Mac vs. PC and other gear questions

[mpisani]

When I used to record a little, I used an older iMac, Digital Performer, Kontakt, EZ Drummer, etc. But I found out the hard way that upgrading your OS makes other things incompatible.

Q#1 - Do you think you can run longer upgrading a PC before your plugins and virtual instruments become incompatible as opposed to doing the same with a Mac?

Q#2 - Is using a Mac or PC better for recording and outside gear, plugins, VIs, or is it just personal preference?

Q#3 - Is it best just to leave the OS as is (workout upgrading) if you're just using that device for recording?

Let's start there.

Thanks,
Matt

 

[Steenamaroo]

1: It's impossible to gauge whether software and plugin makers will continue to release updates
for compatibility for latest Windows or MacOS but, generally, they do.
Dropping support all together for either OS isn't all that common but an example would be when there's a major architecture change,
like an OS dropping 32bit support, or Apple's move to ARM SOC.

2: I don't think you'll get many useful answers, I'm afraid.
For some reason it's one of those questions that gets a lot of useless responses based on ignorance or bias.
Either can work. Pick your favourite.

3: That's what I do.
When I get a new computer I find a combo of OS, DAW and plugins that works nicely then don't upgrade anything for as long as I can.
I take security related system updates but nothing else.

 

[TalismanRich]

I don't know that there will be an absolute answer for your questions.

If you buy a current system, you'll probably get at least 10 years out of it. The Mac has gone through several iterations based on the processors. First they were using Motorola 68xxx style processors. That system lasted about a dozen years. Then they went in with the PowerPC processor. That's a totally different instruction set and CPU architecture. It required a major shift in the OS. That system lasted about 10 years before they moved to the Intel platform. Again, it's a totally different architecture, requiring fundamental changes to the OS. That lasted for about 15 years before Apple decided to move to their own processor, which is the M series.

In comparison, the PC has been based on Intel x86 from the original 8088. What has changed is that it has gone from 8bit to 16bit to 32bit and now 64bit architecture. The basic instruction set has been enhanced, but not drastically changed. The new processors have lots of additional stuff, some for security, and now to support AI. But I have programs that run under WinXP that still works fine on Win 11. Some of those programs are 20 years old.

I'm running Win 11 on an unsupported processor from 2011. It works, but obviously the performance is not up to present day standards. But my audio / video system is from 2013, runs Reaper just fine, and does video editing with Powerdirector just fine with Window 11 (again, not a supported processor). So we're looking at a dozen years and still going.

Beside the OS, you have changes in the hardware. Spinning SCSI and ATA drives became IDE drives, followed by SATA drives, SATA SSDs, M2 and NVME SSDs. If you system is based on SCSI you have some challenges ahead. The tiny 1 inch fans from your 80486 processor is now a massive brick on your Core I9-14900. Firewire has been supersceded by Thunderbolt and USB. Things will not stay stagnant.

Who can say where things will be in 10 more years. Companies don't necessarily stay in business. Witness Sonar/Cakewalk. Gibson bought Sonar, then closed it up. It was then bought by Bandlab and relaunched. Currently Native Instruments is in receivership. They own IzoTope and Plugin Alliance. Who knows where those products will end up.

Luckily, it's not a crime to stay on a working system. Changing OS isn't a necessity unless you are subject to threats from the internet. An offline system should be safe as long as the hardware runs.

 

[TAE]

Let me expound upon my ignorance...well for a minute anyways

Fords / Chevy's PC / Mac

I built my first windows DAW in 1995 with a P133 processor and a Creative Labs AWE 32 soundcard that accepted a daughter board with a lot of midi instruments...

Since then it has been a litany of GAS ( gear acquisition syndrome ) buy and sells.

Today it is so sophisticated and so many crazy ways you can go and spend a ton of money in the process...or not

I am currently running a 2013 iMac with a i5 processor and it works fine for the light load I throw at it.

You didn't mention what your recording goals are but if you, like most of us are just trying to record your own songs stick with the KISS program.

If it's just you a simple name brand 2 or 4 channel interface does the trick under $200

A mac mini is $500 and has more power than you'll ever need or use. The full lifetime suite of Logic Pro $200....

Finneas used an older mac and logic pro and with some minor professional mastering won 5 Grammys

Good enough for us normal folks I suppose.

If you're a PC guy an i7 , 32 gb of ram and Reaper and your golden.

