I'm curious to know why you guys and gals prefer Mac over PC.

A little background on the guy asking:

my setup
Home: Intel Pentium 4/1.8Gig, Creative SB Audigy
Road: Intel Pentium M(Centrino)
WinXP Home
Cubase VST/(VST and DirectX plug-ins)
WaveLab 3.0

Pretty lean right now, but I'm slowly building my setup. Most of what I do is sequenced, but I would like to someday build a home studio and have guests either sing or play on my tracks. I sometimes spend a lot of time on the road for work(the day-job) and I like being able to work on my music in the hotel room(can I get away with a PowerBook in a home studio setup too?)

Any suggestions are appreciated.

The J.

Info.

Japanarian - Ive just done exactly that.

Ive been using a PC for about 5 years with Cubase then Cubase SX. A bout 6 weeks ago I decided to take the plunge and go Mac with with Logic Pro 7.1.



Differences Ive noticed so far.

Pros of Mac

1. When I go back to my PC (on the desk next to my Mac at home) it looks very cartoony.

2. On the Mac - everything just works first time. I installed Logic Pro 7.1 and it worked. The I installed my RME fireface 800 and that worked. Then I installed my Mackie Control and that worked. Guess what - when I installed my Emagic Unitor 8 midi interface that worked as well.

3. Compare this with my PC. Currently the EMU 1212 card in my PC works sometimes and doesnt work other times becasue the DSP patch mix keeps coming up with an error.

4. When I ask a question on a mac forum I seem to avoid the sort of daft answers I used to get on PC based music forums.

5. My friend uses Logic Pr0 7.1 with his new powerbook and it works just fine.



Pros of PC

1. Cheaper by a mile. And you can upgrade them yourself.

2. Apple support is bad - I mean real bad. However, Logic Pro support is some of the best Ive ever come accross.

3. Software is cheap becasue anyone can write a program for the PC. They dont have to have it certified by Apple.

4. More choice of software for the PC and its cheaper.

5. You can integrate with fellow users more easily. I recently wanted a mix for a band I did in Logic Pr0 7 to be mastered by a couple fo friends of mine. Unfortuantley everyon I know with good mastering software uses Cubase on the PC.


Summary - I asked the same question about 3 months ago and am glad I switched. There is something almost ethereal and certainly professional about my Mac that makes music production more of a journey and less of a task.

Podfather, you have some kind of misunderstanding here.

Anyone can write and release software for Mac, no certifications from Apple are needed. Just like writing software for Wintel machines.

The only thing different with Apple is that no other company than Apple Computer can build Apple (Macintosh) computers.

Also apps that are cross-platform cost the same, and where there are competing products like Adobe's Video Collection Pro, the Final Cut Studio suite is Cheaper.

Thanks for your input guys:

Podfather: Thanks for all the info. You've given me some things to think about. One other question for you. How do you find using Logic Pro 7.1 compared to Cubase?

coldharbour & gdoubleyou: I also appreciate your input. Just to be clear, you guys are saying that the difference in the money I'd spend on software as a Mac user would not normally be a factor?

Thanx again,
The J.

be careful if your expecting a fully feature-packed audio editing tool like cool edit/adobe audition for the mac, i mean peak is good, but it doesn't do what cool edit can do unfortunately

I still have Cubase SX3 on my PC as I wasnt too sure myself when I finally switched over. It would be unfair of me to comare the two as my PC cost about 1000 (I built it myself) and then cubase was #399 when I bought it, from memory. Whereas so far my Mac including everything else has come to nearly #6000 so you cant really compare them.

Out of the two - I defintely prefer logic. However, I am very new to Macs and still find it confusing to use, you can see that by my wrong answers above.

I would say that Cubase is quite easy to use even if you have not used a sequencer before. Whereas Logic takes a bit of time and requires more effort from you to get the most out of it. The plugins that ship with Logic are quite incredible, especially the Guitar Amp Pro, I have never heard anything like it from any other software.

