Razorjack
Bass Behemoth
After a recent re-mastering session where my laptop was unable to function for longer than 30mins without a re-start (it's a P4 2.8ghz!!) I am just waiting to get my hands on a dual g4 (hell, maybe even a reconditioned g5).
Mac or Windows?
- Thread starter MR NINE
- Start date
SickBoy
Croatian Panzer division
Kazrog
Kazrog, Inc.
Hopkins-WitchfinderGeneral
we are children of god
I have a pc and a no name accoustic guarded by STICK INSECTS WITH RAZOR SHARP TEETH THAT ARE ADDICTED TO CRACK!
Nitronium Blood
UM BOARDS' JESTER
Hopkins-WitchfinderGeneral
we are children of god
Ok, here's what I did & why.
Worked on Mac/Logic Audio since IIci. Last Mac was a G4 MDD 867 MP running OSX.2.8.
I thought I couldn't go wrong here, Apple bought Emagic so Logic should run great on a/this Mac.
No, it didn't. Crashed four times a day on Logic, and via a simple util I learned that the OSXversion of Logic wasn't 'OSXnative" (cocoa) but written in a 'transition code' (carbon) so the porting from 9 to X would be easier for the developers. From a company owned by Apple this suprised me a lot, and the stabillity-issues remained.. OSX2.8 also had _very_ bad HDperformance..
My first PC was a PIII800 running Gigastudio, my current axe is a P4 @ 3.5Ghz with 1Ghz FSB and 1Gig DDR500 RAM.
I learned how to tweak a PC for audio via several sites like tweakxp.com and musicxp.net and now this machine runs tons of software instruments, plugins, you name it. I guess a dual 2.5Ghz G5 is faster, as is a dual Opteron of the same speed. But my PC is rocksolid, has four disks (two raptors) I couldn't live without, has no stress on the PCIbus so latency is very low, etc.
I switched from my dual 867 G4 to a prior incarnation of this PC (3 Ghz) and worked flawless with Logic Audio 5.5.1. From that moment I had my Mac around for an occasional Altiverbsession, but since free programs like SIR and Pristine Space can give equal results on the PC I sold the Mac eventually.
Win98Se isn't serious, it is build on DOS and WILL crash. WinXP is great for musicproduction, if you know how to tweak it to pro'use. OSX.3 is great, but it should have been great from day one(version 1), and Apple left me crashing around for a serious time with their own software. Their last reply was "Get a G5" in answer to my Logictrouble, so I got the next best thing, a tweaked-up WinXPpro box.
Keywords: Build it yourself.
Get a great PSU (Antec TruePower), good mobo, good memory etc. I bought an Abit MAX-3 because its a gamersboard build upon a great chipset (875), very very stable. I also noticed Abit uses Rubicon caps, the same company that makes the famous Black Gate caps.
I picked a CPU from a database, a P4 2.8 SL6Z5 with a 'Gallatin'core, it can run at 3.5Ghz with no pain at all.
My memory is Corsair, dual matched sticks running 1:1 with the cpu at 1000Mhz FSB.
Two 10k rpm sata Raptors (these are _great_ for audio & VSTi's) and two 250Gb silo's for all the other samplework.
Just switched to Cubase (damn, it really works!) cause Logic 5.5.1 is simply too old on the PC. I also run ProTools on a 001, but PT obviously lacks any means for freezing although it's very stable. I also hop in Sequoia or Samplitude from time to time, but I need good VST(i) performance.
My bottomline: right out of the box a Mac is a bit better for creative work than a PC, but not that much better.
If it goes wrong, it really goes very wrong.
There is a great deal of knowledge on the Net on how to tweak WinXP (build for office and homeuse) to make it run creative audio fast & stable, and that worked out fine for me so far.
I like the fact that I know what happens 'under the hood' of my machine, and that there is a large community of PCtweakers who are very helpfull.
My last 'grudge' with Apple: I saw a list coming by (published by Apple) with numbers of reverbs that can be loaded simultaniously on a Mac. Don't believe it. Every Mac I bought came with the promise of stellar performance, and it turned out to be mediocre in reallife. The MacOS was always better than Win98 so I didn't complain, but the hyping seriously started to piss me off after buying a Mac every six months to be able to deliver the performance I thought I bought six months ago.
