Mac vs. PC...A Few Simple Questions

[SabbathFan0220]

I know, another Mac vs. PC thread. Sorry about that.

I'm going to be buying a new computer in the next few weeks just for recording. Mostly guitar, bass, and vocals. Nothing fancy production wise. Garageband would work fine. I've been using Sony ACID on a PC and that does more than all I need. Software is not really my concern.

I've always been a PC guy. I like PCs and have no problems with them. I have two basic questions...

1. What is Mac offering that makes them so much more expensive? A Mac will cost nearly double its PC counterpart with comparable specs.

2. The popular advice seems to be "stick with whatever you know best." Then why is every recording studio using Mac? Anytime I see a pro studio, they've got Macs in there.

 

[SabbathFan0220]

Re: Mac vs. PC...A Few Simple Questions

I'll be using one of THESE for the mics, if that's relevant.

 

[these_go211]

Re: Mac vs. PC...A Few Simple Questions

this should probably be moved to the sound room. but here's my very very biased 2 cents as an unabashed mac fanboy: i think total cost of ownership in the long run is lower for a mac because you can use them a lot longer on average, there is less maintenance involved (no viruses, no spyware), and frankly, there should be a lot less downtime due to problems. i supported windows based pcs for 10 years. i had my fill of dealing with pc issues. my 8 year old powermac still records audio just fine. it's got more memory than when i bought it and an external hard drive but that's it. i'm hoping to get 10 years out of it.

now, expect some serious rebuttals to the above!

 

[Warheart]

Re: Mac vs. PC...A Few Simple Questions

From my understanding, Mac's use their memory and processing power more efficiently , so in essence, the is far less chance of having glitches and problems with audio.

The only other thing I can tell you is: Anything I've plugged into my Mac via USB, it had drivers for it, or recognized what it was before I even knew about it.
I spent about half an hour online looking for drivers for a few things until I checked the audio in/out, and saw that it was already there. Pretty much felt like an idiot!

For 1. The aluminum chassis is quite durable as well, more so than a lot of plastic things you see out there, which does affect the price, but not as much as it should at all.

I would advise against buying a new mac, as you're getting robbed. I see no problem buying used and taking good care of it.

 

[SabbathFan0220]

Re: Mac vs. PC...A Few Simple Questions

Thanks guys. I posted here because I thought this counted as a "recording gear question." Any die-hard PC guys out there?

 

[these_go211]

Re: Mac vs. PC...A Few Simple Questions

an added bonus for mac is the genuis bar at the apple store. free tech support by knowledgeable people who actually have nice personalities and are easy to talk to. i've been in there a few times. great to have that as a resource.

 

[St_Genesius]

Re: Mac vs. PC...A Few Simple Questions

I enjoy browsing the web on the OSX partition of my Macbook Air. Multi-finger gestures are great.

Everything else is better on the Windows 7 side.

 

[GuitarStv]

Re: Mac vs. PC...A Few Simple Questions

I'm not a die-hard anything . . . just a software engineer. I use Windows, Mac, and Linux on a regular basis for my job and at home.

The reason that Apple hardware is so much more expensive is because they limit competition and hardware vendors. By gaining control over exactly what components can be sold for use with their computers, Apple is able to dramatically reduce the number of driver problems that end users have. Since there are multiple vendors for PC hardware components, pricing is more competitive and there is more selection between different types of hardware. Initially setting up a PC, finding drivers, and ensuring that you get a stable system is slightly more difficult.

Anyone who tells you that one system will last longer than the other doesn't have his or her facts straight. You can build a PC of good quality parts, or cheap crap. Failure rates for electronics do not magically change when they're put in a PC vs a Mac. If you're getting someone to build a PC for you, just get a comparable warranty to the one offered by Apple.

As far as OS vs OS goes . . . Windows 7 is very stable, and comparable in functionality to the Mac OS. Even Vista (after the last few patches) is a decent OS . . . although at launch it really did suck. If you're comfortable working in a Windows environment, then go nuts. There's no significant advantage to using the Mac OS. If you're comfortable with a Mac environment, then do that. There's no significant advantage to using the Windows OS. When you save your recorded files to .wav they can be read and transferred easily between OSs.

In case you care . . . I happen to use a Windows Vista box that I built with Adobe Audition and an M-Audio Delta 44 for my recording needs. It's very solid, and has been working well since I got it. Before that I'd been using a Windows XP PC that I built for 8 years with no problems. Using Linux to record can also be done, but my forays into this have all been a tremendous pain in the ass. Unless you like writing your own drivers, building new kernels and configuring stuff . . . stay away.