Don't get stuck on the minutia and or " analysis paralysis" do you due diligence, KEEP IT SIMPLE as you can , pull the trigger and get recording!

 

[TalismanRich]

Unfortunately, with any system you buy today, the prices have risen. The base 16/256 Mac Mini is now $600. Something like the Geekon mini PC with 32GB/1TB is $750. The price of memory has jumped about 3x what it was just a year ago, and that goes for both RAM and SSDs. 32GB of DDR4 RAM will run you $200 or more. A 500GB SSD will run you around $100. That's half of the cost of a computer these days.

But either computer should easily be good for 10 years. Both will easily handle basic recording and mixing tasks.

My choice has always been the operating system. I'm more comfortable with Windows than I am with MacOS or Linux. Your experience might be different. In a lot of cases, it's "go with what you know". If you're already comfortable with MacOS, then that's the route I would suggest.

 

[Steenamaroo]

Rich raises an important point.
Prices of memory and storage are skyrocketing, and it's not likely to get better.

It's a not a short term supply or tariff issue; It's a planned change to market structure,
with companies supplying more hardware to data centres and less to consumers.

I don't want to put words in your mouth but a good question might be "Is my current computer good enough for recording"

The days of needing a cutting edge latest + greatest computer for audio recording are long gone,
so tell us a little more about what you have, and what you hope to do.

 

[raggedrex]

I recently went from PC to a Mac Studio when I converted to ProTools. The cool thing is I’ve been an IPhone user since the first generation. As a songwriter, this made my transition easier since the phone gets used a lot when I’m not at the studio.
Blackbird in Nashville uses Mac and that was enough for me. As for processing apps/plugins inside ProTools, it’s a beast.
I opted for the Mac because of power and semi-portability. I carry it back and forth to Nashville where I have my space set up.
I back everything on an external hard drive.
I was a PC guy from my corporate days. I really like my Mac.

 

[Farview]

I'm using a pc based win 10 system that I bought in 2012. Since I only use it as a daw, it is not connected to the internet. If you can use that computer as a daw and nothing else, you don't need to update anything and it will work the way it does now until it turns to dust.

That should work on both mac or pc.

 

[BTStudio]

I'm using a pc based win 10 system that I bought in 2012. Since I only use it as a daw, it is not connected to the internet. If you can use that computer as a daw and nothing else, you don't need to update anything and it will work the way it does now until it turns to dust.

That should work on both mac or pc.

Yah I do it the exact same way. Bought a refurbished laptop with reasonable specs for 350.00 and with acid home studio and a handful of free plugs I’m set. I don’t allow it to connect to the internet.

 

[Papanate]

Q#1 - Do you think you can run longer upgrading a PC before your plugins and virtual instruments become incompatible as opposed to doing the same with a Mac?

If you don’t update PCs/Macs you can run them a long time.

Q#2 - Is using a Mac or PC better for recording and outside gear, plugins, VIs, or is it just personal preference?

For me a Mac is best for audio and video - for others a PC is best for running audio and video.

Q#3 - Is it best just to leave the OS as is (workout upgrading) if you're just using that device for recording?

Yes - No - Depends.

 

[DrewPeterson7]

I was a longtime PC user, who switched to a Mac in 2012, I think. So I have some experience on both sides of the coin here.

Another PC would have been a lot cheaper than another Mac, at the time, at least up front. However, by the time I'd retired that computer, it was 8 years old, and it was struggling, not just to record or mix, but it was having some hard drive stability issues, was starting to BSOD on me, and at one point I thought it had failed so spectacularly that the project I'd been working on forever was lost.

That Mac, a factory refurbished 2011 I boiught in 2012, was just retired at the start of this year. It was taking forever to boot up, and it was starting to stutter a little under the demands of projects with maybe 4-10 tracks of DI guitar run through oversampled VSTs... but it still runs, it wasn't crashing, and it was still for the most part a recording workhorse provided I was working with "real" guitar tracks and not throwing a ton of VSTs at a project (and, Superior 3 is a pretty resource insensive tool anyway, I suppose).

The Studio I replaced it with, I figure will keep up with me for at LEAST a decade, and another fifteen years isn't unrealistic at all. That thing is laughably overpowered.

 

[TalismanRich]

Whether you have a Mac, PC or Linux machine, you can have a hard drive crash. Years ago, there was a saying that there are two types of hard drives..... those that have crashed, and those that are going to crash. Since the 80s, I've only had 3 crashes over multiple computers at home and work. They seem to be more reliable these days.

