Mac or Windows?

oops!
fast typing! You mean "condemned"?! (he, he!)
oh man! another one?!
I need to buy a record player!
Lots of rec's that I miss listen to: Thin Lizzy, Blackfoot, Saxon, Dark Angel, Flotsam & Jetsam, Sabatt, Iron Maiden "Killers", etc, etc, about 200 records that I don't hear for a long time!
Ha! Death "Spiritual Healing"; I have a picture disc of it!
 
OKay - you got me about the guitar center people...

as for my use with Macs....I have spent an extensive amount of time working on macs in a general use environment. In that time, I determined that there were enough little things with Macs to deter me away from OS.

Now - it certainly could be that a mac is superior in an audio only environment. I will say that Apple's hold of the music industry is primarly due to historical reasons...they were the first to embrace it (as well as going after the desktop publishing market.) because they had to do something after they blew it back in the 80's...

But - my choice for a computer was made based on the fact that I need it to handle my audio production needs, as well as my general computer use. A PC was the obvious solution in that case.

...and if need be, I would certainly buy a powermac if the PC was incapable of doing what I needed. However, it's handled everything I've thrown at it, and done it well...

As for a mac...no I don't own one..funnny how every "mac" person owns a PC, and I don't seem to know any "PC" people who own a mac.. :headbang:
 
James Murphy said:
LOL.... remember this... that computer was set up and operated by Guitar Center employees... enough said. :Spin:

That is so classic!

I have to chime in on this. I am a long time user of both Macs and PC's. This is what I tell people when asked which is better -

Macs are like Jaguars and PC's are like Hondas. The Jag is built well, looks nice, streamlined, luxurious, glamourous and very fast. The Honda comes as a standard vehicle that grandma could be comfortable driving, but you have the option to trick them out to no end and SMOKE the Jaguar all day (and night) long!!!

The trick is that you have to know PC's from the ground up (just like if you were building a streetrod riceburner), which would include hardware, Windows, and even DOS. Macs are not versatile machines, at all. You are stuck with what you get. Macs are OK, but it feels like the computer has too much control when I'm using them. There's a certain freedom in knowing that I can actually go inside a PC's "thought process" and purposely fuck it up if I choose to do so.

I feel that with the way everything has changed in the audio world, engineers will only help themselves by knowing as much as possible about computers and how they really work. Remember how we used to have to align tape machines and degauss the heads? Same concept...

The reason that Macs are still so prominent in audio is because everybody was copying and swapping the Mac TDM plugins forever (I wonder who the guy was that actually bought them?). When Digidesign put out PT for Windows, nobody wanted it because you'd actually have to pay for the plugins. Some guys/studios paid for a few, but you can bet that they were still armed with shitloads of bootlegged plugs. Since HD came out and everyone is forced to pay for the plugins, more and more (especially newer users) people are using PC's. Many mastering studios are using PC's, too. Cubetek 64bit comes to mind...

Mac's are cool and all - but they are just dumbed down PC's.

This debate is a lot more fun over a beer. Drinks on Andy and James!!!
 
OK.. i'll jump right in.. this is fun..

both kingdom's and daemon's arguments have some flaws... the most glaring is the concept that you can't "get inside the thought process" of a mac.... like you can by working with DOS on a PC... not true of course, but it looks good in a forum post to say so. you can do many of the same "purposeful fuck-ups" if you've a mind to simply by opening an OSX Console.... instead of DOS as with PCs, the mac OS is based on UNIX. tell me that DOS is more powerful than UNIX in the hands of an equally skilled "tweaker" so i can pee myself laughing.

and i never said i hated PC's.. i like my PC just fine... i just strongly prefer my Macs.. one of which is quite tricked out with several 3rd party enhancements... it's not as much of a closed architechture as the PC world would have you believe.

as for the plug-in argument.... well, there's merit to some of what you say, but i've had cracked versions of quite a few plug-in's for PC for quite some time... i could have just kept using them for free on the PC, but i chose to buy them for my Macs. and i'm not alone.

funny how mr. kingdom refers to OSX machines as"dumbed down" Windows boxes.... it reminds me of a friend of mine that doggedly sticks to his old Kahler Tremelo system that goes out of tune every 3 minutes or any time he so much as looks at the bar...and then scoffs at my floyd roses that almost NEVER go out. pointing out to him that the floyd is easier to string and more stable does no good.. he's mastered the art of dealing with the kahler's annoying problems and by god he's not going to go changing now! he actually feels superior because of the extra effort he had to go through. i call this type of phenomenon "PC-user syndrome". clever, eh?

