Mac or Pc

[theledge]

Ok I have the option of beefing up my Pc for a few hundred quid or doing some serious investing in a Macbook Pro

Any Mac users here? There must be a few:) How much better for music are they. Are they really worth it

Anyone prefer PCs?

I use almost entirely software, so the computer is the heart of my setup. Have been recently getting into modular synthesis using Supercollider and Puredata

Help me decide whether to blow loads of money, I don't often get the chance

[MARK ANXIOUS]

Well I use a PC for the main studio and a Mac Lappy for when I'm on the road. Now bear in mind I'm using a Powerbook (the Macbook Pro is alot faster), but I find that tracks I make on the road are often made alot simpler and quicker, because I have to think about CPU constraints, battery and also there are alot less plugins out there for the Mac (legit and illegit)...

When I make stuff on the PC, the power I have at my fingers is alot more, it's alot less glitchy and I'm forever messing with quirky plugins. I tend to get less done in more time ;)

Looking back to two years ago, both machines cost me around £1400 each. My PC was pretty top of the range then and put together based on my experience with PC's over the years (ie all the tweaks, the good hardware etc etc)...

At the end of the day it's up to you. I would say Mac shits all over PC for business related stuff, ical, isync etc etc all really are great. I am much more organised in my normal life cause of ical etc... Also for web design and coding I find it great, especially with terminal.

But for music, I don't know where I'd be without the PC. And I really hate Peak (of course Mac doesnt have Soundforge). A mac makes you focus more on simplicity as far as music goes which is very good, but there's been times when I've just been so annoyed because I haven't got something with me on the road that i have on the studio PC....

hope this helps....

[BloodStar]

PC for me. I guess you can get pretty powerful machines, no matter if it is Mac or Pc,. In terms of money you will pay much much more for Mac. and also important thing is if you like to use "try before buy" plugins :) there isn't as many for Mac as for Pc. my advice is go for some powerful Pc and you will´be safe.

[SlavikSvensk]

i think mac is a great platform for music, but lacks the quantity of free vsts you can find for pc.

thankfully a lot fo software (e.g. cubase, reason) are dual platform, and the new macs can run windows as well as a pc! so get dual book and use BOTH on your mac!!!

[ReakZ]

this question was also bothering me these days i think pc is better cuz mac is in lack of free plugins,soft and i cant spend so much money on buying them :(

[SlavikSvensk]

but you can run all PC programs on a mac!

seriously. with the new x86 macs, you get a program called boot camp and you dual boot os x and xp or vista. you can use EVERYTHING that runs on a pc and EVERYTHING that runs on a mac with only one computer

[ReakZ]

but i ve heard u can only run it seperatly mac or windows so whats the point of this windows" laptop with such big price or am i missing something ? at first i understood that i can run normaly mac and run windows program in it..but one person told me its not possible..

[SlavikSvensk]

you can run the computer either as a mac or as a pc, from an operating system point of view. you can't run the mac and pc programs simultaneously, but the project and sound files are the same. so, let's say you use cubase, reason and ableton. the disk for any of these progams contains both mac and pc versions, so you just install them with each OS. now you like your mac for ease of use so you whip everything together on the mac, then you save the files on a keydrive or whatever, switch to windows and load them into cubase so you can use those free vsts!

it's a little bit of a pain, but worth it to get the versatility of a pc for music but have the clear superiority of osx for most computing purposes...surfing the web is the most obvious...imagine a world where you never need to run an antivirus program, never need to remove spyware from your computer, etc.

[stjohn]

yea Mac with windows seems to be a good approach... the new REaktor 5.1.2 update now allows it to run under boot camp.

that would be a major factor beforehand. other than that i cant see much difference....other than relevant performance

[420gang]

Dual Core rules....

[TechMouse]

For some reason, I really hate Apple as a company.

I think they make very good computers, but their philosophy (especially with DRM) stinks. But that's commercial vendors for you. They're out to make money, not good computers.

http://www.cycary.com/technews.html

Get Linux...

[RDR]

For some reason, I really hate Apple as a company.

I think they make very good computers, but their philosophy (especially with DRM) stinks. But that's commercial vendors for you. They're out to make money, not good computers.

http://www.cycary.com/technews.html

Get Linux...

LoL @ the tron fella.. everytime i see him.

This is the MO on the mac-intel platform....

You can run either windows and/or osx on ANY new mac. The transition to install windows on the mac is seamless, glitch free and easy. So it doesnt really matter that its a mac, it is a windows box too. Dont know about linux on mac hardware.. mark???

I run the iMAC 2ghz Core2Duo... its fast, VERY fast. FYI reaktor is universal binary compatible as well now, so does run on the mac.

It really is whatever you feel comfy with, producing music is about using your sequencer as a weapon, and fighting an operating system should be the least of your worries.

[vadarfone]

PC for me.

Macs are a bit too much like 'My First Computer'. I feel like I am being patronised when I use one.