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-- mac or pc?

mac or pc?

which is better for music production and why Im yet to find anything suggesting the mac's better but thats what everyone tells me is it worth buying a mac instead of a pc??

Mac is supposed to have better quality in sound and such...

if i had money i would have bought a mac.. not only production wise, but for graphics...... but the graphic part probably isn't any intressting in here.. soooooo.. hehe

Mac's are apparently better, and newer versions of Logic only support Mac. Pro Tools is also native to mac I believe. I'm a PC guy though so I'd only ever buy a mac if I got reaaaal serious about production.

Get what you are used to. The claim that Macs have better sound quality is totally wrong. In the old days it was so (like more then 10 years ago) because Macs had decent sound cards and most PCs came with shitty ones. These days you can get the exact same sound card for both.

You should choose the platform for its applications. Many applications (especially in the audio and video space) are made for both. That said there are a few apps that are only on one platform. Also you can think of the OS as another application, personally I prefer OS X over XP but I have an iBook as well as a PC desktop.

Don't let cost be too much of a factor. Admitedly Apple desktops are a little more money than a comparable PC (please don't just compare MHz) but Apple notebooks are very evenly priced with PC notebooks. When it comes to buying Apple hardware, checkout www.dealsontheweb.com.

If you have used PCs for a long time and consider yourself pretty PC saavy then get another PC. If you are not particuarly attached to windows or are willing to learn a new OS than I would say get a Mac but not because of some false claim of better sound.

PS - I personally hate the mice that Macs come with these days, go out a buy a USB 2 or 3 button scroll mouse and you will be good to go.

Just a little anecdotal evidence I think I should share....

In my college, the student center has about 40 Imacs and 4 PC's with Win XP. You can walk up and down the rows, and find several macs in a row sitting there, frozen or crashed. And the PC's are always working fine.

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Originally posted by The Keeper Just a little anecdotal evidence I think I should share.... In my college, the student center has about 40 Imacs and 4 PC's with Win XP. You can walk up and down the rows, and find several macs in a row sitting there, frozen or crashed. And the PC's are always working fine.

Well statistically speaking if some of the computers are fucked up, it is ten times more likly to be a Mac in your little example. If they really are crashing (the OS, not some lame program) than they are probably running an old shitty os, aka OS 9, or maybe the new Panther is not happy on them (but 10.3 is way better than OS 9, hell Win2K and XP are better than OS 9). When I bought a computer for college in 2000, it was before Apple came out with OS X and when MacOS 9 is compared to Win2K, windows wins hands down.

Anyway, the main point is that OS 10.2 and 10.3 are very stable OSes (10.2 more than 10.3, sort of like comparing Win2K to XP).

What the fuck is this? First you post a cubase vs. logic thread, then you post this? I mean honestly, you expect a deciding answer from each of these threads? You are opening two giant ass worn out cans of worms...

es

Vary rare do free plugs support mac, and there isnt even a z3ta for the mac and i hate mac and I use one and............

If you decide to get a pc take a look at Carillon, www.carillondirect.com think i'm gonna get one as i've heard good reviews from everyone. Tom

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Originally posted by Vert What the fuck is this? First you post a cubase vs. logic thread, then you post this? I mean honestly, you expect a deciding answer from each of these threads? You are opening two giant ass worn out cans of worms... es

then u do a search and see what u come up with

Honestly, comparing Logic, DP, Cubase, and Sonar now is a moot point - they are all more or less equal (although SX 2.0 is buggy). It comes down to platform - mac or pc. Don't forget that Macs come pre-assembled, not much you can do beyond the basic upgrades and options. Not so for the pc - you can get a P4, athlon XP, Athlon 64, Celeron... plus the million combinations of hard drives, optical drives, memory, video cards... sometimes the options are too many.

You can get the same exact soundcards for either - most are cross-platform and include drivers for both.

quote:

Originally posted by The Keeper Just a little anecdotal evidence I think I should share.... In my college, the student center has about 40 Imacs and 4 PC's with Win XP. You can walk up and down the rows, and find several macs in a row sitting there, frozen or crashed. And the PC's are always working fine.

Yup i've seen that happen. they just freeze and do nothing, and they are so hard to navigate around as well. They are also very expensive

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Originally posted by Monkey Mouse Don't forget that Macs come pre-assembled, not much you can do beyond the basic upgrades and options.

There are lots of options...

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Not so for the pc - you can get a P4, athlon XP, Athlon 64, Celeron...

You mean like a G3, G4, or G5?

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... plus the million combinations of hard drives, optical drives, memory, video cards... sometimes the options are too many.

Modern Macs use IDE interfaces for hdd and optical drives and work with nearly all of them. They use the same kind of memory as PCs. They use AGP slots for video like PCs.

In reality the only thing that is not very upgradable is the cpu/motherboard within the same case. However if you have ever tried to do this with most of the other major OEM machines it is not a cakewalk (that use things like nonstandard ATX poweradaptors and non-standard mobo configs and sizes).

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Originally posted by auujay You should choose the platform for its applications. Many applications (especially in the audio and video space) are made for both. That said there are a few apps that are only on one platform. Also you can think of the OS as another application, personally I prefer OS X over XP but I have an iBook as well as a PC desktop.

Hey, what type of iBook do you have (specs?) and how do you find it's performance for music production? (if that's what you use it for). Been looking at the new iBook G4 12" for school and a little music production on the side.

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Originally posted by El~ZaPo Hey, what type of iBook do you have (specs?) and how do you find it's performance for music production? (if that's what you use it for). Been looking at the new iBook G4 12" for school and a little music production on the side.

I've got an old shitty "clam shell" iBook. Only 333MHz G3 with 192 Megs of RAM. I use it for school work and wireless networking and a little programing (very useful for my OS course as we had to write "unix" programs which it ran fine). Those new G4 iBooks are really solid. I would definitly get one over a G3 iBook, even though they can be found for fairly cheap now that the G4s are out. I would say max out the RAM (they go to 640MB I think) if you can, especially if you are going to be producing.

I have just started producing but I use my AthlonXP 2500+ desktop. I really like the Apple notebooks, they are really nice (and with the iBooks, not too costly). Desktops are another story, though now the G5s are out and pretty sick. The cool thing about Apple desktop are that the dual proc boxes will last a long time, by that I mean they really hold their value because OS X has such great SMP support. If you go looking for old Apple towers you will find old dual processor G4 400s still command a decent price.

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Originally posted by auujay There are lots of options... Not from Apple - you need to take out OEM items and add aftermarket typically. Not that there is anything wrong with that. You mean like a G3, G4, or G5? I wouldn't touch a G3 - it is like running a 800mhz P3 (both are equally old). G4 is old news. G5 is one hell of a processor. Modern Macs use IDE interfaces for hdd and optical drives and work with nearly all of them. They use the same kind of memory as PCs. They use AGP slots for video like PCs. True, but like I already mentioned, you need to replace Apple hardware to take advantage of that. I don't think too many people go out and buy a top of the line G5 or G4 and swap out video cards if they are using the machine for audio - graphics and video i can see it easily done. In reality the only thing that is not very upgradable is the cpu/motherboard within the same case. However if you have ever tried to do this with most of the other major OEM machines it is not a cakewalk (that use things like nonstandard ATX poweradaptors and non-standard mobo configs and sizes).

I agree with that 100%.

I thought the Mac OSX was supposed to be more stable than the PC becuase it is UNIX based. I read that the new Macs and OSs for them have audio more integrated than the PCs.

Re: mac or pc?

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Originally posted by Loose Goose which is better for music production and why Im yet to find anything suggesting the mac's better but thats what everyone tells me is it worth buying a mac instead of a pc??

Look at it this way--no one gives a good computer away for free--if you actually compare apples to apples (no pun intended), i.e., not just the cheapest dell pc running a celeron processor with integrated a/v to Apple's most expensive dual processor g5, you will see that machines with comparable specs are similarly priced. So as far as price goes, decide on your budget and go out and get the features you need and can afford.

Macs are not inherently better than other pc's from a hardware standpoint--they all use stuff built by other manufacturers in Asia. However, this also means they are not inherently worse. The reason I think a Mac is superior to a pc is the software. Not only is OS X cool, but you can install Virtual PC on your Mac and run just about any windows only program you like.

At the end of the day, however, either platform will work fine. Plenty of pros use macs, plenty of them use pcs. I use a PIII tower and a G4 ibook and am pleased with both.

i'm saving up for a new pc atm, i've allways been told that intel and amd processors (becouse of there diferent argitecture) are more sutable for a job then the other, one is good for gaming, one is good for video-editing. but is one of them better for use with audio?

i'm saving up for a new pc atm, i've allways been told that intel and amd processors (becouse of there diferent argitecture) are more sutable for a job then the other, one is good for gaming, one is good for video-editing. but is one of them better for use with audio?

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Originally posted by robin i'm saving up for a new pc atm, i've allways been told that intel and amd processors (becouse of there diferent argitecture) are more sutable for a job then the other, one is good for gaming, one is good for video-editing. but is one of them better for use with audio?

Total hogwash.

Technically, AMD chips are optimised to run Windows. Seriously, they look at the instructions that a often run by windows and then make those fast. However in the end you get to solid chips (from Intel and AMD). AMD is said to be good for gaming somply because they have done well in the market. I would say one reason why they have done well is because gamers do there research about the chips and discover that they are both good but the AMDs are much cheap . A couple years ago it used to be that the AMDs were actually faster but now I think the new P4s are faster but cost way more.

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