I upgraded my 2.4Ghz P4 running at 3Ghz for a 2.8 @ 3.5 for a _very_ small amount of cash.
I own this PC for almost two years now, that's the longest time I ever worked on the same machine.
Maybe in the future Apple comes with a killerdeal again and then I'll put a G6(7?) in my attick, still got the Logic usbkey. But for now I deliver on PC without stress or effort.
Or maybe I'll pick up a Mac 9600 and put an $200 1Ghz G3 CPU in it, that should run older ProToolsMIXsystems just fine and they come cheap this day. I'm very anxious to run the Metric Halo channelstrip on such a set, it's not available for WinXP. I'll connect this set via ADATpipe with my RME hammerfall on the PC and use PT as some sort of elderly FXrack (Cubase can 'ping' the latency of such a setup and compensate for it).
How's that for blasphemia?
Thanks for reading this far,
Nick Mulder
the Netherlands
Worked on Mac/Logic Audio since IIci. Last Mac was a G4 MDD 867 MP running OSX.2.8.
I thought I couldn't go wrong here, Apple bought Emagic so Logic should run great on a/this Mac.
No, it didn't. Crashed four times a day on Logic, and via a simple util I learned that the OSXversion of Logic wasn't 'OSXnative" (cocoa) but written in a 'transition code' (carbon) so the porting from 9 to X would be easier for the developers. From a company owned by Apple this suprised me a lot, and the stabillity-issues remained.. OSX2.8 also had _very_ bad HDperformance..
My first PC was a PIII800 running Gigastudio, my current axe is a P4 @ 3.5Ghz with 1Ghz FSB and 1Gig DDR500 RAM.
I learned how to tweak a PC for audio via several sites like tweakxp.com and musicxp.net and now this machine runs tons of software instruments, plugins, you name it. I guess a dual 2.5Ghz G5 is faster, as is a dual Opteron of the same speed. But my PC is rocksolid, has four disks (two raptors) I couldn't live without, has no stress on the PCIbus so latency is very low, etc.
I switched from my dual 867 G4 to a prior incarnation of this PC (3 Ghz) and worked flawless with Logic Audio 5.5.1. From that moment I had my Mac around for an occasional Altiverbsession, but since free programs like SIR and Pristine Space can give equal results on the PC I sold the Mac eventually.
Win98Se isn't serious, it is build on DOS and WILL crash. WinXP is great for musicproduction, if you know how to tweak it to pro'use. OSX.3 is great, but it should have been great from day one(version 1), and Apple left me crashing around for a serious time with their own software. Their last reply was "Get a G5" in answer to my Logictrouble, so I got the next best thing, a tweaked-up WinXPpro box.
Keywords: Build it yourself.
Get a great PSU (Antec TruePower), good mobo, good memory etc. I bought an Abit MAX-3 because its a gamersboard build upon a great chipset (875), very very stable. I also noticed Abit uses Rubicon caps, the same company that makes the famous Black Gate caps.
I picked a CPU from a database, a P4 2.8 SL6Z5 with a 'Gallatin'core, it can run at 3.5Ghz with no pain at all.
My memory is Corsair, dual matched sticks running 1:1 with the cpu at 1000Mhz FSB.
Two 10k rpm sata Raptors (these are _great_ for audio & VSTi's) and two 250Gb silo's for all the other samplework.
Just switched to Cubase (damn, it really works!) cause Logic 5.5.1 is simply too old on the PC. I also run ProTools on a 001, but PT obviously lacks any means for freezing although it's very stable. I also hop in Sequoia or Samplitude from time to time, but I need good VST(i) performance.
My bottomline: right out of the box a Mac is a bit better for creative work than a PC, but not that much better.
If it goes wrong, it really goes very wrong.
There is a great deal of knowledge on the Net on how to tweak WinXP (build for office and homeuse) to make it run creative audio fast & stable, and that worked out fine for me so far.
