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Mac vs. PC for recording.

#21
I don't follow this debate much nowadays, but is PC architecture bus noise still an issue? Last I recall, a USB audio card was MUCH cleaner than any audio device on the PCI bus.

For those who are reluctant to use their "one" home PC in for this application in fear of virus infection and the like, get a HDD removable chassis drawer($40 in my area, plus another HDD). One HDD is for general use, gaming, etc. and the other HDD is devoted to home audio usage(ethernet/WAP disabled). Disabling all unnecessary services(if you are running *nix/win32) for the audio HDD makes the OS much cleaner to boot.

I am in the MAC camp on this one, btw. Logic rocks.
 
#22
DaftCat said:
For those who are reluctant to use their "one" home PC in for this application in fear of virus infection and the like, get a HDD removable chassis drawer($40 in my area, plus another HDD). One HDD is for general use, gaming, etc. and the other HDD is devoted to home audio usage(ethernet/WAP disabled). Disabling all unnecessary services(if you are running *nix/win32) for the audio HDD makes the OS much cleaner to boot.
Click to expand...

Or you can setup a boot menu to boot from either hard drive to do a similar trick...

Agree with the crowd in that the Mac will probably give you less hassles, but a PC will likely be more cost effective _IF_ you're prepared to deal with the hardware hassles, know how to tune your OS, and can maintain an "internet isolated" machine etc etc etc...

I'm running a PC based box BTW...
 
#23
I've been a unix/linux geek for the past 8 years. I've also had home computers running every ms os starting with dos. I was a computer tech both in the marines and the real world. My answer is thus, I hate working on pc's and I hate their stupid problems. I know the macintoshes aren't perfect, nor are they the perfect computing solution. However, as a whole, they do what they are intended to do. The reason for that being, the hardware and os comes from the same group of people, and they only make their products work with a limited range of outside products. This inherently increases stability. The problem with pc's is that the MS os's are made to run on everything under the sun, with parts coming from every which vendor and drivers being haphazardly pasted together for such parts. Now, i love my linux boxes, but I never experienced true happyness with a computer until I used (and taught my friend) my friends power book to run his digi002. I was amazed at how efficient the system worked, and how simple things ran, from networking to mastering 8 tracks of audio to cd. My dual processor amd box recently gave up the ghost, mb and powersupply died, and instead of electing to purchase new parts, i auctioned off the guts and am waiting for my first student loan check so I can buy an ibook and an mbox, and I'm currently using my 7 year old ultrasparc 10 from sun microsystems running solaris 9 in the mean time, which works great. Anyways, modern mac's have unix with a pretty face, what more could I want?
 
#24
lazyi said:
Unix is the best Screw Apple and Windows. PS Apple is moving to intel chips so what will be the difference
Click to expand...

Apple is unix. Mac OS 10 and newer are really NeXTStep and based on berkley unix.


As for what to run for recording. I can't speak to any other program but protools on windows vs apple is functionally identical. If you learn how to use it on either you don't need to re-learn how to use it on the other. So if you plan to run protools dont feel like you need to run it on an apple just because you might need to use it on an apple in a studio sometime. Its all the same.

-Rav
 
#25
My father brought an Apple II home when I was 5, and I've been hooked on computers ever since. I've programmed music using the Commodore 64's obscene peek and poke commands. But basically, since I was old enough to understand how computers actually functioned, and what uses they had besides games, I've been a PC guy.

Maybe this is why I don't seem to have any of the problems described below. No hideous viruses, no resource hogging (well, at least not since I went to NT a while back), no problems keeping my machine up, running, and recording audio since I was still in college and ADATs were the height of digital studio technology.

I've also fixed up plenty of my friends' windows-based systems. I resisted moving from DOS to windows 3.1, and resisted upgrading from 3.1 to 95 until 98 came out. I'm more than ready to admit that windows and M$ have great gaping problems with program architecture, sloppy space-wasting coding, and confusing error reports coupled with the need to occasionally tinker at the hexidecimal level with my hardware, although that hasn't happened since I switched to XP Pro.

I've also seen more than one studio session delayed while the Mac that runs Pro Tools has a hissy fit. I can't even describe what the fit was about, because I only know what buttons to press to make a Mac program work, not how the computer itself works.


