Home recording, Mac vs. PC

Re: Home recording, Mac vs. PC

Virtual Kevorkian said:
Meet me! I went back to PC after a year of using my MacBook exclusively, because it was more cost effective to build my own DAW than buy a Mac tower.

I also went from using Logic to Cubase, and I know of a few others. It's all about what you're comfortable on. If you start with Logic, chances are that unless you get heavily involved in the industry and swap to PT, you'll stick with Logic for a long while.
Click to expand...

Ahhh, There`s no need to swap to PT even if you get heavily involved in the industry !! My future setup will be mac,logic pro 8, x-logic (ssl) converters and UA,duende and some waves plugs,i know for sure this`ll be much more flexible for future upgrades than the whole digidesign PT hd gremlin will be !
 
Re: Home recording, Mac vs. PC

I will say one thing about the PC/Mac thing, though. A mac is nice, but it's the BMW of the lineup, if you know what I mean. One can build an equivalent windows or linux based machine for less, but you get what you pay for :D
 
Re: Home recording, Mac vs. PC

TwinReverb said:
I will say one thing about the PC/Mac thing, though. A mac is nice, but it's the BMW of the lineup, if you know what I mean. One can build an equivalent windows or linux based machine for less, but you get what you pay for :D
Click to expand...

We've spent this entire thread for the most part debunking this myth... it's simply not true.
 
Re: Home recording, Mac vs. PC

Virtual Kevorkian said:
We've spent this entire thread for the most part debunking this myth... it's simply not true.
Click to expand...

I don't see it. Mac is better, don't get me wrong, but if you know what you're doing and what you want, you can do cheaper than the Mac if you try. And it can be cheaper if you do it right. Think mini-itx cheap board, linux, expensive high-end sound card, and all non-fan hardware to boot. You can have a very silent very efficient machine. Check out this link posted in 2004 on a guy who records in a basement using such a machine.

However, the mac will win in interface and software. If I was going to choose between the two, I'd get a mac. All I'm saying is that you can go cheaper than a mac. Considering most modern macs are almost totally built on top of PC hardware: intel processor, intel-based hard drive controller. So far (if you read the Hackintosh sites) the only obstacle to make a PC identical to a Mac is the BIOS.

And yes, I am fully aware of Mac's reputation. I'm a musician and my wife is a graphic art and design major in college. We both want a mac :D
 
Re: Home recording, Mac vs. PC

TwinReverb said:
I don't see it. Mac is better, don't get me wrong, but if you know what you're doing and what you want, you can do cheaper than the Mac if you try. And it can be cheaper if you do it right. Think mini-itx cheap board, linux, expensive high-end sound card, and all non-fan hardware to boot. You can have a very silent very efficient machine. Check out this link posted in 2004 on a guy who records in a basement using such a machine.

However, the mac will win in interface and software. If I was going to choose between the two, I'd get a mac. All I'm saying is that you can go cheaper than a mac. Considering most modern macs are almost totally built on top of PC hardware: intel processor, intel-based hard drive controller. So far (if you read the Hackintosh sites) the only obstacle to make a PC identical to a Mac is the BIOS.

And yes, I am fully aware of Mac's reputation. I'm a musician and my wife is a graphic art and design major in college. We both want a mac :D
Click to expand...


That's all fine and dandy, but you can still get a PC to run just as, if not more stable than a Mac, if you know what you're doing.

I don't really need to be schooled on Mac vs PC hardware and whatnot - I've been a cross-platform user for the past year and a half, and have built a fair share of DAW dedicated PC's. I can honestly say that the hardware I used to build my stuff is in many ways superior to Apples... I actually think they make pretty craptastic hardware, and I know I'm not alone there.
 
Re: Home recording, Mac vs. PC

A PC can be really powerfull if it's dedicated only for music...No Internet ,No networking ,No Wi Fi ,No Tv cards or whatever ,Just soundcard ,maybe some outboard DSP/Plug-in hardware to connect ,a master Keyboard and a Great Graphic card/Monitor. Two Fast Hardrives.One for the system ,the other one for the Recordings...
Keep the Housing as small as possible ,get fan-less Graphic card...And a liquid cooling sysem.Cubase 4 is extreme good ,and with maximm 10 plug-ins ,you are set for everything...
 
Re: Home recording, Mac vs. PC

Ok guys you are really freaking me out now, with the dedicated no nothing PC. That was not in my plans. I was thinking of getting Lexicon Lambda, and upgrading my PC with more memory/better drive or getting a mack and run recording on it as well as everything else ... cant be done?
 
Re: Home recording, Mac vs. PC

The mac could be used for other stuff with far fewer issues. Wouldn't dream of using a pc unless it was dedicated.
 
Re: Home recording, Mac vs. PC

AmirH said:
Example? My saffire pro was having all sorts of crazy popping when running in windows and none in osx. The culprit(thanks jeff for helping me figure that one out) was my wireless internet card. For whatever reason windows treats firewire as a network device. NEVER had weird quirks like that in osx- just worked immediately.
Click to expand...


FWIW, and in Windows' defense, this is only a problem with machines that have the wireless card on the same board as the Firewire port... AKA only a couple laptops, Apple included.
 
Re: Home recording, Mac vs. PC

Dr.Mavashi said:
Ok guys you are really freaking me out now, with the dedicated no nothing PC. That was not in my plans. I was thinking of getting Lexicon Lambda, and upgrading my PC with more memory/better drive or getting a mack and run recording on it as well as everything else ... cant be done?
Click to expand...
No?
 
Re: Home recording, Mac vs. PC

Dr.Mavashi said:
Ok guys you are really freaking me out now, with the dedicated no nothing PC. That was not in my plans. I was thinking of getting Lexicon Lambda, and upgrading my PC with more memory/better drive or getting a mack and run recording on it as well as everything else ... cant be done?
Click to expand...

Mac or PC... it's really best to 'dedicate' a machine to audio. Just a few weeks ago I was working at a home studio & the one guy had a G5 tower with a 002, Toolz LE... LOTS of other junk on the desktop & screen savers running etc. We couldn't get more then 14 or 15 tracks and a handful of plug-ins to run at 88.2 without crashing, locking etc.

Bad news all around. That system is/was capable of much more then it delivered.

That may be enough for you... maybe not.

For several hundred dollars you can get a standalone Tascam or Roland porta studio with a CD burner and have NONE of these headaches to deal with...
 
Re: Home recording, Mac vs. PC

Dude has a point: some sound stations with CD burner drives are cheaper and more easy to use / efficient than a computer, be it mac or PC.
 
Re: Home recording, Mac vs. PC

Dr.Mavashi said:
How about using Q-base/Cakewalk/Ezy-drums etc on those things?
Click to expand...

I was just pointing out that, assuming you do not own a computer, or your computer needs replacement or major upgrades before it can record, sometimes a stand-alone unit from Boss, Roland, etc, many makers, will do an excellent job recording, and for less. For example, This is only $349 and burns 8 tracks live (or 64 tracks total virtual) to CD. That's actually quite enough for any live garage band to burn with. My friend has a $2300 unit that was a gift, but it will also burn to CD, and run sound, and it is awesome.
 
Re: Home recording, Mac vs. PC

I took a course on Cubase (Mac based). I absolutely hated it. The controls were incredible anti-intuitive because they did so much in the name of making it "user friendly". I'm loving cool edit pro though (Windows). It's very straight forward and transparent. Every engineer I've worked with has used Protools though.
 
Re: Home recording, Mac vs. PC

Virtual Kevorkian said:
I can honestly say that the hardware I used to build my stuff is in many ways superior to Apples... I actually think they make pretty craptastic hardware, and I know I'm not alone there.
Click to expand...

+1.

IMO, it's hard to beat a good PC workstation with a high-end audio interface and fast hard disks. For an OS, I prefer Linux, but I don't expect everyone to jump on that boat anytime soon.

A Mac is similar to buying a pre-built PC from the local Circuit City. It's manufactured without any regard to what sort of applications it will be used for.

But for the love of god, do not buy a PC with Vista on it, to use as your DAW. If you do, you might as well kiss your performance goodbye.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Dr.Mavashi
PC specs for practice/writing DAW
Replies
8
Views
2K
songoku
S
R
simple 4 track recording
Replies
3
Views
2K
Cory_Dylan
Cory_Dylan
Back
Top