Help convince me to go Mac...

[devouredremains]

Fat Nerd Vs. Smug Metrosexual Yuppie Skinny Nerd = COCKTASTINGSHITFAIL

And I must add that it bugs me when people say "PC vs MAC". PC merely stands for personal computer which I believe a mac is as well, no?

Microsoft Vs. Apple is more appropriate.

If Andy or James or any other "pro" was as fluent with Reaper running under XP as they are with Pro Tools under OSX their results would not be any different. The records would still sound just as good.

Both get us from point A to point B it's just that one makes you look a little cooler in starbucks.

Never the less, this image of eliteness Apple portrays has never helped anyone pick up the ladies.

 

[James Murphy]

jangoux... carry on. i wouldn't want to insinuate that you shouldn't be charging money at a pro studio and 'fixing' stuff with a free chorus plug.

for me, i pay for my tools i use professionally, for many reasons.... a supported company upgrades and improves their software, being part of development via feedback, getting to really know my tools inside out, support should i have an issue... etc. etc..... i would be appalled if i paid for pro studio time and had to sit here while the engineer fucked around looking on the internet for a free chorus plug-in.

pros are expected to have their tools, to know them, and to be able to get every last drop of creativity out of them.

and you ignored most every mitigating factor in my post regarding the two computers in question.... i know how to maintain PCs and Macs.... my dual processor PowerPC mac, 2 single 1.33 GHZ processors, kicks the shit out of my brother's quad processor PC on everything... but that's not the point, the point is that your studio mac doesn't... but it could be for ANY of number of reasons, none of which need necessarily have anything to do with the inherent quality of one OS over the other, or of one hardware set over the other. you read only as deeply as you wanted to. i wasn't challenging what you said, i was only pointing out that the reasons for the disparity could be any of many things... not saying you weren't experiencing what you said you were in your particular situation. but anything could be causing it. it is NOT however, "the way it is" for everyone. there's clearly a problem with that mac. fix it.

 

[Joematthews]

I think if people want to argue over performance of their Macs and PC's I think everyone should do it in a quantifiable way. IE, track counts, plugin counts, render times etc. Just stating that your PC can pwn a mac or that your mac pwns your PC is irrelivent and sort of adds to the amount of stupid argument that comes with the subject.

Also, I dont like the argument that a pro shouldn't use free plugins, but I agree with James that it isn't right for it to waste studio time finding them.

Joe

 

[Mulder]

To the old guard on PowerPC mac - when your mobos and psu's finally die what you gonna do ? you'll be forced to repair, go intel mac or what ? what's your plan ?

And this is a serious post as I maybe in the exact same predicament as you despite appearing to despise what Apple has become and hung up my zealot cloak...

I have two 9600's in a corner for parts. Sometimes while on visit somewhere I run into one and they give it to me, or sell it very cheap, no trouble there. I also have a friend who deals in old Applestuff, so I'm on the safe side.

And to the guys ranting about superior Appleparts:

I switched to PC's for work cos it made me able to pick the parts instead of Steve doin it for me. Remember the watercooled G5? They couldn't hit 3Ghz so they brought out a Mac that would break down. Remember the MDD? It made as much moise as a vacuum, again because Apple couldn't get decent speeds and had to overclock their stockparts.

The whole thing about overclocking stockparts is that you get speedy stuff for less, and not almost-as-good-as-pc for a whole lot more.

So I took the lesson Apple taught me, and have overclocked my PC's eversince.

You know what? I can do that with your Mac. Give it to me, I'll put in a large noisy fan, a big heatsink, up the fsbspeed and the corevoltage by 20% and only charge you a mere $1k.

Anywayz, now Apple is going the Nvidiaroute I would steer away from it for audiopurposes. The Nvidiachipsets have a rep for dailing in latency for everything except their graphic subsystem.

The new Intel Core i7 is btw great for audio, thanks to the new memorysystem you can get 10 times more streaming samplevoices at the lowest latencies (yes, 10 times).

Put it on a good Asusboard, plug a RME in it. Get a good firewirecard for your 03 or whatever. Get a simple cheap Ati graca. Stable memory. a Good -very important- psu. That's it, then you have 'Apple-quality'.

Oh, and don't buy PTHD, unless you can earn it back in 16 months. The reason Digi won't include something simple as PDC is because their DSPcards don't have enough memory to deal with it, they are very outdated.

And ofcourse they don't allow PTLE to have PDC if their HD cards can't.

