Mac vs PC workstations? Help please

[TheBenjerman]

Alright, so I have been agonizing over this for a while, and I thought I'd come to you folks for an answer.

I am trying to decide if upgrading the computer in my music setup from PC to Mac would be worth the cost.

I have a 2-yr-old Toshiba laptop. It has a 2.0 GHz processor and 4 GB RAM.
I am running Cubase 4, with East West and Native Instruments sounds, as well as a few others, and I am not planning on getting a new DAW or soft synths any time soon.

My main problem right now is overtaxing the processor with all of my VST's.

Would switching to a Mac help this issue significantly? Just about every professional composer I know uses a Mac, but I have trouble figuring out exactly why.

Anybody have some helpful hints? I don't want to start a general Mac vs PC war, I'm just wondering if I am missing out on something here.

[Xeronix]

The reason why professional composers use Macs, is because of
#1: The Name
#2: The Software

Yes, you might have Cubase, FL Studio, etc. in Windows, but Mac has a bunch more programs (at a cost though).

Honestly, if you have the extra money to spend, go for a Mac. They're a great piece of hardware, and make you look that much better :P

[TheBenjerman]

Hmmm... Well I'm really not looking to upgrade a lot of software, and I don't have a bunch of money burning a hole in my pocket waiting to get spent on random stuff. The question is, is it a good investment? Would I be better off getting a more powerful PC for the same price? Should I just hold off for now with the setup I have?

[Darkmaster603]

For the price of a decent mac you could get a great windows. I honestly don't know why people would want mac's for music or video editing, probably just for protool's and stuff. I've used both mac and windows for video editing, website and graphic design, and music production and while the mac OS is nice, I liked windows better.

If it's just the OS you like though, I'd build a PC and put osx on it.

[Xeronix]

Yes, I would imagine Protocol too.

And, as far as "decency" on Mac OSX, it's a great platform, and I must say, VERY efficient with Ram allocation.

Though, a nice 1800 i5 MBP could get you a REALLY nice i7 desktop.

It's up to you.

[MaestroRage]

if you find the VST's are taxing your system too great the problem is likely not going to be solved by just ordering a bigger, badder PC. My new studio PC is a beast in every regard but for the soundcard. The soundcard is just some built in rubbish I didn't upgrade that because I have a fairly okay external soundcard already.

When I use the built in sound, I glitch, my CPU spikes, shit goes to hell. Why? Because the CPU is trying to handle all the calculations for the reverbs, the scripts, everything.

Getting a good DSP audio card will significantly reduce the load on your CPU and you can do a lot of crazy shit. And it wouldn't cost you several grand, just couple hundred.

Just do me a favor and stay FAR AWAY from Presonus Audiobox if you decide to go through with the external sound card idea. It's a piece of shit that's not worth 1/4th the money I spent on it, but it gets the job done when it wants to work.

[joshhunsaker]

At 8/10/10 02:27 AM, Xeronix wrote: The reason why professional composers use Macs, is because of
#1: The Name
#2: The Software

Yes, you might have Cubase, FL Studio, etc. in Windows, but Mac has a bunch more programs (at a cost though).

Honestly, if you have the extra money to spend, go for a Mac. They're a great piece of hardware, and make you look that much better :P

Uh... what?? You can't be serious.

Mac has more programs? That'd be a serious fallacy.

[joshhunsaker]

At 8/10/10 03:42 AM, MaestroRage wrote: When I use the built in sound, I glitch, my CPU spikes, shit goes to hell. Why? Because the CPU is trying to handle all the calculations for the reverbs, the scripts, everything.

Technically, this is because of the awful drivers that are coded for internal soundcard chipsets. They aren't meant to support low-latency and changable buffers.

