PC vs Mac for music

[Randy R]

After over 20 years of computing (and 46 of guitar playing) I finally bought a Macbook, initially for my wife. Since she hated it and refused to use it, I replaced the failed hard drive in her HP laptop, bought a newer Wifi card that does better security and took the Mac for myself.

I've never been out and out opposed tot he Mac world, except for the prissy, lame, better than thou vibe the Apple community has always encouraged. I say, use the best tool for the job at hand.

So, what changed my mind? Not that I've given up on PC, I still own many of them at home and office.

First and foremost, Mac OS X which is unix like. This has two effects. One, I can use the unix console and I know how to use that so it's a big benefit. More importantly though, there is now a lot of open source free software for OS X. What's great about that, besides the price is that you can use Audacity on all three platforms now, Windows, Mac and linux. This is great. The other side effect is that shareware for the MAc has historically been absurdly expensive. For years I bought very useful and professional stable programs for WIndows for under $30. NOw there's a lot of free and low cost stuff for the Mac.

The best thing though, was Garage Band. Any musician has to love this, and it comes free with the box!

The Mac does a lot of great things better than Windows, but it really is a matter of taste when it comes to a choice. I'd say both!

I really like GB for composing, jamming, practicing, etc and like I say it's free. I know there are acid jazz loops and programs on the PC but I haven't tried them.

[captain_rusty]

I've never used a Mac, mainly because of the price difference compared to PCs and of course the availability of cheap software...
What might tempt me is the reputation of stability. I'm constantly astonished at how flaky Windows is - the last time I had to format my HD after WINDOWS UPDATE definitively crashed my system. Damn Bill Gates and all his works... :(
The other reason against migrating is the lack of familiarity. It's taken me years to get used to what I have now - I don't think I could take another learning curve... :D

[Randy R]

I swear I'm not shilling for Mac or Apple, but I really love the ease of operation. It just works! The price is another story, I thought the entry-level laptop did a great job for the price (someplace around $1k). Sure you can get a PC laptop for $700, but what does it come with and what can it do (for music)? The Mac has been stable, I've had it for about a year. I'm also considering buying one of the cubes (I can't get my head around all those cute names, it's the one with no mouse, keyboard or screen) for a video and media server in the bedroom.

My conclusion is, it's a better time now than it was a few years ago to get into the Mac thing. OTH, if you don't need anything else for your PC to do, why change? I'm staying with XP on all my Windows boxes, no Vista in this house. I'll go all linux before I use Vista.

[John Carter]

I agree on multiple points, the foremost being the fact that Apple fanboys are annoying. Re: price -- I am taking some graduate classes and had an assignment to "build" two laptops for use by my future students. I got my info on the Dell and Apple sites. I concluded that it is possible to buy a Dell laptop for less than a MacBook. Hell, for that matter you can buy a $199 linux laptop at WalMart. But in order to make an "oranges to oranges" comparison you have to juice up the PC model until the price is within 5%.

Having said all that, my next purchase will be a Mac, with extra partitions for ubuntu and XP. I took a web design class and used iMacs with 24" screens. It made me want to go home and trash all of my PC's.

I have heard lots of good things about Garage Band. The college I used to work for required all of the music majors to buy a MacBook Pro and they all sang its praises. I have been using Adobe Audition since it was CoolEdit2000. I love it, up to 128 tracks (if you have the ram) and more bells and whistles than a steamship.

[Bob Martin]

I'll admit I am an Apple fan-boy... not a skirt-wearin, pom-pom waving fan boy, but one who lives behind the screen a lot more than I'd care to admit. I have an ad agency, so Macs are what I know. I agree with the salient points here. But I gotta say, if you like GarageBand, find and try Logic 8. I've been recording to my Macs for at least 12 years at this point, using Cubase, Pro Tools and Logic, and before that used an Atari to sequence, etc. In addition, because I represent a retailer of audio gear, I also have to pay close attention to what happens on all platforms, including the 3 dimensional one (rack gear, etc). I gotta say, I am absolutely blown away by what they've done with Logic 8. I bought the Studio package (an upgrade from Express, actually) and got the full 50+gig of extras, which is all very cool and all. But the functionality of the basic program is amazing. They've taken it soooo far ahead of anything else that's out there, it's scary. SOOO, if you are becoming Mac users, be sure to check out Logic 8. And welcome to the fold...

