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-- Apple v PC, Logic v PC Sequencers - Constructive Thread

Apple v PC, Logic v PC Sequencers - Constructive Thread

This thread is not intended to be an amalgamation of meaningless banter in which people divulge their naive bigotry. It is rather aimed and receiving informed opinions, based upon personal experiences as to ones choice of platform and sequencer.

Tweak gives us a fairly neat overview of the main pros and cons concerning Macintosh and PCs. In the end Tweak favours the former. Being a man of the latter my entire life, i have become tolerant of the various glitches and instability of PC systems, largely due to the Windows market share. However it is also to be noted that as the market share of Macintosh increases, so will the conflicts and issues.

Time is desperately in favour of an upgrade. I find myself seriously considering the long road of my production life. I have been focusing on Ableton (for experimentation) and Cubase (for track consolidation) for some time. I enjoy many of the features of Cubase very much, particularly audiowarp in real time. A looping view in Cubase, similar to Ableton would be optimal, but I�m sure they�ll save that for later.

My biggest issue with my PC is reliability. Autosave helps, but apart from sequencing, general system resilience has typically seemed low for my PCs. Im sure you have all felt that fierce pain from loosing quality progress due to technical issues. Unfortunately, I have never owned a Macintosh and thus have no means of comparison. For this reason, I am particularly interested in the experiences of producers who have made the PC Mac transition, and perhaps even back again.

As far as I can tell, Logic seems to cover all bases, except for a looping view (such as in Ableton). In terms of Macintosh, the only real issue I have had with them is the single click mouse issue, and in my eyes, holding alt is no substitute. On the other foot, their reliability seems to be very good, despite being higher priced disposable products. By contrast, PC�s are exceedingly fast, upgradeable, and cheap. Also, there are various other sequences, such as Nuendo which I have yet to try.

This is my position. I prefer quality. I appreciate a sequencer which supports a swift workflow. There is something special to be said for reliability.

I am not asking for instructions of what to do, but rather for what your personal experience has been when considering the choice of platform and sequencer. Your answering may well help me and others in a similar position.

Steve.

Heres my oppinions:

Macs: Stable, but expensive
Experience: Every now and then at Uni.
The benefit of having uniform hardware platforms is obvious. Macs totally win in the stability department because of this. Also, the quality standards of Apple are far higher than that of PC OEMs.

PC: Greater choice and cheaper, but less dependable
Experience: From birth!
PCs don't "just go". Sure, it does all come down to the knowledge of the user, but I'm talking in general. If you think about it logically, the open platform that is the PC has a significantly higher risk of problems.

I use PCs because that's what I have always used. I build them myself so I get them for stupidly low prices. Being in the IT industry, I'm capable of looking after it myself, so the cost of a Mac is unjustified for me. That said, it is cheaper than ever to get into Logic. Once you weigh up the price difference in buying PC+Windows+Cubase vs. Mac+Logic, Mac would seem the better deal. I would probably buy a Mac if I was going to buy a new computer tomorrow.

FL Studio:
Experience: ~3-4 years (on and off with Cubase)
The step sequencing paradigm is awesome. FL is great for programming drums, slicing up loops and doing all kinds of neat tricks that no other sequencer can do in the same way (peak controllers etc.). Other sequencers do have step sequencers, but they arent the basis of the program like this. Downside is the audio recording and editing is horrible.

Cubase:
Experience: 2-3 years (on and off with FL)
If a VST doesn't work in Cubase, it generally doesn't work full stop. Loads of features; probably the best audio editing of any DAW I've used. Downside is that the user interface is a piece of shit and the program is bloated with stupid features (MediaBay, etc.), while legitimate features go unrecognised (stereo rewire, sidechaining).

SONAR:
Experience: 1 month (it was painful)
Basically Cubase with a few cutting edge features. Cakewalk seem to lead the way in terms of innovation and they have close ties with Microsoft so you know Vista isn't going to bite you in the ass. Downside is that the GUI is even worse than Cubase.

Live:
Experience: 1 month (I actually almost used Live as my main DAW)
Performance mode is pretty cool, but I dont think the sequencing and audio editing are at the same level as Cubase. This is also probably the most innefficient DAW I have used, in terms of resource usage. That said, the UI is fantastic IMO. Everything is right where you need it and it's akin to FL Studio in terms of cutting loops up and doing all kinds of creative tricks.

