PC vs. Mac (hahaha)

[2infamouz]

I don't want to start a pc vs mac argument, its played out and we all know PC is better (Just kidding chill out mac guy). My question is why did Mac's become so popular in music production, and if you use a Mac why did you decide to go with it instead of building a more powerful PC for half the price? I realize not everyone knows how to build a PC DAW themselves, but I still don't understand why Mac's are so prevalent in this field. Any ideas???

Also added a poll to see if this observation is inaccurate. Maybe less people use Macs than it appears, we'll see.

[Bobbsy]

Let me take a couple of guesses.

First off, in the early days I doubt anybody wanting to use a computer for music production would have been very happy using MS/DOS text commands. Apple stole an early lead with their point and click operating system. Even when Microsoft released their early versions of Windows, it wasn't very good at multitasking etc.

Second, Protools (which became the de facto standard) only ran on Apple machines until sometime in the early 2000s.

[jimmys69]

Not to mention, most MAC users, IME (in my experience), are of the wake and bake variety. No offense to stoner's, but if you took a minute to know what is going on, you might realize that they are basically the same friggen computer now. And also, your bicycle is not a motor vehicle, get off the road, or buy a car. Oh yeah, you can't afford a car, cuz you wasted an extra $2G on a PC with the Apple logo.

That being said, I did enjoy surfing on a friends Macbook the other day. Internet pages uploaded flawlessly. Felt really familiar....

[Steenamaroo]

Mac/PC winds me up for a few reasons.

I constantly see people around here say "There's no difference", "buy what you prefer" etc etc.

and then

Thread after thread after thread about how it's essential to optimise your MS PC for audio use??
Every time someone has a computer issue it's 'disable all networks, uninstall virus software, yada yada'
If you want to use the internet you're going to need two computers???

Both of these things cannot be true.

[jonny deep]

Mac/PC winds me up for a few reasons.

I constantly see people around here say "There's no difference", "buy what you prefer" etc etc.

and then

Thread after thread after thread about how it's essential to optimise your MS PC for audio use??
Every time someone has a computer issue it's 'disable all networks, uninstall virus software, yada yada'
If you want to use the internet you're going to need two computers???

Both of these things cannot be true.

I run antivirus and internet alongside Reaper all the time. While you can optimise for audio, it's not always necessary, depending on your specs and how demanding your projects, vsts, other stuff you're running.

The difference with Windows is they aren't a hardware manufacturer, their software has to work on every piece of hardware. Macs are built and tested with a few specific hardware items. What you trade for stability in OS X is flexibility. Therefore it can take a bit more knowledge and tweaking to run a Windows DAW successfully, but it can be done at a much lower price.

You just have to choose what you need and pay accordingly.

[Steenamaroo]

I hear ya man, and you're right.

I'm just saying they can't have it both ways.

[jonny deep]

Ok, I see your point now. When people say buy what you prefer, that should probably be taken to mean buy what you're able to use at the spec you can afford (or something like that ).

[Bobbsy]

Well, yes we can.

I'm one of the first to recommend turning off wifi and antivirus--but one of the last to follow my own advice. Unless I'm working on a huge project and need every bit of processor power and RAM, I just don't bother. I certainly don't need a second computer for the internet or whatever--indeed my DAW wants me to do online registration and most of my clients are half way round the world waiting for me to send trial mixes to them. The only thing I'll say is that I'm careful about clogging up my PC with junk. I think that may be one of the bigger differences. It's not that there's anything inherently inferior about Windows--but there IS a lot more badly written 3rd party software out there for the MS OS.

As an aside, I have a friend who swears by Mac and its superiority. However, one day his machine just started crashing at random. He spent literally months trying to figure out why--and, in the end, it turned out to be the wireless internet adaptor he'd been provided when he changed ISP. As I say--duff 3rd party software can hurt either system. There's just less written for Mac.

Conversely, do a Google and you can find lots of pages about optimising your Mac for audio, recommending a lot of the same things we talk about for Windows.

[Steenamaroo]

As I say--duff 3rd party software can hurt either system. There's just less written for Mac.

That's true enough.
To be honest, I tend to think that neither platform should need to be optimised for audio use nowadays.

If you're having trouble and shutting down networking etc helps, there's more to the problem.
I don't want to tempt fate but I have never treated an 'audio computer' any different from any other computer and things are going well.

[Br3n]

the big mac vs pc discussions are amazing.

its all down to preference of systems. if you learnt recording using logic then only logic will do so only a mac will do. if like me you know how to maintain a pc then it does not matter at all its down to your preference i use cubase as i find its work flow fast and easy to use.

the big difference between them is apple will only use certain hardware so they know that they will never get driver issues. pc just use what they can get there hands on hence why people dont like using them they could be buggy from hardware issues.

apple playing the hardware card also allows them to run there system exactly how they want to with out issue hense why they get more power from there cpu.

i have a £700 pc with good specs so i saved myself £700 from the same spec mac and i love it a can not fault it but if i had to use a mac it wouldnt be the end of the world. its just down to what you are used to using.