 

[Mulder]

When it finally dies, I will go Intel Mac. Until then, I see no reason to upgrade. I actually plan on getting an Intel Mac soon enough, just gotta save up the cash for an 8-core because the only time I'll have to upgrade after that is years down the road when it dies.

And believe me when I say I also do not care for the direction Apple is going with their marketing and such. Again, I do not want them to gain any more market share.

~006

DON'T go for the current 8-cores. It might look flashy, but their memorysystem (FB-DIMM) is twice as slow as DDR2 PC's from two years back. Those boards are for servers, not for workstations.

Wait for Apple to implement the new i7, for audio it will outrun the 8 core by such a great number you won't believe me, on a single quadchip and for a third of the price. And you will still see 8 cores, cos hyperthreading is back, this time good implemented.

I think this will be the machine that will allow PTHD-like latencies while running HUGE amounts of plugins. The stuff we've all been waiting for.

 

[tobin1]

Why does it even matter what a professional uses? I myself want shit to sound good. If I walk into a studio I'm not looking to see if they have a mac, I'm wanting my shit to sound good..bottom line.. it's the that fact that buying a mac doesn't improve your skills with recording/mixing....It's just all personal preference(workflow, etc)

I myself, (and probably many on this forum) would let Andy or James mix an album on a 200$ 2ghz PC, and It still would be better than any of us could do with their studio mac setups.

IF YOU WORK FASTER/SMOOTHER WITH A MAC....GET ONE!!!!111 and if you don't want to switch because of ___________ ...then don't!!!!

 

[Mulder]

Mulder... you a very cool contributor to this forum, and have been here a while... **respect knuckles**. but yeah.. you just made that shit up.. lol... sorry, calls 'em like i see's 'em.

No. OS9 = without ANY trouble -laughing hard at Win98 folks- OSX is for girls & gays.

i've been using macs for 14 years + and never once had that experience when asking for help on a mac forum, and never once failed to help when i was asked. seriously... just go to any mac forum at all, ask for help, and you will receive itl... fuck, just go look at some... what you will find is experienced mac guys giving each other and new guys help. i just scanned several mac forums while eating my lunch, trying my damnedest to find a scenario like you've described... and i can't.

Ever did a search about the memory you need to run PT MIX on a 9600? It takes a lot less time to get such answers form the PCbase, simply because there are a lot more people running PC's.

I had a G4 PCI. Logic wouldn't run. After two months of crashing I had to buy a G4 AGP, Logic nor Apple wasn't planning on fixing it. I figured out all on myself Logic needed fast memorytimings, only 133 MHZ 2-2-2 cas was allowed (I remember that shit like yesterday).

On the PCside, you get that kinda info in an hour.

My MDD running 10.2.8 was a fokkin joke. It ran Logic -then purchased by Apple- in carbon!! That was my last new Mac. Took the Marathon 9600 from my work -love OS9-, put down a PC running Logic 5 togehter with PT TDM, hooked the two up toghether and just spat out work.

My then P4 could run FOUR times the plugins my fabulous MDD 800DP could.

I had my share of appleshit, and the only reason that shit happened is because of the dweeping loyalty of their fanbase. If MS fucks up, they'll be teared apart by their customers. If Jobs fucks his customers, they think it's love.

i'm sure it's possible to find a few examples here and there... but you will find some douchebags in any forum.... but it is NOT a standard way of behaving of mac power users, and for the record most long-time mac users were using them far before the trendy TV commercials created this false "elitist" image.

Come on, be honest. Remember those commercials? The A4 screen people love to sit behind because people get more work done behind those superior macs? It's there from day one, the underdog yapping at big brother.

(Ofcourse at places like the DUC it's another story, but those are digiusers in the first place.)

 

[SocialNumb]

Fuck you have bad luck....

 

[Metaltastic]

Jesus this is getting ridiculous - I think it's safe to say everything has been covered at this point people...

 

[Mulder]

Fuck you have bad luck....

Only on Mac, not on PC. And I'm pissed I spent so much money on shit that wasn't caused by me. (And I'm ofcourse way more angry at my stupid self buying that shit)

I did techno in the early OSX days, all the Amsterdam-based people I worked for started on Macs (and Ataries, weren't they cute) and ended on PC's.

Amsterdam was full of advertising graphic guys, so all was Apple based around those days. Anyways, musicpeople I know around here mostly run PC's now, even the classical editors are switching.

I always thought that Macs were more reliable (cos of their well-known specs to manufacturers of audiostuff) out of the box, but PT6/7 and QT7 taught me otherwise. IF there's a mac that can be bought without you ever having to know how to handle stuff inside, BUY IT.