anyway, yeah.. i own a pc, as do quite a few mac owners i know.. hard to avoid as they are the computers that are shoved on us from day one... but we got wiser.. ;) the pc's stick around so we can go to online forums and porn sites with them and save our Mac the wear and tear and drive space for our audio projects.. lol. :tickled:

finally, just so everyone who drops in on this thread doesn't think we're a buch of contentious knuckle-heads: this debate is all in good fun.. don't take it all too seriously.. except for the part about Macs being superior!!

nice talking with you on the Windows Messenger tonight metalkingdom! :wave:
 
James Murphy said:
nice talking with you on the Windows Messenger tonight metalkingdom! :wave:

Likewise, man. I absolutely love the tremolo analogy! Next level, dude. Next level. :worship:
 
Well - I don't have much to say at this point....again - I think it's all about personal opinion...(and you'll have to spend about twice as much for an apple to get something equivalent in power in the pc world..) but, I had to chime in regarding OSX...

I was almost impressed with Apple when they said their new operating system was going to be based on a unix variant. Unfortunately, it's a "dumbed down" version of Unix. Same sort of environment..they give you some things that are similar, and many things that aren't.

but as time goes on...I anticipate seeing the fall of Apple...atleast their computers. They have already started moving into different directions...and jesus christ...any computer manufacturer that has a store with a "genius cafe" so you can ask some douchbag a question for $25 is lame. Especially when he doesn't know the answer!

..and don't really get me start on their computers... :)


:headbang: :headbang: :headbang:
 
There are two major pitfalls when it comes to Macs as opposed to PCs in my mind. One has been mentioned here outright and the other hasn't.

The first is obviously the price, which for me, a home recorder has a huge impact on my purchasing decision. I am also alot more comfortable with my PC because I've been using them for several years now and know everything from how the hardware interacts to how the CPU executes algorithms, to the BIOS and more importantly to how the various versions of Windows have worked. Comes with having done an Internetworking course.

The second factor is that hardly any games are released for Mac. It would be insane for me to pay 3 times more for a Mac than a high-end PC to not be able to run any games. I mean shit, when I'm not recording music, I'm dicing it out in World of Warcraft, Vampire:Bloodlines, Half-life 2 etc. etc. The power you'd get from the PC wouldn't go to waste as you could use it all the time. Judging by specs, Macs comparable to PCs in the pricing department are, going by clocks at least, vastly inferior to their monetary PC equivalents. Not only that, obviously there are hardly any games developers which will add OSx support to their games.

I think the major downfalls of the PC in terms of their application to the arts and sciences and professions and whatnot is the predominant operating system. It's been Windows from day one man. We all know that Windows is geared towards user-friendliness at the expense of performance and running redundant processes. I can only forsee, as the market becomes more specialized that PCs will at the very least start matching up to their Mac counterparts. Don't take this as an educated estimate though... it's purely conjecture.
 
daemon097 said:
Well - I don't have much to say at this point....again - I think it's all about personal opinion...(and you'll have to spend about twice as much for an apple to get something equivalent in power in the pc world..) but, I had to chime in regarding OSX...I was almost impressed with Apple when they said their new operating system was going to be based on a unix variant. Unfortunately, it's a "dumbed down" version of Unix. Same sort of environment..they give you some things that are similar, and many things that aren't. but as time goes on...I anticipate seeing the fall of Apple...atleast their computers. They have already started moving into different directions...and jesus christ...any computer manufacturer that has a store with a "genius cafe" so you can ask some douchbag a question for $25 is lame. Especially when he doesn't know the answer! ..and don't really get me start on their computers... :)


:tickled: WHERE do you get this stuff?.. lol . Point of fact.. to get a PC that can perform exactly as my particular G4 as it was in it's stock condition i came up with a price that was only $250-ish less than my G4.... mind you the PC i put together (in a virtual way of course, pricing each component through several different vendors) had no Firewire 800 port... the Mac does, so there goes some of that margin right there. mind you, it requires a significantly "faster" rated pentium, athelon, or xeon processor to match performance with mac G4 or G5 processors. see below for some current comparisons based on audio plug-in usage. Moonlapse, this shows that as far as your observations about comparable processor speeds vs. cost are concerned, things are not what they might seem to be.

audio20041013.jpg


daemon, as for your anticipation of the "fall of apple computers".. do you know how long i've been hearing this?... for about 12 years. so anticipate away my friend.

i actually had some hope for PC's with the release of Windows XP.. and yes, i know how to optimize XP and turn off all the unecessary processor power sucking features and graphics , etc.... but it died soon enough. give me Mac's "dumbed-down" version of Unix over DOS any day.

