Ableton for music production. PC vs Mac

[gabgl76]

Hi there everyone,

here is my situation:

I am looking foward to buy Ableton Live Suite 8 to create music (mostly House, Techno, Trance ... that kind of music)

I currently have a Laptop (HP G50, 2.0 Ghz, 2GB ram, DVD reader ... everything ableton needs to run (as described in the product specifications))

my question is:

Can I use my laptop and make it work correctly? (remember I only use it to create music, not for live performances!)

or do you recommend I buy a Mac? and If yes, Which one?

Regards,

[j2j]

You don't neeeeeeeeeeeeed to buy a mac. But a brand new mac, like the 13 inch macbook pro, with 4 gigs of ram, and the latest operating system, is going to blow you HP away.

[Sales Dude McBoob]

Yes you can use your laptop to make it work correctly.

Just think about music. Don't think about computers.

[H20nly]

Yes you can use your laptop to make it work correctly.

Just think about music. Don't think about computers.

Amen


And just think... thats coming from a guy with Sales Dude as part of his handle.
You'll probably get a whole bunch of Macs are great and PCs are... you know what... nevermind... I already had this conversation today.
http://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php?p=920149#p920149

edit: for URL

[Tone Deft]

to create music (mostly House, Techno, Trance ... that kind of music)

oh god no, please don't.

[myxomat0515]

gabgl76 wrote:
to create music (mostly House, Techno, Trance ... that kind of music)

I've heard of that

[trilo]

Apple makes great hardware/software, and I'm really happy with my machine - can't imagine ever switching back to PC. The first Mac I got (2003) lasted 3x longer than any PC I'd ever owned, and I had fewer headaches and spent more time being music geek instead of computer geek. The one I got last fall rocks even harder. That's been my experience, anyway.

Computer's just a tool, like a screwdriver, wrench, or powerdrill. The house you build doesn't care whether you used Craftsman or Snap-On tools, and the music you create won't care which OS you've got.

[slirak]

A few months back I switched from a 2.0 GHz/2GB RAM LG laptop running Win XP to a unibody MBP 2.4 GHz/4GB Mac running OSX Leopard.
In spite of the extra GHz and RAM, I only experienced a slight (about 5 %) bump in Live 7's performance. And actually, the Mac is a bit less stable than the LG was. That one was dead stable though. The Mac's still very stable, just not quite like the LG was.

I switched because of many reasons, but not because I expected Live to run better, so I'm not disappointed.
Actually, I've started to wear black jeans and black polo's a lot lately, basically looking like your average mime artist, so I guess I might be turning in to a genuine Mac fanboy...

But as long as you stay away from Vista, I'd say stick to your PC as long as it's reasonably stable.

Now if they release a 64 bit Live that can make use of Snow Leopard's (new Mac OS, released in september) memory handling and über cool use-your-GPU-for-general-processing thingamabob, then a Mac might well really whoop a similarly speced PC's ass...
But that's yet to be seen.

BTW, I didn't have to tweak the LG at all except optimise XP for background services. Was the same with both my previous XP machines. In my experience, XP works perfectly fine with audio apps.

EDIT: I forgot I had to use SpeedSwitchXP to turn of speed stepping with the LG in order to get the most out of Live. Actually made a huge difference.

[briandervish]

Ableton 8 on an HP tablet with Vista. No worries at all.

Use what you have and make some music!

[Sage]

If you're getting a computer dedicated purely for home studio stuff, then it really doesn't matter!


Macs are for idiots like myself with too much money and no IT expertise and go into a panic everytime something goes wrong

[bodhi71]

If you're getting a computer dedicated purely for home studio stuff, then it really doesn't matter!


Macs are for idiots like myself with too much money and no IT expertise and go into a panic everytime something goes wrong

I somewhat agree with this statement.
When I started making music with a computer, I didn't even know HOW to get on the internet.
Well after a couple of years dealing with PCs and all the headaches that go with them, I coud install a hard drive, ram, cd players, ect.
What I couldn't stand was all the driver issues, having to label my usb ports, sound card problems.
I did manage to write music with a PC, and found it rewarding...

But after owning my MBP for a month or so, I could not imagine going back to PC.
Not slamming any users of PC, they can do a great job. But I think Mac does it better.

Get a Mac and don't look back, Jack.

[rolfski]

Don't invest shitloads of money on a new computer beforehand without knowing if you actually really going to need it. It depends on the way you work but your current laptop will probably handle Ableton 8 just fine. Remember, for the price of a mac book you can buy yourself a decent pair of monitors. Therefore, experience Live 8 on your current machine first before making this kind of investment.

[leedsquietman]

A macbook 13" with 4GB ram will not BLOW AWAY a PC laptop similarly specified at all.

Performance will be very similar. For the same money as a Macbook, you can get a PC laptop with a bigger, faster internal harddrive and better graphics card. I like Apple computers, but they are not the be all and end all - if you were buying from scratch and money is no issue, they'd be my recommendation, but your machine should already be powerful enough.

Although getting ultra low latencies under Mac OSX is less of a pain than under Vista (but not XP).

That's not to say you cant get low latencies with Vista, it just needs a bit more effort.


The other thing to consider is audio card - the macbook and pc laptop audio cards are OK for basic playback of sounds in the box, but for recording anything external (voice, guitars, external synths etc), you will need a proper audio card, as th einbuilt one will not have preamps, and will have a gash s/n ratio and dynamic range and converters in comparison.

[gabgl76]

Ableton 8 on an HP tablet with Vista. No worries at all.

I have Vista ... should I worrie?

[Cool Character]

I might not understand all the variables here, but I don't get how a Mac would save you much trouble over a similarly spec'd PC. I mean, on top of learning Ableton Live, you'd also have to learn Mac OS. I mean, if you want a Mac for other reasons as well, it should work fine, but for Ableton it might be easier to just stick with PC.

Check out my post count; you know I have experience behind me.