The good part was that the prices of hard drives were crashing as well, so it was always an easy fix to replace the old 250MB drive with the new 1GB drive, and then a 10GB drive and a 250GB SSD, etc.

 

[DrewPeterson7]

Whether you have a Mac, PC or Linux machine, you can have a hard drive crash. Years ago, there was a saying that there are two types of hard drives..... those that have crashed, and those that are going to crash. Since the 80s, I've only had 3 crashes over multiple computers at home and work. They seem to be more reliable these days.

The good part was that the prices of hard drives were crashing as well, so it was always an easy fix to replace the old 250MB drive with the new 1GB drive, and then a 10GB drive and a 250GB SSD, etc.

USB flash drives are laughably cheap these days - the main lesson I learned from that experience was always back everything up. Project I'm in the middle of, I've been backing up periodically to a 250gig flash drive that probably cost me less than $30?

 

[rob aylestone]

I'm a cubase user, originally Windows, but now I am dual - Mac at home and Windows in my office studio. Pretty much I now have no opinion - while over the years it has swung back and forth.

The one thing that is definitely Mac are laptops. My laptop windows experience was always flaky. My only issue is two sets of shortcuts and different storage.

They both crash at some point - usually when you are unrealistic about things that need processing power and you are running multiple apps at the same time. My Windows PC is pretty speedy, and actually is a tiny bit more capable than the mac mini.

Windows updates automatically, despite me telling it not to. The Macs also update regularly - both are trouble free doing this in the main. I do have a Mac G5 that I have tricked into running the latest software (bar one) but performance is not on a par with the Mac mini or swishy PC I have.

I'm getting fed up with anti-virus software which also keeps updating and often seems to identify my music updating activity as suspicious - messages like Kontact is trying to replace files continue Y/N?

Windows also seems to have it's own monitoring activity - a real pain. I'm not unaware of the scams and virus activity as I got a ransom attack and lost thousands and thousands of files - luckily I had an off site backup that was not connected to my NAS system - which spread the encyrpted versions of my files to all the computers linked to the common drive.

I cannot find any specific, verifiable reason to pick Windows over Mac or vice versa. My Mac has loads of connected storage, the PC has less drives but bigger ones. Things like Spitfire, Crow Hill and the Kontact stuff seems to not care which system it runs on - no issues constantly deauthorising and re-authorising Steinberg and Adobe on them all so I have macbooks, mac mini and PC all with the same software.

 

[Slouching Raymond]

The days of needing a cutting edge latest + greatest computer for audio recording are long gone,

Oh Damn!

 

[TalismanRich]

Look at the bright side, Raymond. You won't need to ask questions about what to buy until about 2040! By then we'll either be on Windows 16, MacOS 41 Barstow, or Linux 62: Undead Urchin. The new processors will have 128 cores, one for each bit for the 128bit processing and memory will be 3D optical memory blocks with 10 Petabytes.

 

[Slouching Raymond]

Actually , the 'must have' feature I needed was a Thunderbolt port.
I bought a dual Thunderbolt4 card, but finding a full height PC to accommodate it is not easy today.
Everybody wants to sell you a laptop, or a slimline mini-tower.
The PC I bought has Thunderbolt4, and if that isn't compatible, I can plug my Thunderbolt4 card in it.
I'm hopeful, although poor.

 

[TalismanRich]

I'm surprised that Thunderbolt hasn't take over yet. It's a better protocol, especially for audio usage. The licensing fee kept it out of the PC world for years, but with the convergence of USB4 and TB4 and the removal of the royalty fee for Thunderbolt, one would think that companies would be implementing it across the board. It's taken about 5 years for things to widely penetrate the market.

 

[DrewPeterson7]

My understanding is that, with USB-C, for 99.9% of applications you're likely to run into in a home studio environment, USB-C is going to provide more than enough bandwidth, so the difference isn't AS important as it used to be. And, I believe all of the USB-C ports on my Mac Studio are both USB-C/Thunderbolt, but it's possible that's only true of the backpanel ports and the fronts are USB-C only.

But it's a difference thats becoming less and less important.

 

[Slouching Raymond]

You get a little streak of lightning against the Thundebolt sockets.
If it all works, I will get 32 audio outs and 32 audio ins plus the PC stereo out over the Thunderbolt cable to my audio interface.