If you know a bit about the insides of a computer, get an XP machine for a lot less and with an enormous userbase.

But well, all is said with the Algorithmix PEQ red running only on WinXP.

 

[James Murphy]

yep... you have some bad luck.

 

[Mulder]

yep... you have some bad luck.

Ok, the full story:

I left my dayjob in the nineties to become a pro tech, there was a LOT of money in the Amsterdam housescene for a guy like me. I designed studios, did all the shopping for the owners, created some tracks, raked in a fair amount of money and got hold of some nasty luxury habits.

House requires a lot of synths, a good MIDIinterface but just a few audiotracks for some moaning, shouting and other matingrituals that are too long for a sampler.

So I put down O2r's and 9600's with the then brand new Logic Audio 'Native'. Eight tracks audio in the computer without the need for buying outboard gear, ain't it a sweet deal.

Everyone in those days was running Logic Audio ('LAPPC') so I was on the safe side. But there were troubles, big ones. Logic would crash about ten times a day, with some strange errorcodes. To cut it short, I ended up emailing with Gerhard Lengeling, the owner (and coder) of Emagic, with him admitting he made a big mistake. And I was the only one complaning! It was a general fuckup, a big bug, it affected everybody with LAPPC.

The local distributor was about to kick my teeth in (for real) because I couldn't stop bothering him about this, he insisted I was the only one with this problem. After Lengeling admitting his fault the distributor fell silent untill this day. After this I questioned around a bit and it turned out I wasn't the only one with the bug -duh-, but I was alone in getting angry because of it (hey, it could blew my rep) because all the other users thought it was their own fault or they were just 'unlucky'.

It is exacty that attitude that made me steer away from Apple. I bit the head off of the guys responsible for selling me buggy shit, and guess what, it tuned out allright, but no thanks to all those guys who just couldn't believe Apple let them down and tried to put the blame on me.

Since that incident I started monitoring this perticular behaviour. Every company should have a good amount of opposition from its userbase, in stead of whoreshipping.

OSX only made things worse, I hoped that would be the moment Apple blew everybody out of the water, OSX beeing Unix and all. Core Audio build in, Apple bought Emagic, but now look at Logic 8... It's a trendy toy compared with the groundbreaking stuff Emagic poured out when they were on their own.

Anyway, this ofcourse doesn't count for those of you running Digi TDM, since the computer around the DSPcards is more or less some sort of bulky remotecontrol. Running Logic Audio together with Digi TDM turned out good, be it a bit overkill for the mentioned style I was working in.

But I was there for a while, and learned my bit about the Apple-evangelism.

When it blows, you're on your own.

Learn your shit inside out, buy proven combinations of audiogear and cpu's. And don't believe anything until you've seen it work for months at the time.

For me that is WinXP at this moment, although it gives me the same sort of satisfaction as an OS9 TDMrig bought twelve years ago. It's like Apple was on the verge of becoming the Fairlight of the Millenium, instead they came with iPhoto, iMail, iPod, iPhone, iType and iWank.

 

[James Murphy]

because those are consumer apps, and Macs, like every other brand of computers, are primarily bought by guess what? consumers. same as all the shit that comes with Windows. who cares about those apps, and what bearing do that have in any discussion of professional use? no computers i've ever heard of come pre-loaded with professional applications. and i dislike Logic anyway, in every incarnation i've ever tried it. my 9600 still runs fine, loaded with AudioMedia II Nu-Buss card.... even has a built in iomega zip drive that still works... lol. it's obsolete all the same, so it sits underneath a roll top desk in my lounge...a conversation piece that i can start up and look through old files.... i got sick in 99 and the computer's drives are still in the same state, holding the same data, as the last day i used it before being taken over by the tumor that nearly killed me.

my current TDM/OSX rig is rock solid... it's been running for over a week with no shut downs at the moment i write this.. often running several other apps behind PT, with PT session files of gargantuan track counts. not one hiccup. oh, it has them from time to time... one or two every month or so.... recovering from them and carrying on is simple and quick. Apple support has always treated me well, and i've never seen any mac commercials or ads prior to the current ones which i don't like, so they've never influenced a single decision i've made. i've been working professionally for over a decade on this side of the "desk" and it is pretty well insulting when someone casually states to me that i've made my computing decisions based on trendy advertisements.

you've had a bad experience. tough luck man, that sucks for you. i've had a great experience for 14 years and going.... and since the TS specifically asked to be given postitive reinforcement for his decision, it's easy enough for me to provide it honestly. i don't worship apple or any other OS or hardware.... i just deal with my own practical reality, and in my reality the current price/service life/functionality/reliability equation makes my current use of a Quad G5/ OSX Apple box the right choice.