I like the fact that I know what happens 'under the hood' of my machine, and that there is a large community of PCtweakers who are very helpfull.
My last 'grudge' with Apple: I saw a list coming by (published by Apple) with numbers of reverbs that can be loaded simultaniously on a Mac. Don't believe it. Every Mac I bought came with the promise of stellar performance, and it turned out to be mediocre in reallife. The MacOS was always better than Win98 so I didn't complain, but the hyping seriously started to piss me off after buying a Mac every six months to be able to deliver the performance I thought I bought six months ago.
I upgraded my 2.4Ghz P4 running at 3Ghz for a 2.8 @ 3.5 for a _very_ small amount of cash.
I own this PC for almost two years now, that's the longest time I ever worked on the same machine.
Maybe in the future Apple comes with a killerdeal again and then I'll put a G6(7?) in my attick, still got the Logic usbkey. But for now I deliver on PC without stress or effort.
Or maybe I'll pick up a Mac 9600 and put an $200 1Ghz G3 CPU in it, that should run older ProToolsMIXsystems just fine and they come cheap this day. I'm very anxious to run the Metric Halo channelstrip on such a set, it's not available for WinXP. I'll connect this set via ADATpipe with my RME hammerfall on the PC and use PT as some sort of elderly FXrack (Cubase can 'ping' the latency of such a setup and compensate for it).
How's that for blasphemia?
Thanks for reading this far,
Nick Mulder
the Netherlands
nice story Nick. you had Logic, eh?... sorry. lol
by the way, i already conducted my own tests to confirm or invalidate in my own mind the claims Apple made regarding the number of simultaneous reverb plugs that i could run at once. i used Waves' Rverb, and had no problems in duplicating the "stellar" performance... nothing mediocre about it.
unfortunately, your tests were flawed at their very root, as you admitted yourself you tested with logic which was ported to OSX using Carbon. i don't have a problem with someone preferring PCs.. just when they make a post like yours based on a very narrow set of circumstances and a premise that is not entirely sound. in my opinion a properly set up , current Mac will out-perform an "equivalent" PC every time. your assertions that you can't "tweak" a Mac "under the hood" are not really correct either... and that has been covered in this thread already... take a look back at the other 3 pages and read all the posts... also, there are tons of forums for getting help with your mac from other mac users, despite your somewhat obtuse insinuation that the PC community is somehow superior in that regard.
anyway, this thread has been dead for some days now.. with Mac the clear victor!... let's let it die...
we should all just agree that with so many different configurations of Macs and Pcs possible, it is very hard for any of us on here to accurately say, going only by our own specific experiences, which platform is the absolute best for EVERYBODY... you know?
by the way, i already conducted my own tests to confirm or invalidate in my own mind the claims Apple made regarding the number of simultaneous reverb plugs that i could run at once. i used Waves' Rverb, and had no problems in duplicating the "stellar" performance... nothing mediocre about it.
unfortunately, your tests were flawed at their very root, as you admitted yourself you tested with logic which was ported to OSX using Carbon. i don't have a problem with someone preferring PCs.. just when they make a post like yours based on a very narrow set of circumstances and a premise that is not entirely sound. in my opinion a properly set up , current Mac will out-perform an "equivalent" PC every time. your assertions that you can't "tweak" a Mac "under the hood" are not really correct either... and that has been covered in this thread already... take a look back at the other 3 pages and read all the posts... also, there are tons of forums for getting help with your mac from other mac users, despite your somewhat obtuse insinuation that the PC community is somehow superior in that regard.
anyway, this thread has been dead for some days now.. with Mac the clear victor!... let's let it die...
we should all just agree that with so many different configurations of Macs and Pcs possible, it is very hard for any of us on here to accurately say, going only by our own specific experiences, which platform is the absolute best for EVERYBODY... you know?
James, "admitting" I use Logic Audio doesn't seem to me as a "flawed" test, since I used an Apple computer with an Apple operating system running Apple's own Pro Audiosoftware which I own since 1993.
