Ableton Forum

Hi guys

For a variety of reasons I'm considering switching back to Windows after being on Mac for a decade

I would love to hear ya'lls thoughts on pros and cons of using Windows for music production in the current computer market and specifically stability - do you guys trust your windows systems for live performance? Audio interface driver weirdnesses?

"Back in the day", Windows XP didn't seem to be as stable overall as OS X but obviously it's 2018

Long story short, apple sent me a brand new max'ed out macbook pro for free to replace an old one but it's not stable and I hate the touch bar. mac support use to be stellar but not so much anymore. The temptation to sell it for around $3k and get a windows computer is strong. Considering even selling it and getting a 2015 macbook pro.

Curious for any and all thoughts, cheers

Got my popcorn at the ready. Jumbo sized.

I don't see any downside when using windows 10 for music production. It is stable and fast (when using SSD of course). Only problem I see when using windows for everything, not only music production but also gaming etc is that MS forces you to update. You can't easily disable it in home edition and maybe I just not lucky, but every major update I had problems with it - the latest one created some new disk partition and spammed me every few mins that it is almost full, so I had to google how to hide it in command line. So my strategy is - postpone it as long as I can so when it messes up after update there is advice how to solve it...

Also you can buy powerful hardware a lot cheaper.

I went through the same thoughts, 2 1/2 years ago, and stayed with Mac because all my co workers were on MAC. Else I would have got an ASUS gaming computer for 1/2 the price of an MBP. So I got the strongest 2015 MBP. I was very dissapointed with the video card... I just scored a movie on it, and the video was jerky, even on an empty project... I would trade it with the newest touchbar MBP anytime, because of the improvements on the video card performance, and hard drive speed.

As for windows, back in 2016 I built a redundant computer setup using 2 sweetwater computers. The experience was painful, we had a lot of disk streaming problems during shows, at one point, Live was playing a single stereo file, and the audio stopped ( the 'D' at top right was flashing orange), I never knew why it couldn't play a stereo file.... Of course I had SSD's

Despite this bad experience, I still think that my next computer will be a PC... Just a budget thing, I'm also tired of a new OS every year, I think it's too much... Right now I have to stick with El Capitan because if I upgrade to High Sierra, it will cost me around 500$ to update Cubase and ProTools... Which I barely use, but still need sometimes...

Have a good reflection

oratowsky wrote: I would love to hear ya'lls thoughts on pros and cons of using Windows for music production in the current computer market and specifically stability - do you guys trust your windows systems for live performance? Audio interface driver weirdnesses?

"Back in the day", Windows XP didn't seem to be as stable overall as OS X but obviously it's 2018

Well, the main problems with Windows 10 are privacy issues, that still remain unacceptable to me and auto-updating. On the other hand the OS audio has been improved and the theory is drivers for Pro audio interfaces can be somewhat faster in Windows with a millisecond or so.

Both macOS and Windows 10 are stable so kinda pointless to compare there.

At the moment with Live 10 I think there are some unique Windows issues that need to be researched.

oratowsky wrote: Considering even selling it and getting a 2015 macbook pro.

I know how you feel.

This is a very tiny detail and possibly a bug, but

Recently I saw a post on fb of a user complaining about how in Live, on PC, they could not use the qwerty note mode with an armed track, and Hold down a note while adjusting parameters in Live with their mouse or touchpad.

I've experienced this kind of suddenly with an update from a few years back and never really though a lot about it.

But it would be nice if Ableton could figure out how to give us control of parameters on screen with a mouse or touchpad while pressing and holding qwerty note inputs.

Reemo wrote:I don't see any downside when using windows 10 for music production. It is stable and fast (when using SSD of course). Only problem I see when using windows for everything, not only music production but also gaming etc is that MS forces you to update. You can't easily disable it in home edition and maybe I just not lucky, but every major update I had problems with it - the latest one created some new disk partition and spammed me every few mins that it is almost full, so I had to google how to hide it in command line. So my strategy is - postpone it as long as I can so when it messes up after update there is advice how to solve it...

Also you can buy powerful hardware a lot cheaper.

Agreed, especially with the bolded part. Windows 10 is *horrible* on a HDD

Also, the updates are a pain in the ass. Ironically, it's Apple's method of performing upgrades that Microsoft is emulating - at least in the way they are performed. They are moving the user profiles to a temp location, upgrading/reinstalling/altering the OS and then migrating the profiles back after the update. Both companies are in the business of pestering you to perform them these days.

lapieuvre wrote:I upgrade to High Sierra, it will cost me around 500$ to update Cubase and ProTools... Which I barely use, but still need sometimes...

This concerns me... My iMac and my MacBook keep pestering me about upgrading to High Sierra. I've almost done it a number of times. I was not aware that it would affect Cubase. I have Cubase 7.5 currently. What version are you using?

yur2die4 wrote: Recently I saw a post on fb of a user complaining about how in Live, on PC, they could not use the qwerty note mode with an armed track, and Hold down a note while adjusting parameters in Live with their mouse or touchpad.

I've experienced this kind of suddenly with an update from a few years back and never really though a lot about it.

But it would be nice if Ableton could figure out how to give us control of parameters on screen with a mouse or touchpad while pressing and holding qwerty note inputs.

I've had this problem too, it only happens with the touchpad (if not all of them, then it's Synaptics touch pads). This isn't a problem with Live, it also happens with Reason 10, Blender, various games and other activities.
you might want to spare yourself the regedit Hacks that would give you trial, error and headache. just buy a mouse. even the ones that sell for $5 will do.

Hey man I'm running on Linux. I don't like Mac or Windows.

I think that Windows10 you might encounter problems with windows but not ableton on windows... gosh windows is terrible.

And how do you run Live on Linux?

miyaru wrote:And how do you run Live on Linux?

Oh it's easy. All you need is a few weeks/months of time to setup emulators/translators, drivers, hacks and workarounds as well as a few thousand forum pages of info to trawl through and a lot of patience to have something that kind of works sometimes if it feels like it until you change your desktop wallpaper and it breaks everything you just did

It's loads of fun since you learn as you build every block. Who wants to just install and use software in minutes when you can teach yourself from the ground up how to actually build your entire environment from scratch.

Then there is the excitement of each piece of hardware/software that you want to use taking just as long to get working. Finally there is that extra benefit of being completely alone in the world as you don't have any access to support when things go wrong or stop working months down the track. It's an exciting adventure that tens of people are doing right now.

Fun times are always had with Linux.

miyaru wrote:And how do you run Live on Linux?

You don't. You run Bitwig, u-he and a few other front-running developer's products that do support Linux.

OK, now I get the picture LOL

jestermgee wrote: tens of people

Any idea on the percentage of Ableton users on PC vs Mac?
I did my sums and research and many creative were saying the DELL PRECISION 5520 was a better machine than the Mac when I bought it, and had double the everything (32GBRAM, Xeon, 1TB SSD, touch screen, infinity edge etc. for same price as Mac Pro.
Problem is a few developers won't make a PC plugin. Would love to get my hands on ebosuite by Isotonik, but not interested in switching to Mac.
So, any idea on %s?