 

[Mulder]

because those are consumer apps, and the computers are bought by guess what? consumers. same as all the shit that comes with Windows. who cares about those apps, and what bearing do that have in any discussion of professional use? no computers i've ever heard of come pre-loaded with professional applications. and i dislike Logic anyway, in every incarnation i've ever tried it. my 9600 still runs fine, loaded with AudioMedia II Nu-Buss card.... even has a built in iomega zip drive that still works... lol. it's obsolete all the same, so it sits underneath a roll top desk in my lounge...a conversation piece that i can start up and look through old files.... i got sick in 99 and the computer's drives are still in the same state, holding the same data, as they last day i used it before being taken over by the tumor that nearly killed me.

You've got a 9600 with nubus? (I still use my 9600 btw, rock-fokkin-solid)

Logic 2-3-4 was a pro-app in the surroundings I worked. TONS of money was made with it, techno was a Dutch exportproduct. When you were bouncing on Studers I put AMII's in IIci's and blew my share on cocained babypowder.

But that's not my point.

Since The Return of The Jobs Apple's main focus shifted from pro to consumer. Apple bought Logic (the app with the best, tighest miditiming that could be found) and put it on the shelf... I hoped for some sort of native dspkiller coming from Apple, but ten years later it seems PT8LE is just that, thinking of switching from buggy N4... Apple was for a long time an industrial brand, coding for industrials. Now they're coding for consumers. So what's the difference with XP?

Their userbase. Gates is hated, Jobs is loved.

Anyway, love what you know about the brand, not the brand itself. You will get screwed otherwise.

Or you're just lucky.

Don't get me wrong here, I have a HUGE restecp for this community, foremost for its total lack of BS, that's why I don't wanna see them preached into submission I guess. Metal is still for me the hardest thing to mix, one day I hope to get it right. I'm amazed -and humbled- by the results some of the autodidacts achieve overhere, and love the exchange of knowledge (presets, impulses).

(BTW, do you believe I just started smoking again to avoid the risk of cancer?)

 

[Mulder]

my current TDM/OSX rig is rock solid...

Cos TDM runs on DSPcards. Duh.

i've been working professionally for over a decade on this side of the "desk" and it is pretty well insulting when someone casually states to me that i've made my computing decisions based on trendy advertisements.

It is. But I didn't state that. I just said those commercials were there from day one.

you've had a bad experience. tough luck man, that sucks for you. i've had a great experience for 14 years and going.... and since the TS specifically asked to be given postitive reinforcement for his decision, it's easy enough for me to provide it honestly. i don't worship apple or any other OS or hardware.... i just deal with my own practical reality, and in my reality the current price/service life/functionality/reliability equation makes my current use of a Quad G5/ OSX Apple box the right choice.

No, I didn't have ONE bad experience with the box, I've had a very bad experience with the brand, the userbase and their feedback for a prolonged period of time.

Don't forget, you run PT TDM. It better be rocksolid.

TS isn't going that route, he is going native. He'd better learn what happens under the hood (and in the community), be it OSX or XP.

That's my point. Nothing more frustrating then a musicapp kickin you in the teeth.

 

[JBroll]

Mac OS X is far superior to Windows as an OS. Way more stable, consistent, modern, etc. Mac OS X is what Microsoft wishes Windows 7 will be - and they will again fall FAR short of that mark.

As for Apple's hardware offerings, the price/performance ratio sucks. Apple needs to compete head to head with Microsoft in the OS market - start partnering with Dell and HP and Acer to ship Mac OS X on PCs. I think it would be a huge step forward, and I think there will still be a market for "fashion" or "lifestyle" oriented computers from Apple - since they're clearly not into supporting the budget power user.

Agreed on both points - and tell them how your Hackintosh is going!