And I could make a direct comparison between Logic Audio on an OSX G4 Mac and Logic Audio on a WinXP P4 PC. PC won hands down. Nothing 'flawed', just facts.
Apple stated over and over that the Mac was superior in every aspect, this is simply not true, based on their own software and their own claims. Over the years I pumped thousands of bucks into Job's pocket to end up with some PC's that although beeing just boring 19" black servercases gives me much more productivity than any Mac has done before, although I still like OS9 very much.
It is this religious customersattitude -excuse me beeing a bit pissed off- that keeps Apple away from the so needed bughunt, the average Applesanyassin has this silly loyalty that goes beyond reason. If an Apple performs bad, it simply doesn't or can't. Or it does so because the flaws of the user beeing not adequately intellectual equipped to operate such a wonder..
Sorry, but when you buy a Mac you spend a lot of $$$. I don't think it's fair to encourage novice buyers into the world of marketing makebelieve.
Everybody who's interested in buying a Mac visit http://www.barefeats.com, a site dedicated to realworld tests instead of evangelising. You will see a G5 perform pretty good, but not as good as an similar configured AMD Opteron. And a lot of Adobetests were done with the Altivecinstructions enabled, which is a very good coprocessor on an Apple CPU. But it only can do certain specific tasks (such as running impulsereverbs!) which can fool the overallpicture in such a way that Apple always focuses its benchmarks on the Altiveccoprocessor..
What I plainly dislike is the elitish worshipcult, it can make you feel good telling people (off) you've got a Mac but when you make music with a machine you have to treat it like an instrument. And in my world a piano that falls apart 4 times per day while playing on it doesn't qualify as one.
And I could make a direct comparison between Logic Audio on an OSX G4 Mac and Logic Audio on a WinXP P4 PC. PC won hands down. Nothing 'flawed', just facts.
Apple stated over and over that the Mac was superior in every aspect, this is simply not true, based on their own software and their own claims. Over the years I pumped thousands of bucks into Job's pocket to end up with some PC's that although beeing just boring 19" black servercases gives me much more productivity than any Mac has done before, although I still like OS9 very much.
It is this religious customersattitude -excuse me beeing a bit pissed off- that keeps Apple away from the so needed bughunt, the average Applesanyassin has this silly loyalty that goes beyond reason. If an Apple performs bad, it simply doesn't or can't. Or it does so because the flaws of the user beeing not adequately intellectual equipped to operate such a wonder..
Sorry, but when you buy a Mac you spend a lot of $$$. I don't think it's fair to encourage novice buyers into the world of marketing makebelieve.
Everybody who's interested in buying a Mac visit http://www.barefeats.com, a site dedicated to realworld tests instead of evangelising. You will see a G5 perform pretty good, but not as good as an similar configured AMD Opteron. And a lot of Adobetests were done with the Altivecinstructions enabled, which is a very good coprocessor on an Apple CPU. But it only can do certain specific tasks (such as running impulsereverbs!) which can fool the overallpicture in such a way that Apple always focuses its benchmarks on the Altiveccoprocessor..
What I plainly dislike is the elitish worshipcult, it can make you feel good telling people (off) you've got a Mac but when you make music with a machine you have to treat it like an instrument. And in my world a piano that falls apart 4 times per day while playing on it doesn't qualify as one.
LOL... relax my fiend.. and re-read my last paragraph.
anyway, i am not a marketing victim, i am a pro (though not quite at andy's level) that, barring an illness that kept me down for a couple years, has been working making albums with both macs and pcs since 1995. i also have my own PC running XP that i like just fine and use for several apps that are not made for mac. and even a couple that are. you are just taking it all quite a bit too seriously.
but still i say that you are speaking only from personal experiance and your troubles with Macs are not everyone's. Case and point: my "piano" doesn't fall apart anything close to four times a day.. if your's did, then i put it forth that your Mac (let's lose the piano euphemism) was defective. you also make such a point that Logic should work perfect since Apple owns it now... and i discount that theory out of hand. i regularly run 48 track + sessions on my dual 1.42 G4 with 2 gigs RAM and over half a terrabyte of internal drive space spread across 4 drives with multiple plug-ins on every channel and the entire Waves Masters bundle on the Master bus with no troubles... not to mention Auxes, midi tracks, and virtual instruments/soft-synths.. using Digital Performer 4.12 . i have also worked as a musician on sessions in big studios.. some of the best in the world... where massive track count sessions ran on a Mac using one flavor or the other of Pro Tools tdm system. don't recall any of those macs breaking down 4 times a day either. some were runnying OS9, some OSX.. didn't seem to make a difference to how much or little they "fell apart".
i'm not "religious" about Macs... and i don't "worship" them.. i like them.... i like my PC pretty well for that matter.. just like the mac a bit more... sue me.
what i do love though, is how heated PC pundits are willing to get over the issue..
anyway, i am not a marketing victim, i am a pro (though not quite at andy's level) that, barring an illness that kept me down for a couple years, has been working making albums with both macs and pcs since 1995. i also have my own PC running XP that i like just fine and use for several apps that are not made for mac. and even a couple that are. you are just taking it all quite a bit too seriously.
but still i say that you are speaking only from personal experiance and your troubles with Macs are not everyone's. Case and point: my "piano" doesn't fall apart anything close to four times a day.. if your's did, then i put it forth that your Mac (let's lose the piano euphemism) was defective. you also make such a point that Logic should work perfect since Apple owns it now... and i discount that theory out of hand. i regularly run 48 track + sessions on my dual 1.42 G4 with 2 gigs RAM and over half a terrabyte of internal drive space spread across 4 drives with multiple plug-ins on every channel and the entire Waves Masters bundle on the Master bus with no troubles... not to mention Auxes, midi tracks, and virtual instruments/soft-synths.. using Digital Performer 4.12 . i have also worked as a musician on sessions in big studios.. some of the best in the world... where massive track count sessions ran on a Mac using one flavor or the other of Pro Tools tdm system. don't recall any of those macs breaking down 4 times a day either. some were runnying OS9, some OSX.. didn't seem to make a difference to how much or little they "fell apart".
i'm not "religious" about Macs... and i don't "worship" them.. i like them.... i like my PC pretty well for that matter.. just like the mac a bit more... sue me.
what i do love though, is how heated PC pundits are willing to get over the issue..
Hopkins-WitchfinderGeneral
we are children of god
If you set a PC up nicely you can do nice things with it.
MAC's work better out of the box. There ya go.
*waits to get shot*
MAC's work better out of the box. There ya go.
*waits to get shot*
Hopkins-WitchfinderGeneral said:
thank you Mr, Over-simplification.. you've solved the whole Mac vs PC debate nice and tidy :Smug:
Hopkins-WitchfinderGeneral
we are children of god
"Case and point: my "piano" doesn't fall apart anything close to four times a day.. if your's did, then i put it forth that your Mac (let's lose the piano euphemism) was defective."
Damn thou, it wasn't.
And I wasn't the only one who had these troubles. And I wasn't the only one who migrated to PC.
Software from Apple, OS from Apple, ALL hardware from Apple. People at home using it, not professional musicians in industrial (and equally serviced!) recordingenvironments. I thought the guy starting this thread was such a homerecorder?
I answered from his point of view, not from a commercial one.
Btw, Digidesign has a great name in the modern musicrecording, but classical recorders only use it if they have to and they have a pretty good reason. (cliffhanger)
I can dream about AMD buying Apple so OSX runs on Opterons. I do like OSX, but don't trust it under Apple's (meager) care after too many faults (which were admitted, "buy a G5 and your trouble is over"). Damn dearest friend, don't you see? That's plain wrong! Where's thou liberal heart?
Compared to the homePCworld, the homeMacworld isn't that much better. It _is_ more expensive though, Apple is way too much 'lifestyle'. I want engineers designing my machine, not the other way around.
This PCfamily overhere runs like a plant. Point. My Mac didn't. Other people (read the LUG) had similar trouble. All known as "history".
I put more trust in a company that is closely followed by critics than one that is closely followed. Intelnerds raise hell when Gates/Intel fucks up, and I like that a lot.
