Mac Or Pc

Im thinking of getting a laptop for my music.
Which is the better for music Mac or PC? The Sony VIAO’s look good.

the new apple adverts with mitchel and web are convincing me that PC is better.

Both computers has advantages. Windows has more programs and plugins available than OSX. However I have found Apple computers to be more reliable on stage and for presentation in general.

If you plan on working with video sometime, then I would definitly buy a Mac as Final Cut kicks Premiere?s ass very much. Ans also the dual-screen capabilities are more solid (maybe you even want to have video projection on stage?). The new Intel Macbooks can even run Windows XP in a window with very usable audio capabilities. I run Wavelab and even Nuendo in it, works fine. However I suspect the Macbook to be little less reliable than the old Powerbooks.

For pure composing and experimenting, I guess a PC is as good, if not better due to large amount of “try before buy”-applications and such :) A PC will also run alot of games and emulators (yeah, the Amiga emulator) that a Mac won?t. PC is probably cheaper too.

Anyway, I hope you will be happy with whatever you choose! The computer is nothing but a tool, it is your ideas that will bring you true joy in the end :)

^^^ Basically the same thing I was going to post. Though your best bet would be to get an intel mac. Just because you can run both windows and osx on it. The PC’s major advantage -and what I highly reccomend- is that you build a custom machine from scratch. PC’s are really customizable and as mentioned earlier, there is a lot of applications for them. Largely due to it being easier to write code for the PC than for a Mac (Unix based).

Hope this helps.

I recently switched from a PC to Mac. Now, after 5 months of working on a Mac, here is what I think.

Mac OS/X is great, stable, very easy to use, and tightly integrated with the hardware (which, too me, is an advantage, although some people won’t like it). Iwas always unhappy with Windows, so I used Linux for daily work on my pc, but Linux is shit for working with audio - no vst, no software, etc… Mac is good for that purpose.

However, Mac is expensive. Not only the computer you buy is expensive, but also parts and other stuff you might buy for it. Besides the choice of freeware for OS/X is much narrower than for Windows. This means, that you often will have to pay for software that is doing the same job as some free app you used on Windows. Most of free plugins and programs are unavailable for mac, so you’ll have to buy commercial stuff instead, because most major (and expensive…) programs work on Mac.

Generally - if you’re considering working on music as a pro, using hhigh-quality equipement and you know that you’ll find a way to deal with the costs - go for a Mac. Otherwise, if you’re a hobbyist, a home producer - the PC is a better choice.

Nowadays you can run Windows on a Mac computer, but it doesn’t make much sense… for many reasons.

+1 get a pc :)

Yeah all good opinions. You can do as much with a PC as a MAC if you are not a complete tool and know your way around a computer. And it will be a lot less money in total.

Macs are nice, but I dont think I could warrant the cost.

And…

DO NOT GET A SONY. IT WILL BREAK, GUARANTEED.

Sony stuff looks nice when you buy it but it is always shit in the long run. Toshiba, Samsung, Acer etc etc are much better options.

If you are going to get a PC you need to look at a few things…

  1. Speed of the hard disk. 7200rpm is what you need really. Anything slower causes problems with data streaming of large samples. You can upgrade the Hard disk afterwards though, or maybe the shop will add a faster one for a small fee

  2. RAM. Obviously you want loads and loads.

  3. The PCMCIA port. Sounds wierd, but make sure you are getting a PC with a good port. Texas Instruments ones seem most compatible with everything, Ricoh seem least compatible. Obviously if you are not going to use it with a PCMCIA sound card, you can ignore this, but I think PCMCIA is the best way to go for Laptop sound.

  4. Big Screen.

  5. Rugged build and design. Give the screen a yank and see how well it copes. Have a look at the hinges and also the keyboard. If you intend on taking this thing out with you, you need something that is going to be able to handle the odd knock.

Word.

