DAW thoughts

[skymuse]

Hello everyone,

After spending the last 6 months planning to build a PC-based DAW and incorporating my existing Cakewalk, I've gotten turned 180 degrees and wanted to see others' views....

Yesterday I was shown Digidesign's new Digi001 system on a Mac G3, and now I'm torn between getting a G3 or G4 versus building/buying a PC and the associated setup headaches that are inherent in Windoze. The salesman did say that there is a PC version coming out, but the performance of a Mac blows away PCs on processor-intensive jobs like digital audio, and the latency is a fraction that of the PCs. The cost would be a little higher for the Mac setup, but I don't mind spending the extra dough if it's worth it. I will be doing a wide range, from solo piano or acoustic guitar/voice to orchestral to progressive rock, so I'll need something that can handle a fair amount of DA tracks; tolerance for mistimed tracks is nil.

I've never worked with a Mac before, and no one I know has one, so if anyone has any info either way, I'd love to hear it--finding Mac resources is much tougher than PC, and I just want some information that I can compare side-by-side with. Please feel free to post here or email me.

Thanks for any help!

BJ
skymuse@mindspring.com

 

[drstawl]

Before you dive into any platform, be certain that you're not spending a premium for power
you'll never need.
That "extra power for digital audio" really boils down only to additional tracks or effects available. Have you given any thought to what you consider "a fair amount of DA tracks?" Like comparing cars as to their top-speed when they'll only be driven under 65mph. The latency issue is partially a function of what software you're using. The mistiming problem is also due to the software up to the point where no additional tracks can be processed by the hardware.