(Dickswing: I sold/operated Logic-TDMsystems for a couple of pre-MP3years.)
Damn thou, it wasn't.
And I wasn't the only one who had these troubles. And I wasn't the only one who migrated to PC.
Software from Apple, OS from Apple, ALL hardware from Apple. People at home using it, not professional musicians in industrial (and equally serviced!) recordingenvironments. I thought the guy starting this thread was such a homerecorder?
I answered from his point of view, not from a commercial one.
Btw, Digidesign has a great name in the modern musicrecording, but classical recorders only use it if they have to and they have a pretty good reason. (cliffhanger)
I can dream about AMD buying Apple so OSX runs on Opterons. I do like OSX, but don't trust it under Apple's (meager) care after too many faults (which were admitted, "buy a G5 and your trouble is over"). Damn dearest friend, don't you see? That's plain wrong! Where's thou liberal heart?
Compared to the homePCworld, the homeMacworld isn't that much better. It _is_ more expensive though, Apple is way too much 'lifestyle'. I want engineers designing my machine, not the other way around.
This PCfamily overhere runs like a plant. Point. My Mac didn't. Other people (read the LUG) had similar trouble. All known as "history".
I put more trust in a company that is closely followed by critics than one that is closely followed. Intelnerds raise hell when Gates/Intel fucks up, and I like that a lot.
(Dickswing: I sold/operated Logic-TDMsystems for a couple of pre-MP3years.)
metalkingdom
the kinder, gentler me
- Jan 1, 2005
- 1,634
- 2
- 38
Thou art geigh. j/kMulder said:
it's out back eatin' a ham sammich. c'mon, Opteron is no more the "holy grail" than G5 is... these are computers after all, and computers are not perfect. all computers irritate me at some point but they are necessary to get the job done. Macs just irritate me less during the course of getting said job done. within the context of the necessity of computers these days, i do really like my Macs.Mulder said:
c'mon...Apple, like any other company trying to stay afloat these days, has to address quite a few commercial concerns. doesn't make it any less viable of a platform for professional audio production. that argument reeks of the same type of eliticism you earlier accused Mac users of displaying. for shame, for shame.Mulder said:
exactly... your Mac didn't. mine does, and from what he has already posted on this thread Andy's does as well, and so do the Macs of many other folks i know. as for "other people" you reference as having had similar trouble as you, well that's just dandy... they can meet up with all the people i know that switched to Macs after years of PC use because they had similar issues with the PC/XP platform as i had and they can compare "history" books. cry me a river.Mulder said:
there's another one of my pet peeves that the "PC Warriors" out there love to indulge in... the assumption that all Mac users are so in love with their computers that no valuable, negative feedback ever arises from the user base and leads to any positive change in Apple's computers. read any issues of MacWorld lately? been on any Mac user forums? when something goes wrong in the Mac universe we users do not sit idely by and smile about it. to insinuate otherwise begs the question; did you put the blinders on voluntarily, or were you tricked into it?Mulder said:
what a co-inky-dink, i used them. now can we just agree to disagree and let this thread die???Mulder said:
don't worry, we still like you, even if you do use PCs.
Hopkins-WitchfinderGeneral
we are children of god
Nitronium Blood
UM BOARDS' JESTER
Like I said, -swing- I'm on a Mac since 1993. Sold proaudiostuff. Worked proaudiostuff. Read the DAWforums. Solved a lot of problems. I've been a part of ye mighty consumer computing elite. But at the moment there's a hell of a difference between Apple's prostuff and consumerstuff (like granny importing kiddiepics with iLife).
Apple focused on developing grannystuff lately (watch the ads), and not on maintaining their prostuff. Apple's benchmarks are focused on makebelieve.
That's history. People who step into this world need to know this, especially when they ask questions about it, don't you agree? Apple doesn't have the sources to please everybody, and they're in this game to please mainly themselves ofcourse. Granny coughs up more $ then the average musician. That's why I would like to see the good OSX taken over by a procompany.