Especially what he said about getting a sony. I had a sony viao laptop and trust… they are shyte!!!

I’m actually considering a pc since all I really run is renoise, and I want to use soundforge again. Best audio editor in the world imho.

Yeah its just Sound Forge 7 and Renoise for this geezer right here. I installed that Reaper free sequencer just in case I need to use a horizontal sequencer for anything, but I dont think I will.

OS X is great, Renoise works on OS X, the future of PCs is VISTA, why buy into that?! Even if you did it’s good to know that VISTA was demoed on a MAC at an official Microsoft demo, what do you make of that? That the MacBook is ready for whatever you are not? Whatever freeware you are lacking, if you know open source and the shell, you can make up for it. I do not miss my PC days, at all. The price is negligible at this point. You won’t get as many plug-ins, but you’ll get more than zero, personally I don’t feel I am lacking in plug-ins. It’s not perfect, no computer is, but I do not miss windows at all.

Running XP in a window may not let you in on the most gfx-demanding stuff, like games. However, during my five years with mac I never found anything close to Steinbergs Wavelab (it is a shame they never made an OSX version), so I am truly happy I can use this now without switching to my PC!

Oh, and don?t forget all the supernice plugins for Winamp 2 that will never be developed for ITunes. .PSF, .SPC, .NSF, .MOD, .THX, etc. Espeacially useful if you listen to alot of computergame music, like me :)

If you are buying PC, then I recommend IBM. After 7 years of laptop experience I find them to be the most reliable PCs. Although specs may not look nice compared other, even cheaper laptops, the architecture seems more solid and won?t bluescreen that often.

No brand package is enough. Build it yourself. If you can’t, learn how to.

I think it’s pretty hard to build an own laptop… (?) :P

/binmink

Oh, when I grow up I want to learn how to build a killer-amiga into a portable. My mouth opened by itself when I saw this:

Mine tooo! Oh my God it’s brilliant! :eek:

Nice information, Microsoft has always imitated the work of the great, but to no avail. I think Windows is nothing but a collection of limitations, I’d rather use Workbench than Vista!!! :D

WHHHOOOAAAH!.. Thats really impressive! Give me! :w00t:

/binmink

macs may be more expensive, but you do get something for the price. i’ve done extensive hardware work on laptops and, one thing that i can certainly attest to is that mac powerbooks/macbook pros are some of the best designed portables around. the are phenominally rugged and feature alot of stuff that makes them better mobile devices (battery readout without turning on the laptop, higher quality screen hinges, lowlevel light features, mag connector). if you can afford a mac laptop and you want to do any kind of media work on the go it’s a definite. Mac/Linux/Windows evangelism aside, mac laptops are rad. you will not regret it.

I guess I didn’t make myself clear. I meant booting Windows on a Mac as a main operating system. In my opinion it’s irrational to buy a Mac tu run Windows on it, because then you lose many of the cool features of OS/X (for example hardware integration - fast boot times etc), the keyboard doesn’t fit, and might be a more expensive solution. Running Windows using Parallels indeed makes sense.

Agreed :)

Totally. If you’re going for a PC laptop - IBM thinkpads are built like tanks.

My sister is currently using my old one which is about 7 years old now and still going strong (although the battery life is almost zero now, but thats to be expected, you can get a new/refurb battery pretty cheap on eBay). It has BSODed a few times but that was in the Win98/2k days, since putting XP on it it’s not crashed once.

My current Thinkpad is in constant use for work, taken on the bus every day, it’s been out with me to loads of gigs, bundled into my bag and knocked around etc, it has never crashed. TOUCH WOOD.

But if you’re absolutely rolling in cash, don’t mind OSX, and know you’ll only ever want to use a handful of quality apps, get a top of the range MacBook Pro, they’re lush. (not for me though).

Do the IBM Thinkpads come in different version. I want one to use so I can run renoise with as well as some vst’s and soundforge.

Any recommendations? Or are they all the same?