If I were going to be on the road and wanted a package that could pretty much be a complete studio out of the box, I would go with Logic.

is it a complete studio? I admit I haven't pissfarted around with logic enough to see if it edits audio

"could pretty much be a complete studio"

QED.

i have logic pro 7 and it is incredible in most areas - BUT you should be careful if you use cubase to do a lot of audio editing as logics audio editing functions are way behind most current mainstream sequencers (not changed since when i first got logic at version 4)

i'm considering getting cubase SE and using it alongside logic through rewire ... in fact does anyone know if this will work? i've not used rewire before and some people seem to think (or assume) that you can only use it when reason is involved.....but never know for sure - is this true?

the bundled logic pluggins form the best bundle package i've ever come across in terms of quality and quantity- no other sequencer compares - and midi editing is also better than most, but don't expect the kind of editing ease and freedom you get with cubase or protools when dealing with audio.


cp

ohohhhh slipped yer way out of that one! well looks like im stuck with audacity for the next so and so years

Only just slipped -

I only noticed I have a get out clause once I re-read my answer.

ReWire works with any two ReWire-capable applications - Logic and Live, Reason and Storm, whatever and whatever. It's up to you. Saying that, running Cubase and Logic at the same time, boy, that's going to give your CPU a good kicking. Not sure if Cubase would like being made a ReWire slave, either. Maybe I'll try it myself for kicks later and report back.

Cool. More info. I'm glad I came here for help

I'm not familiar with most of the apps U guys mentioned. Right now I'm using Cubase VST/32(PC) for mostly sequencing and recording, and the occasional midi input(mostly just for working out sequenced bits, which I quantize in the end anyway). My favourite plugins are Steinberg(Halion), Native Intruments(Pro52, Battery), IK Multimedia(SampleTank), and Waves effects plugins(Oh, and Warp VST). I've only used Steinberg's WaveLab for audio editing and have been very happy with it.

This is my essential set-up. When and if I switch to Mac, Which apps do you guys(and girls) think I should switch to, or should I stick with the Mac versions of these(if available)?

The reason I'm thinking of switching is now that I can afford a Mac, I want to think about long-term. It's going to be the central portion of my eventual setup and Macs seem to have a better reputation for stability and smoothness of integration.

what i've done (so far) was get mac versions of the pc software i used to use, or the ideal setup similar to how i had it on pc (reason & an audio editing tool like cool edit/adobe audition) so now i went and got reason 3 (needed to anyway, plus its multi-platform) and using audacity to normalise/edit sounds, next year i'd like to see what sort of industrial/noise i can create with garage band i think im up for a challenge.

Its always good to see what else is around though, because sticking with one thing may be good and secure, there may be something else out there that'd do as good if not better of a job.

once i can afford to get virtual pc, i'd like to see how well my pc music apps will run through virtual pc on a 1.67ghz powerbook w/ only 768mb ram

Hey everyone. Thanks for all of your help. I've decided on a powerbook with the LogicPro7 package, loaded with RAM, & Focusrite Saffire. My next addition will be some speakers, probably studio monitors if I can afford them. Thanks again, and see you in the threads!

The J.

Hey Japanarian,

You won't be disappointed with your powerbook...glad to hear you loaded up on RAM.

I maintain a 10 pc network at the recording studio I work at by day...but all of my personal recording and sound design work that I do at my home studio is Mac, and it is IMO much simpler. I use a mac mini at home with Pro Tools M-powered with M-audio firewire 410...and a powerbook g4 with PT and M-audio ozonic for my mobile sound design rig. They share a firewire drive (highly recommended, btw) so that the files are always current.

Good luck and let us know how you fare!

--Matt
Fort Lauderdale, FL

prosthetix, by the way, don't expect too much from virtual pc - i've got version 7 running on my 2Ghz dual G5 and its pertty slow.... the audio is a bit unstable also.... may be able to get it better with a bit of tweeking but i doubt it'll improve it enough to work with on music

cp