Ofcourse making music on a Mac can be done, but there's a risk that is (far) greater than the loyal followers will/can admit (or inform you about). And it seems we both made that point here for the guy starting this thread. Supporting a brand goes hand in hand with strange egorelated stuff, everybody has to find out for themselves which needs they have. If your needs are only focused on recording music, a well-configured PC will do just fine. Put it together yourself and save serious $$.
Nice place to start: http://www.musicxp.net/
(If you want this thread to die, just supress your urge to contradict my herecy)
Nick Mulder
the Netherlands
Mulder said:
been there, done that... the PC sitting next to me as i type this on my PowerBook was put together less than 8 months ago by my PC tech-head friend Tommy, who has put together "audio PC's" for studios in Orlando and Tampa... he knows what he's doing. and i like the PC pretty well.. even though when Tommy built it he assured me that it would soundly outperform my Macs. he went to great lengths to explain to me exactly why that was true, and it all sounded good to me, i was buying it hook, line, and sinker... after all, he has been doing high end PC's for studios, of both the graphics and audio varieties, for a number of years... in fact, since 1993 when i first me him when he was working as a tech at a company called Pro-tel. he sounds a lot like you really, you and him would get along great. so why shouldn't he be right?...well, he was wrong. don't ask me what's in the PC.. tommy built it, not me... i only know it's an Athlon processor and a couple gigs of ram... oh, and i know the HD's are Seagates because i bought those myself at Best Buy... actually took 1 of them out of the PC case some months ago and put it in my Mac. i have Samplitude Master 24/96 and Cubase SX loaded in the PC. it just doesn't allow me to run as many audio tracks, plug-ins, and V.I.'s as my Mac does... period. i decided to relegate it to use as a V.I./soft synth farm... but i've yet to run out of power on my G4 for that purpose, so it sits here and i use it a couple times a week to burn Red Book CDs from Samplitude. i love samplitude, it works much nicer than Toast for Red Book Cd burning as you can finely adjust space between tracks on your CD and it's very easy so create seamless crossfades between tracks that sound like continuous music with no space at all.... something i would use Waveburner Pro on a mac for in the past, but that App died with OS9, sadly. i may not know how to build a PC from scratch, tommy does know and does it for a living, so i don't have to ... but i do know how to tweak XP for optimal performance. still, my Mac outperforms it.
you also seem to be unable to process the fact that i like macs because of MY real world experience recording and mixing albums for several years... not because i like the logo or think the commercials apple puts on TV are "hip". and the only time i've ever felt at "risk" is when my PC starts up with a DOS screen telling me about a boot disc error.
and my real world experience, as i sit here taking a break from mastering a split CD for a US and a UK band, is that my "well-configured" PC is not as stable as my Mac, and not as powerful.. even though the processors in it are supposedly orders of magnitude faster and better.... yeah, i saved tons of $$ though right? i guess i can feel good about that. not.
i'm a loyal follower of performance and ease of workflow, both of which i get in spades from my Macs. the PC isn't bad, it's just that most of the time i can't even be bothered to turn it on. for those of you out there sitting on the fence, about to make a decision as to whether to go Mac or PC: if you have years of learning the ins and out of PC, like our Nick here, then get a PC and set it up... you'll get to feel great about yourself for a job well done.. after all, you took the time to learn on that techie stuff, might as well put it to good use, eh? for those who want to just make music, buy a powerful mac and then buff it out with RAM, get a good audio interface...then make music... you'll be on your third project by the time your PC buddies have finished putting together their "well configured" PCs.
sure, that's an exaggeration.. but no more of one that many of your claims in your argument for PCs. i mean c'mon... breaking down 4 times a day??, pffffftt!
your position is based on your personal experience.. granted you seem to have some credentials if we take what you say at face value, but you have no more experience than many professionals i know that have the opposite viewpoint as you. take Andy Sneap for instance.. he can get any computer he wants, and he is a pro that needs to get the job done... he chooses Mac, as do most all of the other pros that the people frequenting this board admire... but i suppose all the Mac using pros to whom i'm referring are just puppets of Steve Job's brilliant "granny-centric" marketing campaigns. yep, that's gotta be it.