Jeff

 

[jangoux]

jangoux... carry on. i wouldn't want to insinuate that you shouldn't be charging money at a pro studio and 'fixing' stuff with a free chorus plug.

for me, i pay for my tools i use professionally, for many reasons.... a supported company upgrades and improves their software, being part of development via feedback, getting to really know my tools inside out, support should i have an issue... etc. etc..... i would be appalled if i paid for pro studio time and had to sit here while the engineer fucked around looking on the internet for a free chorus plug-in.

pros are expected to have their tools, to know them, and to be able to get every last drop of creativity out of them.

and you ignored most every mitigating factor in my post regarding the two computers in question.... i know how to maintain PCs and Macs.... my dual processor PowerPC mac, 2 single 1.33 GHZ processors, kicks the shit out of my brother's quad processor PC on everything... but that's not the point, the point is that your studio mac doesn't... but it could be for ANY of number of reasons, none of which need necessarily have anything to do with the inherent quality of one OS over the other, or of one hardware set over the other. you read only as deeply as you wanted to. i wasn't challenging what you said, i was only pointing out that the reasons for the disparity could be any of many things... not saying you weren't experiencing what you said you were in your particular situation. but anything could be causing it. it is NOT however, "the way it is" for everyone. there's clearly a problem with that mac. fix it.

I didnt read it as a challenge, sorry if it looked this way. I looked at it more like a healthy discussion, telling my experiences. You probably had better luck and far more experience on macs than I do, and thing is, that mac performs way below it should. Why ? I dont have a clue. But, as i stated before, macs have its drawbacks as any other system. From my experience it is far from a perfect system, and microsoft is dumb to try to copy things from them instead of trying to do things better.

As for the free plugs debate, no matter what arguments is used, I still think there are many free tools that are really worthy, and that I miss on the studio´s macs. Some good stuff. But if you want to pay, and my boss doesnt, it is each one´s choice.

 

[Mulder]

Agreed on both points - and tell them how your Hackintosh is going!

Jeff

First point (cough):

http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/utter-crap-torvalds-pans-apple/2008/02/05/1202090393959.html

 

[JBroll]

"I don't think they're equally flawed - I think Leopard is a much better system," he said.

I'm not saying it's great (I'm not using it myself, after all) but better than Windows is no contest. It's great that they built their system on top of Mach and BSD utilities... it's horrible that they built so much on top of Mach and BSD. Considering the fact that they had dozens of tried-and-true filesystems to go for, the one they built is pretty silly (as Torvalds pointed out); the fact that they didn't include the (180 bloody kilobyte!) C compiler bugged the hell out of me when I had to borrow one shortly, the GUI bugs me (and the terminal is hidden!), and everything is just so completely geared towards user-friendliness that many tools go straight into incomptetence-encouraging territory in addition. Everything seems so 'integrated', which is nice for people who don't want to have to rewrite everything (as opposed to Windows computers, which inevitably become Windows+othershitthatshould'vebeeninstalledalready computers), but if I can't yank open the text configuration files I have no way of knowing if anything will actually work right.

Then again, I am wearing a Slackware shirt and enjoying my random background switcher far too much (how do I get laid again?), so I'm completely out of touch with most people. I'd love to see Microsoft and Apple completely switch places, since Microsoft has done so much to get people to believe that crashes are a natural part of computing (if they were doctors they'd be telling us about the health benefits of shitting out eighteen inches of intestines weekly) and OS X could be a *great* operating system if it just lost a little weight.

Jeff

 

[Mulder]

I'm not saying it's great (I'm not using it myself, after all) but better than Windows is no contest. It's great that they built their system on top of Mach and BSD utilities... it's horrible that they built so much on top of Mach and BSD. Considering the fact that they had dozens of tried-and-true filesystems to go for, the one they built is pretty silly (as Torvalds pointed out); the fact that they didn't include the (180 bloody kilobyte!) C compiler bugged the hell out of me when I had to borrow one shortly, the GUI bugs me (and the terminal is hidden!), and everything is just so completely geared towards user-friendliness that many tools go straight into incomptetence-encouraging territory in addition. Everything seems so 'integrated', which is nice for people who don't want to have to rewrite everything (as opposed to Windows computers, which inevitably become Windows+othershitthatshould'vebeeninstalledalready computers), but if I can't yank open the text configuration files I have no way of knowing if anything will actually work right.

Then again, I am wearing a Slackware shirt and enjoying my random background switcher far too much (how do I get laid again?), so I'm completely out of touch with most people. I'd love to see Microsoft and Apple completely switch places, since Microsoft has done so much to get people to believe that crashes are a natural part of computing (if they were doctors they'd be telling us about the health benefits of shitting out eighteen inches of intestines weekly) and OS X could be a *great* operating system if it just lost a little weight.

Jeff

They should pay you for writing like this.

What do you think of this (just stumbled on it, very curious):

http://apcmag.com/pirated_windows_more_impressive_than_the_real_thing.htm