I haven't had to plug and unplug any hardware, except during a CPU and motherboard upgrade, and sometimes not even then. Which brings me to my point. Not a lot of love for PC recording here, and I figure I'd just mention that not everyone has these problems, if they did, no one would buy PCs for recording, or possibly anything else. Macs would have outsold them 50 times over, and yet that hasn't happened, not even in the a/v industry, although I don't have exact figures in front of me.

One other thing I know for sure is that I can upgrade my recording rig, depending on what I'm upgrading, for as little as $45 (my last memory upgrade) or around $200 (my last CPU/Motherboard upgrade) and anywhere between, and just that (relatively) small amount of dough makes a large difference. I don't know any Mac owners who can do that. They have to wait until Apple stops pushing ipods long enough to bother coughing up their next generation of hardware.


Just thought I'd stick up for the other PC users out there, who maybe haven't experienced the hassles that are constantly reported. I just rarely to never see the issues you guys are describing, and neither does anyone else I know using a PC to record. If I did, I'd switch to Mac as well just to stave off hair loss due to frustration.
 
#26
Well, I'm not sure that I agree that Mac is for pros, and PC is for consumers. As we all know, if you buy a soundcard for a mac, you can be 100% sure that it has been tested with YOUR computer. That's one of the reasons macs often are more stable than pcs. You know all the parts work well together. So, for a consumer, it may be easier to buy a mac system, even though it could cost them some more money.
 
#27
The initial cost factor is a big seller for PCs; there's no doubt about it. But even with effects and whatnot, it's what's spent afterwards. If I'd had a PC based studio this past weekend, with paying customers, I would've lost, most likely, the cost of two PCs because of a behind the scenes Windows patch which affected all playback and recording.

The patch was offered (as they all are) to increase security - to plug the holes as it were - and with the Mac OS, this issue simply doesn't exist. No patches because there's nothing to patch.

Plus the anti spyware, antivirus, which isn't so bad nowadays because spyware's worse in a lot of cases, firewalls, etc, do take up a lot of resources, both in processor cycles, AND the time you spend hunting down and killing the little shrimp.

Best bet for PC - at this point - is to get two if possible, and like others have said, keep one as stand alone media machine, off the Net, no firewall, etc.

All I can say is thank goodness we record on tape and only mix to digital or there would've been a lot more loss this past weekend :)
 
#28
DemoEtc said:
The patch was offered (as they all are) to increase security - to plug the holes as it were - and with the Mac OS, this issue simply doesn't exist. No patches because there's nothing to patch.
Click to expand...

I don't know where you got this information, but you are wrong. Apple just released their 3rd security patch (this is aside from the two point releases for Tiger that have already come out, and a 3rd point release is supposedly in alpha testing at Apple) for 2005. Here's Apple's patch documentation page --> Link Removed which details the 34 vulnerabilities fixed in this update.

This security update was released on Monday (8/15).
 
#29
DemoEtc said:
The initial cost factor is a big seller for PCs; there's no doubt about it. But even with effects and whatnot, it's what's spent afterwards. If I'd had a PC based studio this past weekend, with paying customers, I would've lost, most likely, the cost of two PCs because of a behind the scenes Windows patch which affected all playback and recording.
Click to expand...


This happened with the last Tiger update and Pro Tools users. Macs are not immune. As a Windows or Mac OS, it also pays to read what the updates/patches affect before loading them up. Not all are security-related, and if you use a machine to record, you should never, ever, just install something because M$ or Apple tell you to.

As it happens, I use the same machine with two hard drives--not a dual-boot system, I actually physically disconnect one drive and switch to the other to keep my audio safe from anything on the home-use drive. Eventually I will get two separate CPU towers, but only because I dislike hauling my computer back and forth between home and studio. This way I get two computers in effect, for a (relatively speaking) paltry $200 between hard drive and 2nd Windows copy.
 
#30
WillPlay4Food said:
I don't know where you got this information, but you are wrong. Apple just released their 3rd security patch (this is aside from the two point releases for Tiger that have already come out, and a 3rd point release is supposedly in alpha testing at Apple) for 2005. Here's Apple's patch documentation page --> Link Removed which details the 34 vulnerabilities fixed in this update.

This security update was released on Monday (8/15).
Click to expand...


Point taken; lots of holes.

Thanks and best regards man. :)
 
#31
Here's the deal: there's great software for either Mac or PC. It really just depends on your talent and abilities (the Beatles used a 4-track, but they had a great mixer who knew how to use it).

From what I hear ProTools is going down the tubes. Latest OS versions are making incompatibilities and these days more and more Mac users are going to Logic.