[danno]

i have always used macs for work and pc's for play, only in xp did i ever see anything approaching the ease of use for work.

even throwing out all the apples and oranges arguments, and assuming that as a worst case scenario they are equal, choose mac because you never have to worry about viruses again. yes, they could write one, but they don't, and you'll never have to format c: /s ever again!

[Randy R]

If I keep mentioning Garage Band it's because it comes FREE with the Mac. Logic is about $500 if I'm not mistaken? I've been a PC user for years, and the only thing Windows comes with FREE for music is infinite headaches! Interface hell, before it DLL hell, and now Vista driver hell!

I think it only a matter of time when there will be a lot more Mac viruses out there. Right now Mac has doubled to about 8-10% of users. When its around 40-50 I'll bet there are more viruses, there's one now that can install a Trojan horse on your Mac. But hey, the main thing is, you use what you think will work for you for the price you want to spend.

It's also worth considering what your friends are using, the ones you can call at 3 AM when you're mixing and just lost a drive or something :)

[Bob Martin]

Yup, Logic costs money. All I was saying was that if you have the means, it's definitely worth the dough. In a sense, compared to ProTools, which can cost many thousands of dollars, Logic seems free. It's a very small amount of money for what you get - just like all of Apple's pro suites.

[danno]

i'll second logic being worth the money. it's so easy to use i have yet to read, or even glance at the instruction book, and it's become part of my groups practice regimen. it's always going recording our sessions. last night our drummer didn't make it and i was able to fill in drum beats from logic just to keep time by, without slowing down our jam. in 5 minutes after practice was over i put a bass line in and had a good 4 track rough draft of a new song. effortless in a word.

[Randy R]

But how well does logic run on an entry-level MacBook? Again, that's what's good about GB. I can get a bunch of tracks, just about as many as will fit on the screen.

I also use a program called SAW on the PC end. The newer version of SAW version probably does most of what logic can - I'm not comparing them point by point but with the stuff I need, simple multi-tracking etc. In fact, Audacity goes a long way for free on all three platforms.

We're luycky to have all this today. When I started on a 486 and Windoze 95, it was a nightmare.

[danno]

i would say very well, even better if you get a gig or 2 of ram.

i'm currently running on a g4 powerbook that's 2 years old with only 756 ram, 1 gig is minimum recomended. my everyday use is pretty limited tho, like i said i just record practice sessions, not a lot of real time effects or anything. but, it works perfectly. when we go in to record 2 finished songs later this month i'm gonna use my dual/g5 with 5 gigs of ram.

[Bob Martin]

I am running LogicStudio on a 2ghz MacBook CoreDuo (not the CoreDuo2) with 2gig RAM and it works perfectly. It helps if you have an outboard drive (preferably Firewire) for your project files if you start to get more than 8 tracks with a lot of processing going, but even then it barely belches.

[TheWinkler]

yep, that. i switched to Mac when Bill Gates wanted me to upgrade - yet again - from win 3.1 to Windows 95 way back when. upgrade, upgrade, upgrade. Microsoft is all about that. getting the user to scrap whatever he's been using and buy the newest wizbang xyz. i just wish Mac - or a "3rd party" - had better software for audio broadcasting. but, the latest Mac OS has "Boot Camp" built in, so even that concern is moot as i can get a "cracked" version of a Windows app. and run it on my Mac. and, yes, Garage Band works great! life is good. pick up an Alesis Multimix8 usb mixer and you rule the world!