 

[xntrick]

Re: Mac vs. PC...A Few Simple Questions

i friend of mine switched over to the mac a few years ago, he used to do a lot of video work at the time and he could not get over how seamless the mac worked..he also mentioned that he'd get more work done on the mac in the same amount of time compared to his pc...

 

[Virtual Kevorkian]

Re: Mac vs. PC...A Few Simple Questions

Pick which platform you're most comfortable and go with that.

I personally am much faster/productive/more organized on OS X than I am on Windows, even when using the same programs on both OS's. I also have found my OS X systems to be more stable and reliable than the Windows based workstations I've built.

That said, give me a computer and a deadline and I will crash it, regardless of what it's running.

 

[uOpt]

Re: Mac vs. PC...A Few Simple Questions

1. What is Mac offering that makes them so much more expensive? A Mac will cost nearly double its PC counterpart with comparable specs.

These cheap premade PCs are made with bad parts. Namely bad power supplies which can kill all your components all at once when they blow up. And bad power can cause memory corruption that will scramble your harddrive contents, even files you never visit. The next bad part are mainboards with capacitors that are too cheap and crappy and blow up. The latter isn't that bad since it can't kill your harddrive like a bad PSU but not good either.

Then add the cooling problem. I have seen both Best Buy (via geeksquad) and Dell putting themselves on the standpoint that it is not covered by the warranty if your PC gets unstable because you have full CPU load for extended periods of time (never mind that games do that).

If you assemble a PC with decent power supply and good mainboard with capacitors comparable to a Mac's components you get closer to the real price. Need a quality case with good fans. $$$

Then add a legal full copy of Windows, assuming that's your poison of choice.

Then there are mouse and keyboard which are pretty expensive for PCs if you want good ones. You might not want that, that's fine, but a Mac includes a good keyboard and a good mouse.

The Mac server models are all ECC+registered memory equipped SMP boxes. If you want to compare that to PCs the PC needs a server class dual board (Supermicro or so) and also ECC registered RAM and SMP capable CPUs. $$$ + $$$ + $$$.

Now, Apple had some quality issues, too. They had the same bad NVidia chips that everybody else had. And the dithering display thing has damaged their reputation for graphics work. But compared to what a cheap junk PC does to you that's nothing.

2. The popular advice seems to be "stick with whatever you know best." Then why is every recording studio using Mac? Anytime I see a pro studio, they've got Macs in there.

Musicians aren't very flexible getting used to new stuff. If you own a studio and grandmaster mixer grand huhu comes in and can't use your computer since he only knows Mac you just lost more money than the computer is worth.

They also don't want lots of virus crap. There have been quite a few instances of commercial songs leaking out of recoding studios recently. Even if that was caused by malware (e.g. an employee stole the songs) that doesn't really matter since the record company and producer are likely to object to a malware carrier OS in the recording setup regardless and they don't know anything about comm-puthars.

 

[St_Genesius]

Re: Mac vs. PC...A Few Simple Questions

A few years ago, that was true. But Apple seems less and less interested in continuing to cater to the needs of creative professionals, in favor of chasing after the consumer-level stuff. From a business perspective, it makes sense, but it still kinda sucks.

There are still plenty of people who still use Final Cut (hasn't been updated in forever...), but for raw performance it's the bottom of the barrel. Evin AVID beats it now, which is sad. The entire CS5 suite runs better on Win7.

And that's on comparable hardware. Once you take into account that Apple lags behid in offering the fastest RAM, or the newest GPUs, the differnece becomes even starker.

I say all of this as someone who shoots and edits video for a living.

For audio...well, who cares? I did 8-track recording on my Netbook in 2008. ANYTHING has enough horsepower to run your audio stuff.

i friend of mine switched over to the mac a few years ago, he used to do a lot of video work at the time and he could not get over how seamless the mac worked..he also mentioned that he'd get more work done on the mac in the same amount of time compared to his pc...

 

[Virtual Kevorkian]

Re: Mac vs. PC...A Few Simple Questions

For audio...well, who cares? I did 8-track recording on my Netbook in 2008. ANYTHING has enough horsepower to run your audio stuff.

Not entirely accurate - if you're just talking about simple demo stuff at home - sure, most consumer computers can handle it.

Anything else... good luck.

