and 2. I suspect with the complexity (or lack of, thereof) of what I do, utterly meaningless.

thats the perfect profile for somebody that likes to build its own windows pc and allways wants to be 0,3 ghz ahead of its time..allways checking the newest hacks of the 1000ends of plug ins out there ... during this process also checking out any virus or worm that there is and by the way becoming an expert in hardware miss configurations and uly driver interactions...

thats whta the y call "PLay" theese days..


however... apples are computers aswell... ther is no such thing like just Play...

everything is fin for 3 years and than ist crashing all over again... as we had in the black summer of ableton in 2009..
what a nightmare... just play... pffff

so i suggest to keep your guitars and dont take computers to serious.. you can get an 8 track for 50 euros theese days...tapes are expensiv thou

[3phase]

just look the "live performance thread". one of best threads here, because u get an objective picture of current status quo and no typicals win/appple fanboy/hater jabber. macbooks perform consistently worse than pc notebooks, probably OS X is not so optimal as the pretty old XP, on Win 7 my performance Test was another 2% faster.

The only reason to me seems design and stabilitiy. I never had a bluescreen on XP, live itself crashes sometimes with some vst. Just make a clean install of Windows, use a non IE Browser. Cost u one hour

you maybe dont got it.. if you own external seqenced hardware .. like drummachines or synths with internal sequencers live on an apple will give you a 20 times more stable clock...

factor 20 !!! against 2% faster???


tsss

[davepermen]

sounds like the typical steve-jobs presentation:

now up to 5x more fast, with 2x more music to store on, and 3x the battery life.

now 20x the stable clock!! awesome.

interesting how much more stable than.. stable enough.. that mac clock is, then.. ah, yeah, 20x more the same..

[8O]

stability, workflow, easy maintenance, etc., etc. are all way more important for stress free work then some even 10% more speed.

+1

[davepermen]

stability, workflow, easy maintenance, etc., etc. are all way more important for stress free work then some even 10% more speed.

+1

then why get a mac? ..

[SubFunk]

stability, workflow, easy maintenance, etc., etc. are all way more important for stress free work then some even 10% more speed.

+1

then why get a mac? ..

because they suit to my glass of champagne. prost!

[Tarekith]

PCs are way more stable, like 0.05% more. Srsly. They are just so shiny you'll go blind looking at them, what good is that for a musician?

Building a hackintosh is a waste too, you can polish that bad boy for days, still won't go blind like the real thing.

[gurumonkey]

Hey. i work on both, with one install of live on each machine. some thoughts...

I have always wanted to upgrade to a killer laptop, mac style, but when the time comes i don't know if can justify the extra money when i could get a pc plus extra hardware.

mac's are very restrictive with their ports.

I don't use them often, but when i have the included software with macs are nice.

WAY more software out there that runs natively on windows machines.

my mac doesn't go sluggish as often as my pc, but when it does i still haven't learned what i can do about it. I'm much more familiar with windows when it comes to troubleshooting.

Macs will continue to run both OS's well, and they sure seem committed to taking that even further. I don't see PC's trying to find ways to run mac only software at all...

Video on the mac is a HUGE PLUS for me. It's really a matter of software more than anything, but i really really like using final cut express, someday i hope to switch up to final cut studio. there are programs for both, obviously, but i've been very happy with how FCE works and it's likely that this reason alone will push me to buy a mac in the future. Imovie is the same way, far superior to windows movie maker. i don't know if you have intentions of doing video at all in the future, but it's something to think hard about it.

So random thoughts. i hope some are helpful to you. i won't interpret them for you, but feel free to ask ?'s if I can be of any more insight.

[infiniteloom]

I'll try to keep this short. I've been messing about with computers for the last 25 years. Unix, DOS, windows; I've seen them all and I can wrap my head around pretty much any computer problem. Two years ago, I bought a brand new vista machine. Performance was horrible. Fixed that and ran happily for a month or two. Installs, uninstalls, reinstalls, etc. And the computer was crawling again. Like my XP machine before it, and the W95 computer before that.

Fed up with playing system administrator (I do that enough at work), sold it all. Bought a Macbook pro in a crazed moment.

The moment I turned it on, I realized computers didn't have to be annoying anymore. The simplest things like not making a dumbass sound because some USB peripheral had just been plugged in. That day was the day I started using my computer instead of managing it.

Yes, Macs are intel machines. They're basically shiny PCs. But if you're only looking at that part of the picture, you're missing out. It's not the hardware, nor the software. It's the way everything comes together and just supports what you're doing. Your computer is finally a tool instead of a crutch.

If right now, the only thing standing between total bliss and you is a faster computer, then by all means just upgrade your windows PC. However, if you're constantly fighting it, as I was, look the other way. You'll never look back.