Reaper:
Experience: 8 months
Simple, fast, and lightweight. The installer is like 3mb, yet it has all the important functions of all the major DAWs. The routing system in Reaper is far better than any other DAW I have used. The biggest benefit of Reaper is the workflow. You can fit absolutely every important button on your screen at once. You have absolutely no hope of doing this in Live, Cubase, SONAR or FL. In fact, I'd go as far as saying that Cubase and SONAR are practically un-usable on a single screen. The next thing is the workflow. Reaper has no tools whatsoever. No draw tool, no erase tool, no slice tool. It is hard to get your head around it at first, but once you realise how much time you waste swapping in between tools, you start to love it. Everything is so quick and easy to do that I can't handle using anything else anymore. Downside is that some VSTs are still a bit dodgy. Also, the actual LOOK of the user interface is not very nice. You can get skins for it, but I haven't found one I like yet. It also doesn't have some features that other DAWs have. I don't know what they are though, because I've never had to use them. Reaper is $40 to buy.

I use Reaper for the reasons above. Also, the community is great. When a problem is found, the developer (Justin - the inventor of Winamp) will practically fix them overnight. Reaper gets updated once a week or more. If growth continues as it is, this program will easily surpass anything else out there.

WoW thats a great reply man echosystm !!!

IMO I think that Soanr , Cubase , Logic etc are Industry standards
While Fl, Ableton, Reason etc are Hi tech toys. I dont say that they dont produce sounds are not as good " I use live personally" But I think they are another category.
Some producers are trying to combine both lines today to get the best of both worlds and the most popular example is Logic + Ableton

Macs are 1000x times better than pcs but not everyone can afford a mac.
Like echosystem said Macs are dependable so thats why more people today pay more to get macs for live performances " to be sure everything will be ok "although they might have in the studio a a pc that crashes every 5 mins.

Yea Echo, sweet one!

I agree with everything you say . Ableton is super intuitive! You can get it down within a day if you know the basics well enough. It's a CPU hog though indeed. I think I can use about 20% more plugins on my primary DAW. Which is Renoise.

Steve, good luck. Choosing between mac and pc is a pain in the butt. My co-producer guy (Tasadi) has been switching back and forth for a while between mac and pc (almost 6 months ).
Both mac and a pc can perform equally well, if you have some experience with building your own pc you'll have a good one which is stable quite fast. It could take some time/troubleshooting but so does a mac (alltough that is less occasionally). On a personal note, I like my pc. It's working great for years about 3-4 now, very stable. After the troubleshooting that is. At first I had a creative soundcard which kept crashing my pc. Once I took that out it went like crazy .

Personally I'd just go with pc. For me, it's more bang for a buck. Or however it is said.

Maybe the easiest thing would be to make a list of pro's and con's you have for mac and pc. Then choose the product which has the best score .

Even as a long time Cubase user, I've actually been toying with the idea of ditching a major portion of my hardware and getting a Mac G5 Dual/Quad with a Pro Tools HD 192 interface. With Logic's built in integration with Pro Tools hardware, that combination seems to be a winner. The reasoning behind all this is that pound-for-pound I think Logic delivers, for me, more out-of-the-box functionality than any other DAW solution out there. The included effects and instruments are top notch IMO, and I think many producers can get away with just using Logic's included set of software. As I find myself moving more towards software and away from hardware, it just seems to be natural.

That being said, Cubase 4 has made major strides towards competing with Logic and it's included set of FX/Instruments. With the new 4.1 update, Cubase might just be the most complete version of the venerable Steingerg DAW yet. It remains to be seen what others think, but I like it. It may not be enough to keep me from switching, but enough to keep me happy until I decide if I'm going to make that jump to Logic/Mac. Making that jump will not be easy or cheap, but it may be worth it for me in the long run.

First thigs first: single click mouse issue is non-existent. It used to be like that but nowadays you have right-click. You can use whichever mouse you like.

I have both systems. Bought a MacBook about a year ago because my 'slut-pc' (you know, the PC you do everything on) was getting old and wanted something portable. Next to it I have a regular PC I built myself which is solely dedicated to producing. It is rock-stable and never had any issues with it. Not one hard crash or error from the system itself. Everytime I boot it up I know I'll be doing my thing hassle free.
On the other hand my MacBook has frozen on me for no apparent reasons a couple of times in the year I've had it. A couple of times is not that many but to say Macs never crash isn't a true statement.

Frankly, I don't understand when people like Khayat say 'Macs are 1000 times better than PC'. Seriously, 1000 times? In what way are they? Give a fundament for that statement.

Macs just works a bit different. But you'll get used to it quite fast. At least I did.
For regular stuff I love Mac over PC mainly because of the OS. As for producing, I booted Ableton on it a couple of times to see how that was like. Personally I thought it was a bit 'Meh', but that's because it's only a 13'3" screen and can be a bit claustrophobic. For some quick composition on the road it's OK. That being said the MacBook I have now hasn't convinced me to immediately throw out my PC and get a MacBook Pro, iMac or a higher end model for producing. Why? Because it does its job very good. And if ain't broke....don't fix it.

When it's time to upgrade my producing PC, I'm not sure yet if it'll be a Mac or just build my own PC again. The thing is you can customize it the way you want, upgrade it easier later on, cheaper and if you dedicate it to just that one task (producing) you won't regret it.

FAO echosystm: ever tried energyXT?

- farris

i was thinking about getting a mac for a while and running logic on it. but for a powerful one with logic it was costing nearly �2,000. for a more powerful pc plus cubase 4 i was saving a �1,000. so the pc option was my choice. also im comfortable on cubase and can get it to do what i require for making tracks so why change.

quote:

Originally posted by farris FAO echosystm: ever tried energyXT?

Yeah, I did. The drum editor is awesome. It's kind of like every clip has it's own little step sequencer. However, it kept crashing, which didn't really give me much confidence in it. Also the UI was very slow. Zooming and scrolling wasn't as fluid as Cubase or other daws. Little things like that are annoying like a thorn in my foot lol.

The "environment" paradigm of eXT is kind of cool, but I don't really see what it can do that Reaper etc. can't. For me, it's just another annoying window to sort through and I cbf hooking up wires all the time!

Maybe energyXT needs some more maturing then but crashes are a serious no-no.

quote:

Originally posted by sterilis i was thinking about getting a mac for a while and running logic on it. but for a powerful one with logic it was costing nearly �2,000.

Logic 8 will run perfectly fine on a MacBook (Pro) or iMac and those really don't cost anything near �2,000. Although a slighlty more powerful PC would be cheaper indeed. Choices...

- farris

EDIT: Crap, my post wasn't constructive. It was just an attempt at humour, which most likely failed.

Hi, I'm a Mac.
And I'm a PC.

Hey PC, what are you doing?
Oh you know, running a DAW.

Really? I can run DAWs too, like Logic. You can't run Logic can you now PC?
...No I can't, your point?

My point is that you can't run Logic.
That's not a point, that's just a fact, what's your point?

I said, my point is you can't run Logic.
...

PC?
You're an idiot.




The Point?!?

There is none. Blah blah blah. I've used Logic, I don't like it. I own a Mac, and I run Cubase 4 and Ableton/Reason. Who gives a crap what you use. Just make some good music. Seriousssssly.

HOLY CRAP. BTW I got a job everyone. Pats on the back for me?

quote:

Originally posted by Eric J I've actually been toying with the idea of ditching a major portion of my hardware and getting a Mac G5 Dual/Quad with a Pro Tools HD 192 interface.

Not Sure why you'd want the PT interface if your planning on runing Logic. There's plenty of other options available. Different if you were going to run PT...

quote:

Originally posted by Robin Banks Not Sure why you'd want the PT interface if your planning on runing Logic. There's plenty of other options available. Different if you were going to run PT...

I agree. That was just an idea I had. I could just as easily run the Logic/Apogee Emsemble combo.

quote:

Originally posted by wrzonance HOLY CRAP. BTW I got a job everyone. Pats on the back for me?

u da man now dawg

quote:

Originally posted by Robin Banks Not Sure why you'd want the PT interface if your planning on runing Logic. There's plenty of other options available. Different if you were going to run PT...

Please do expand on what other options there are. I only know of PT itself, and Logic when using 192 HD's (if that's what you mean).

It's real good to see a contructive thread on this issue, especially for me as I'm at the crossroads of either going Mac or PC, and it has to last.

The thing that always gets me is that most people say Macs are more stable - I, like others here have seen wierd crashing problems on other peoples Mac's where my own old "slut" PC is rock solid, if now totally dated and underpowered.
Also, the most major point which has been breifly touched on is that � for � or $ for $, PC's are hugely better value: To get the top range Mac desktop, you're going to have to part with about $2,500(+), and if I considered building a PC with that kind of cash it would absolutely smoke the Mac, without question.

A problem at the moment though is that PT will not currently run on Leopard, and it's a long way from being sorted so the "Vista" plague (to a small degree) is now also a Mac problem.

My real dilemma is that I need something portable with a decent size screen, and I am having so much trouble forking out $2,000 for a Mac book pro.

OK, I feel I may be of some assistance here.

I just purchased a brand new Mac Pro and am in the process of switching sequencers and platforms all at the same time. So I bought a Mac Pro 2.66 Dual Xeon and Logic Studio. This was not an easy decision or a cheap one, as I had to throw in the cost of a new MIDI interface, new MOTU PCIe Interface and Logic Studio itself. All in all this cost me about $4000 total.

Now, let me tell you some of the reasons why. Some of the reasons for going this route for me are as follows:

• I like Mac OS X better than Windows.
  
• Mac OS X is UNIX at its core and is closer to the hardware from a code standpoint.
  
• I like the built in plugins and effects that Logic has to offer and I cannot get them on any other platform.
  
• I use MOTU audio hardware at the moment and their Mac drivers are updated far more often than their WIndows drivers. Last windows driver update was over a year ago, not counting a shoddy Vista driver. Last Mac driver update was 4 days ago.
  
• I have intentions of replacing my MOTU audio hardware with certain hardware. I may get hardware thats made specifically for Mac, namely the Apogee Ensemble audio interface which looks and sounds mighty tasty. OR I may go with a Pro Tools HD rig which is not Mac-specific. Either way, I have the option.
  

Shit, didn't realise that was you Eric since you dropped the I-robot avatar!

Great post, I too like both Mac's and PC's but what you said goes a long way to convincing me to go Mac.

I don't quite get why you want to move away from Motu hardware though. Even though Apogee are incredible, I'm really not sure the difference in quality (minimal) could warrant the extra $$$'s. It sounds like dough isn't the issue though.

PT HD is sweet but bear in mind that the HD systems came out (in Europe at least) in late 2001 and if you look at the cycle of pro-tools products, they are getting near what is their usual boundary for the next gen of products. Having said that, there is no official mention (or even rumour) of next gen products and there would be a seriously large number of highly pissed off people if they brought out a completely new (rather than variation on theme) system.

I think the advantage of macs (at least the latest range) is that performance is not really a valid concern at persent, even for audio users. Logic running on a basic spec new mac (even mac mini) will stream as many tracks as you would realistically ever need, which was highlighted to me today in the Mac store: The rep showed me a mac book 2ghz C2D with 1 gig of ram, Logic streaming 90 tracks (audio+AU) simulatanously (with a 5400rpm drive which I had though was physically impossible with that speed drive.)

The real bummer right now is that PT does not work on Leopard (as well as much more hardware) and as all new macs now only ship with it, you'll have to fork out another $129 for Tiger. Slight kick in the nuts to have to shell out for an older OS to get your kit to work, but as you said; apple are gonna fix this long before Vista ever gets sorted.

quote:

Originally posted by DJ RANN Shit, didn't realise that was you Eric since you dropped the I-robot avatar!

Yeah, change is good sometimes!

quote:

Originally posted by DJ RANN Great post, I too like both Mac's and PC's but what you said goes a long way to convincing me to go Mac. I don't quite get why you want to move away from Motu hardware though. Even though Apogee are incredible, I'm really not sure the difference in quality (minimal) could warrant the extra $$$'s. It sounds like dough isn't the issue though.

Most of the reason revolves around using TDM plugins. There are several TDM plugins I'd like to use and I need a Pro Tools HD rig in order to do that the way I want.

In addition, I have heard the MOTU audio hardware next to the Pro Tools HD interface and there is certainly no comparison when recording external hardware. The Pro Tools rig sounded much better.
COmbine that with the ability to use the Mix or Farm cards and the combo is a definite winner. Besides, this is not an imminent purchase, so I may wait to see what happens.

quote:

Originally posted by DJ RANN PT HD is sweet but bear in mind that the HD systems came out (in Europe at least) in late 2001 and if you look at the cycle of pro-tools products, they are getting near what is their usual boundary for the next gen of products. Having said that, there is no official mention (or even rumour) of next gen products and there would be a seriously large number of highly pissed off people if they brought out a completely new (rather than variation on theme) system.