 

[uOpt]

Re: Mac vs. PC...A Few Simple Questions

For audio...well, who cares? I did 8-track recording on my Netbook in 2008. ANYTHING has enough horsepower to run your audio stuff.

I did fine recording in 1996-1997 on a dual Pentium-133.

But that's the thing. Since you don't need the processor power you can actually afford a Mac - with a slower processor.

Things get ugly when you need highest speed on everything. But in all honesty - do you? We've been fine with old computers, too. Of course that was before Vista...

 

[Markk]

Re: Mac vs. PC...A Few Simple Questions

The only other thing I can tell you is: Anything I've plugged into my Mac via USB, it had drivers for it, or recognized what it was before I even knew about it.

So far, this is the only thing I've experienced when I got a Macbook 13inch from a friend. It literally changed my mind about selling my MIDI keyboard. Not only did it work out of the box, but at a ridiculously low lag time.

 

[St_Genesius]

Re: Mac vs. PC...A Few Simple Questions

Sure, me too, though back then I was only doing two tracks at a time. These days, I can record as many tracks as my interface (depends which one I'm using) will allow on any machine I own, including the aforementioned netbook, which ran both OSX (mainly for Qlab) and XP.

Yes, I can afford a Mac (see above). And thankfully, I can also afford a license for Windows to make it useful both for my work and my play; I've got about a dozen games installed through Steam, most of which aren't available for OSX and the rest of which run much better in W7.

But I really DO like surfing the web in OSX. It's a very good OS for that. Well, once you uninstall Safari, anyway.

I did fine recording in 1996-1997 on a dual Pentium-133.

But that's the thing. Since you don't need the processor power you can actually afford a Mac - with a slower processor.

Things get ugly when you need highest speed on everything. But in all honesty - do you? We've been fine with old computers, too. Of course that was before Vista...

 

[uOpt]

Re: Mac vs. PC...A Few Simple Questions

I bet that I can do at least 8-track CD quality on an Intel Atom, easily.

The need for CPU power comes in if you want to run effects on there, namely any for of delay/modulation or heavy EQ. But just recording and playing tracks, including volume-mixing them isn't a problem.

Of course you can't do that with Creative's crazy Windoze drivers.

 

[St_Genesius]

Re: Mac vs. PC...A Few Simple Questions

I know you can. I've done it. 8 tracks on a single core Atom 1.6Ghz, with 2GB DDR2-800Mhz RAM in Adobe Audition.

What does Creative have to do with anything? Did I miss something?

I don't know what we're talking about any more. Can Mac hardware record? Yes. Can non-Mac hardware record? Yes. Are there recording programs in OSX? Yes. Are there recording programs in Windows? Yes. Some of them are on both! Wheeee! If the program(s) you want are only on one platform, then your choice is made. If they're on both, but perform better on one, your choice SHOULD be made.

Beyond that...buy whatever.

I bet that I can do at least 8-track CD quality on an Intel Atom, easily.

The need for CPU power comes in if you want to run effects on there, namely any for of delay/modulation or heavy EQ. But just recording and playing tracks, including volume-mixing them isn't a problem.

Of course you can't do that with Creative's crazy Windoze drivers.

 

[ParameterMan]

Re: Mac vs. PC...A Few Simple Questions

uOpt beat me to it... define "comparable specs". A PC with a proper stable motherboard, solid power supply and quality RAM will end up with a price tag a lot closer to a Mac. I would recommend going that route, too, as buying a cheap but unstable computer will bite you in the rear repeatedly when recording music.

The other selling point for a Mac is they make a better laptop, but if you're buying a tower and sticking it in a box nice case designs don't matter.

A lot of people like OS X as well, it just depends on what you're more productive using. I'd go with the platform that supports your hardware/software of choice.

Oh, yeah, I think the reason you see a lot of studios with Macs is that for many years Pro Tools was the professional DAW of choice and guys just got used to using them.

 

[YHWH]

Re: Mac vs. PC...A Few Simple Questions

... no Mac here unfortunately... but *IMO* only advantage PC has over Mac (in a recording sense) is that there are tons of often free or @ least very inexpensive VSTi's avallable for PC - w/ a Mac & ProTools you gotta get a VSTi -> RTAS wrapper to use them in your DAW... of which is not free. Other than that there is no advantage recording w/ PC over Mac. Mac & Logic or ProTools are the standard DAWs now- having a Mac desktop or Macbook Pro in your crib impresses the chix anyway... which is why I'm still single... :banghead: So buy a Mac, a MOTU interface & ProTools or Logic... & enjoy... :friday: