The fork in the road: PC or Mac!:confused:

T

Tmartyn

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The fork in the road: PC or Mac

New to home recording & studio set up, beating my brains on which way to go. I've already 'jumped' on a TASCOM US-1200, MXL mic, & Alesis M1Active 320USB Speakers. Now, what to do: I've got an old Athlon 64 dual core, XP OS'ed PC, and numerous hard drives. To refurbish & update would run a little over $200.00 (Windows 7 pro (64 bit), 22" monitor, & 1TB HDD). After checking things out I could get a decent iMac all-in-one for about the same price.

I already have Studio One and the US-1200 came with SONAR LE & Ableton Live 9 and have heard repeatedly "one DAW is as good as another".
I'm just beating my brains to decide which system to set up. I've worked with Windows PC's since the beginning of tech but, I haven't touched a Mac since shortly after their creation.

Oh, by the way, my base input is a dual keyboard setup with an older Wurlitzer on standby.

Any helpful suggestions will be deeply appreciated.
 
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As far as what you are using and what you are doing, it makes no difference which platform you chose.

Personally, I would steer away from the imac, simply because it cannot be upgraded or added on to.

You always want to use a separate hard drive for audio, a tower will accommodate having separate internal hard drives. A tower will also have pci slots to install uad systems and such... an imac is what it is, and if the imac is only $200, it must be ancient and, therefore, unsupported.

Beware, a 64 bit operating system will only work with a 64 bit motherboard and processor. I would bet that your old xp computer is 32 bit.

You would be better off going to Tiger direct and getting a refurbished tower that will.already have win7 and a more powerful processor and probably more memory for around the same price.
 
+1 to all of that.
Is there a particular reason you're considering mac? If not, and especially on a tight budget, I'd stick with PC.
 
I bought a mac book a few years ago, after years of recording on a pc.I was used to being able to find tons of freeware vst's for the pc. Seemed completely different for mac.
 
I was considering the MAC just because a majority of the youtube sites I researched about home studios & recording displayed iMacs on their desk.
Due to opinions & suggestions I've gotten here I think its time to refurbish that older computer into a stand-alone audio machine.

Now, if I could locate a book or two such as "Studio One or Sonar for Dummies" I'll be all set to go.LOL

THX for the help. I'll keep you posted on progress.
 
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Better the Devil you know springs to mind, both systems have their pros and cons though if you decide to go down the Mac route as Farview says go for a Mac that is upgradeable such as a Mac Pro 3.1 early 2008 onwards these are 64 bit machines and have plenty of life left in them.

I just picked up a 2008 3.1, 8 core 3.2ghz off e bay for £280 with mouse, keyboard and two 22" Acer monitors (item no 141851830948) have just installed 16gb's of Ram two 2tb HDD's and a Sonnet Technologies USB3-PM-E Allegro PCI-e card giving 4 USB 3.0 ports (one of the few USB cards that is compatible with Yosemite and El Capitan) total cost £558.

It now is now dual boot running Leopard and the software that it came with and Yosemite for music production I might at some time invest in another HDD to swap with the Leopard one, and dual boot Windows and Yosemite much easier to swap HDD's on a Mac Pro swapping back and forth when needs be.

I was running my music studio on an Acer Laptop which had become rather swamped down at the end of the day it is personal preference both systems are extremely capable for music production gone are the days when Macs reigned supreme in audio and video production.
 
It's been a while since a Mac was considered THE computer for audio. That was mostly because older version of ProTools only worked on Mac. (and Protools was considered THE standard DAW because big studios used it...because it was pretty much the first DAW and they were simply upgrading)

At this point in the game, all DAWs do about the same thing, with slightly different workflow. Just pick one. I'm not sure if it is still true, but most PC versions of DAWs and plugins used to be less expensive that Mac versions...even though it's the same thing.
 
I recently was in the same boat as you. I did my research and yea it turns out its down to preference. Everyone will keep telling you PC is cheaper but after I shopped around here in Canada I didn't see much of a difference. For me to get a PC with the same specs as a MacBook Pro was around the same price range. Not enough difference to keep me on the PC side.

I've been runnin windows since the days of "3.1" and to be honest this time I wanted change. I felt like Mac computers are more stable than PC for the most part and that was ultimately why I went with it. PC computers can be stable and trouble free but you'll work for it. That's what I always found. I was just under the impression from everyone that with macs they just work. They do what there supposed to do and they do it well. After a few weeks of owning my MacBook Pro I am not dissapointed. It's a learning curve for the OS change but I'm getting it.

They aren't upgradable but I grabbed the top specs so it will last me for years to come :-).
 
I was considering the MAC just because a majority of the youtube sites I researched about home studios & recording displayed iMacs on their desk.
Due to opinions & suggestions I've gotten here I think its time to refurbish that older computer into a stand-alone audio machine.

THX for the help. I'll keep you posted on progress.
 
In the bad old days, Macs were arguable more stable and better at multitasking. Nowadays the differences really aren't there and it's mainly down to personal preference. If you know the PC, stick with it.
 
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