I don't really see either PC or Mac being better at doing music production. Keep in mind, however, that most VST/VSTis are from PC, except for most commercial VST/VSTis. Most freeware (and there are some very good ones out there) VST/VSTis are for PC.

Processing power is an issue, but you freeze your tracks you can save a whole lot of CPU power. It's just an issue that both PC users and Mac users deal with.

Check out these benchmarks from Ableton 4:

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Clearly you can see that Mac is at the bottom of the heap.
 
#33
geoffkhan said:
Here's the deal: there's great software for either Mac or PC. It really just depends on your talent and abilities (the Beatles used a 4-track, but they had a great mixer who knew how to use it).

From what I hear ProTools is going down the tubes. Latest OS versions are making incompatibilities and these days more and more Mac users are going to Logic.

I don't really see either PC or Mac being better at doing music production. Keep in mind, however, that most VST/VSTis are from PC, except for most commercial VST/VSTis. Most freeware (and there are some very good ones out there) VST/VSTis are for PC.

Processing power is an issue, but you freeze your tracks you can save a whole lot of CPU power. It's just an issue that both PC users and Mac users deal with.

Check out these benchmarks from Ableton 4:

Invalid Link Removed

Clearly you can see that 4 year old Macs are at the bottom of the heap.
Click to expand...

There, fixed that for ya.
 
#34
OS preferences aside, it is abundantly clear that the PC platform presently has the best audio processing performance. Although not on the chart, for programs that support it, the Athlon 64 X2 is currently, by leaps and bounds, on the top of the heap.
 
#35
12bass said:
OS preferences aside, it is abundantly clear that the PC platform presently has the best audio processing performance. Although not on the chart, for programs that support it, the Athlon 64 X2 is currently, by leaps and bounds, on the top of the heap.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't say a CPU load of 2% less is leaps and bounds. :) Although once you factor in price/performance it would come out better than the current 2400 cost of a 2x2.5GHz PowerMac. I'd like to know where Apple's 2x.7GHz PowerMac would stand though. It isn't on the list.
 
#37
I've been anti-Mac ever since my elementary school put LC-IIs in the classrooms while I had an IBM PS/2 at home, but honestly I've not even touched a Macintosh computer in years, not since high school, and then it was the PowerPC variety that we used. From what I remember, the main things that I hated were the lack of upgrades available and the childish interface (which was later sort of copied by Windows...). Give me a C:\> prompt any day! Not to mention that at least 90% of software never saw a port to Macintosh, so if you're a gamer at all, that will cinch the deal (it did for me).
 
#38
The fact is, MZ91, when any dispute arises, in order to get beyond opinions, benchmarks are the way to go.

I'm not anti-Mac by any means. I have used Macs many-a-time. But when it comes to audio, I'd take a PC over a Mac any day. Also, in my eyes the VST/VSTi world is so much more in favor of a PC due to the majority of computer users being PC users.

PCs are also way better bang for the buck.

So my opinion is that unless your running Logic on a Mac, PC is the way to go.

Let me refer you to a computer musicians' forum:

Invalid Link Removed

It's a great website/forum. It has a lot of members who know what they are talking about and have a lot of experience in the electronic music industry.
 
#39
geoffkhan said:
PCs are also way better bang for the buck.

.
Click to expand...


This clinches it for me, and probably will for the rest of the recording industry, too, now that Pro Tools is not the only game in town for computer-controlled recording. Other programs are taking over. Mac users are turning to Logic, but PC users have a much, much larger set of options to choose from. Smart production facilities are using both systems still, but lots of audio companies live and die by the semi-pro and home recordist, where cost is the primary consideration.
 
#40
In professional studios they don't use software based plugins. Most of them use Protools with plugins that run on digidesign ASIC based hardware.

These custom boards are far less glitchy in MAC's than PC's. This is why most pro studios run MAC's.

The performance of the Mac itself really isnt all that relevant. Its basically just doing the graphic output to you and some top level administration tasks and data storage. All of the hard core number crunching that needs to be done is on the digi cards and not the main computer.

If your running a fully software plug in version of a protools setup like a digirack or mbox with RTAS plugs then you do care how fast the computer is.

And I agree bang for buck PC wins hands down. Stability wise I think the Mac still has an edge.

Expandability wise if you want to move up to a digi HD setup Mac is the only real option in my opinion.

-Rav
 

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