Yes this is one of the reasons I haven't totally committed on that yet and I am looking into alternatives such as the Ensemble. If I was in a totally software environment, then I'd probably not care as much, but I want the most accurate representation of my hardware in the audio environment as possible.

quote:

Originally posted by DJ RANN I think the advantage of macs (at least the latest range) is that performance is not really a valid concern at persent, even for audio users. Logic running on a basic spec new mac (even mac mini) will stream as many tracks as you would realistically ever need, which was highlighted to me today in the Mac store: The rep showed me a mac book 2ghz C2D with 1 gig of ram, Logic streaming 90 tracks (audio+AU) simulatanously (with a 5400rpm drive which I had though was physically impossible with that speed drive.)

Yes I agree with you on this point, but most of my problem is not with audio streaming, its more with using native plugins and running out of power.

quote:

Originally posted by DJ RANN The real bummer right now is that PT does not work on Leopard (as well as much more hardware) and as all new macs now only ship with it, you'll have to fork out another $129 for Tiger. Slight kick in the nuts to have to shell out for an older OS to get your kit to work, but as you said; apple are gonna fix this long before Vista ever gets sorted.

Yes this is true. One other major piece of software that does not work with Leopard is the Waves Plugins. There is a note on their site that says not to upgrade to Leopard yet as the Waves installers do not work yet. I expect this situation to remedied fairly quickly as Waves is usually pretty responsive to situations like this.

I was actually able to get around the Leopard issue as the Sales Rep I talked to assured me that Tiger was included in the box as well as Leopard. He even told me that if that wasnt the case when I got the Mac to call him back and he'd make sure I got a copy of Tiger free of charge.

We'll see if that is the case, but after spending approx $4000 on this upgrade, tacking on an extra $129 is not going to be a huge issue for me. I'll be more pissed about the delay than the money. I cant start working on anything new right now until I get everything delivered and setup (thank god for the upcoming holiday!).

quote:

Originally posted by Eric J Yeah, change is good sometimes! Most of the reason revolves around using TDM plugins. There are several TDM plugins I'd like to use and I need a Pro Tools HD rig in order to do that the way I want. In addition, I have heard the MOTU audio hardware next to the Pro Tools HD interface and there is certainly no comparison when recording external hardware. The Pro Tools rig sounded much better. COmbine that with the ability to use the Mix or Farm cards and the combo is a definite winner. Besides, this is not an imminent purchase, so I may wait to see what happens. Yes this is one of the reasons I haven't totally committed on that yet and I am looking into alternatives such as the Ensemble. If I was in a totally software environment, then I'd probably not care as much, but I want the most accurate representation of my hardware in the audio environment as possible. Yes I agree with you on this point, but most of my problem is not with audio streaming, its more with using native plugins and running out of power. Yes this is true. One other major piece of software that does not work with Leopard is the Waves Plugins. There is a note on their site that says not to upgrade to Leopard yet as the Waves installers do not work yet. I expect this situation to remedied fairly quickly as Waves is usually pretty responsive to situations like this. I was actually able to get around the Leopard issue as the Sales Rep I talked to assured me that Tiger was included in the box as well as Leopard. He even told me that if that wasnt the case when I got the Mac to call him back and he'd make sure I got a copy of Tiger free of charge. We'll see if that is the case, but after spending approx $4000 on this upgrade, tacking on an extra $129 is not going to be a huge issue for me. I'll be more pissed about the delay than the money. I cant start working on anything new right now until I get everything delivered and setup (thank god for the upcoming holiday!).

All makes sense now. If you're recording a lot of instruments, want to use (the many amazing) TDM plugins and get the added bonus of the cards, PTHD really is the shizzle. And you're right, $129 on $4k isn't a big deal, and I suppose you want ot upgrade later to leopard anyway when the probs are sorted out.

Check this out......

PROTOOLS....

quote:

Originally posted by DJ RANN Please do expand on what other options there are. I only know of PT itself, and Logic when using 192 HD's (if that's what you mean).

Sorry, missed tha boat a bit. (late response)
I am personally thinking of going with the Lynx aurora with a PT set up.
link
It's quite subjective, but there's a bit of support on gearslutz for it compared to the digi gear, but like anything you need to test it yourself which can be a bit hard unless you have access to both set ups.

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