have you been to a "genius bar"... yeah, it's a silly name, but no worse than "Geek Sqaud" or whatever Best Buy calls their PC support counter... and the 2 times i stopped by a "genius bar" my questions were answered very much to my satisfaction and i was charged nothing. not really sure of all their policies, but that was my experience.

and by all means, "start" on apple's computers.. i'm interested to see where you would finish... and how easily refuted your claims along the way would be.

i have never claimed that Macs never screw up, break down, or whatever.. they do.. just like PCs.. they are all computers and it is the nature of the beast. but, and i've said this already, Andy strongly prefers mac, as do many other pros on these forums and, ostensibly at least, it would seem you are here because you admire his/their work and value his/their opinions. (i don't speak for andy, but he has made his preference known in this very thread, and a few others) not to say that all pros think PCs are crap.. that would be a ridiculous assertion, and i will put it forth as a given that the PC vs. Mac debate is less and less a matter of fact and more and more a matter of opinion and preference as times goes on... but i reject out of hand the notion that Macs are "dumbed down" PC's. that's just silly.

:Spin:
 
Moonlapse said:
There are two major pitfalls when it comes to Macs as opposed to PCs in my mind. .... Judging by specs, Macs comparable to PCs in the pricing department are, going by clocks at least, vastly inferior to their monetary PC equivalents......The second factor is that hardly any games are released for Mac. It would be insane for me to pay 3 times more for a Mac than a high-end PC to not be able to run any games. I mean shit, when I'm not recording music, I'm dicing it out in World of Warcraft, Vampire:Bloodlines, Half-life 2 etc. etc.

:err: as far as the way you are "judging by the specs" that is incorrect on your part. Mac processors with under 2Ghz ratings routinely out-perform PC processors with well over 2ghz ratings. this is well documented fact based on independant benchmark testing. see my previous post for more.

games eh? well, more power to you on that one. in fact, here .

done and done. :Smug:
 
Yes, Blizzard also released Warcraft 3 for MacOS. That's one developer to add to a list of how many...? The point I'm trying to make is that a fair few games are released for the Mac, but a good majority aren't. Even so, the PC version always seems to get priority in some sense or another.

I was mainly going by processor clocks when making the power assumption. The thing is, what are the variables here? The PCs are giving you the power, but it's under-utilised because of the architecture, or perhaps by the way Windows runs. I can accept with open arms that Macs will rub PCs into the floor any day when it comes to running programming/design/recording software of any kind, but it just comes down the PC's power being underutilised. It is still the powerhouse for gaming, but then again I haven't seen many benchmarks running the PC up against Macs for that.

I'm not trying to argue the PC as the superior machine, especially on the topic matter that this forum is usually centered around... I"m mainly trying to say that for a home recorder like myself it simply isn't practical to pay so much for something that will only give you 100% in one area, whereas another choice, for about half price can give you so much more, and the power loss for someone like myself would be negligible... especially when XP can be *somewhat* optimized for recording.
 
did i mention that i love you guys?... :saint:

serioulsy though, it's been fun cyber-sparring over computer platforms with you guys.

peace? :Smokedev:
 
:lol: damned Mac users. You know it seems like there is this collective elitist thing going on there where at every turn they try to play Macs up as the best thing. My old internetworking teacher was like that too, and he'd actually bring his powerbook in and show us how superior OSx or whatever is, and we were running goddamn NT 4.0 in that room :lol:. I mean you can't blame them, as there's been like years and years of persecution towards them by PC users who'll bash Macs at any given chance. I'd quite happily settle on an agreement that they both have their own uses and applications.

Anyway, good to see you're taking this all light-heartedly James :)
 
"Macs are like Jaguars and PC's are like Hondas. The Jag is built well, looks nice, streamlined, luxurious, glamourous and very fast. The Honda comes as a standard vehicle that grandma could be comfortable driving, but you have the option to trick them out to no end and SMOKE the Jaguar all day (and night) long!!!"

Right thats blasphemy, it was ok with the mac vs pc bitching, but you can bring your Honda over anytime, the Jag will eat it for breakfast.
 
Aussies cop it cause the best thing to come out of Australia was Kylies arse and Mortal Sin, and don't say AC/DC cause we exported them early on I believe, bit like your great grand parents for being a bit naughty.
Funny eh, you've been bad so we're sending you to a place where the sun always shines and the beaches are killer.
Haven't got a dragon ship but we have got a rubber dingy on the sheep dip here on the farm.