I use a simple Lexicon Alpha that utilizes the ASIO 2.0 protocol which is utterly stable down to 6ms latency at 85% CPU load. Drivers and chipsets like in the nicer RME products you can purchase will offer even more stability at lower latencies before drop-outs occur. None of the RME cards/interfaces offer CPU offloading for running VST-based calculations on the actual card. There are only certain cards that use proprietary DSP/plugin architeture that allow you run plug-ins off the processing unit (like UAD, TC Electronics Powercore, certain Roland/Cakewalk/EMU cards and some others) and there is a way to use certain GeForce 85XX series cards with certain freeware plugin that can actually access the GPU of the graphics cards to route VST math calcuations to free up processing power for the CPU.

However, none of these examples actually denotes that typical prosumer or consumer cards have the ability to handle VST processes. They are all handled by the central processing unit with really no exceptions. The driver protocol is the first thing that is going to affect sound drop-outs and buffer underruns as you've described. The CPU will indeed handle all the scripts, plug-in framework, and DSP calculations. The only workaround here for offloading typical VST-based processing is to purchase something like a MUSE Receptor system which in and of itself is essentially a whole other computer and a completely different story.

[Synphonic]

I bought a PC for music and games that is 3 times as better than a Macbook Pro and mine cost $600 less. Seriously, don't go for a Mac if you are using quite a lot of VSTs.

Macs may look good, but they aren't always the best computer around.

[djInTheDark]

At 8/10/10 02:27 AM, Xeronix wrote: The reason why professional composers use Macs, is because of
#1: The Looks
#2: The Hardware Relation (ipod, itouch, ect.)

Fixed

[TheBenjerman]

Thanks for all of the help!

So there was a bunch of talk about soundcards and the like. I am using an external audio interface that is built into my m-audio mobilepre (preamp). Are you suggesting I get a better built-in soundcard? Or upgrade this?

Also, in the audio world, Mac's either do have more software, or they run it more efficiently. Not true for other areas of interest, but I'm looking for a studio desktop built for music.

[joshhunsaker]

At 8/10/10 12:05 PM, TheBenjerman wrote: Thanks for all of the help!

So there was a bunch of talk about soundcards and the like. I am using an external audio interface that is built into my m-audio mobilepre (preamp). Are you suggesting I get a better built-in soundcard? Or upgrade this?

Also, in the audio world, Mac's either do have more software, or they run it more efficiently. Not true for other areas of interest, but I'm looking for a studio desktop built for music.

I'm sorry, but that's really not true. Having owned a G5 dual-processor xenon with OSX and running Soundtrack Pro 2, Reason 3, Digital Performer and Final Cut Studio 2 I can tell you what you mentioned is not accurate in the slightest sense. Soundtrack Pro 2 crashed on me so much doing simple tasks like opening a new track or plugin I thought I was going to throw that stupid thing out the window. It sucked. You're already bottlenecked yourself into a major logical fallacy if you're convinced that macs either have more software (facepalm) or run it "more efficiently". The stability of the program is determined by the drivers and program code, not how 'awesome' your OS is.

Firstly, there are far fewer DAWs that run on MACs. There are also FAR fewer VSTs that are coded to load on macs. Then there are also fewer waveform editors that will run on mac. I could keep going, for a while.

[MaestroRage]

lol, silly Josh. How about going on a rant regarding what kind of soundcard you think we should be getting to help with VST load!?

I'd want to read that ^_______^

[iceblueglow]

i could be the windows fanboy and state more arguments then there are years in your life but i think its like this:

mac: good for acoustic music and great for live performance and such. can make awesome sounds within logic pro and reason who dont depend on other plugins but are limited because they dont support much to no plugins and isnt fit to make electric based genre's.

pc: doesnt handle acoustics that whell and has less beautiful desing. however, because of there are alot of programs within windows and because of its rich asortiment on plugins, you dont have to worry about not be able to use the right tools. also, all the programs on the mac that are great (exept for logic pro) are also available on the pc. last but not least, with a desktop computer you can buy better parts seperately so if you dont have enough processorpower, you can always just buy a new processor instead of a whole new mac. (tough i would just overclock the system what mac hates)

and if you still wanna try mac for experimentation, just get vmware and try it. it may not be fast but youl be fine if you just want to check it out.

[TheBenjerman]

Alright, thanks again!

It looks like I'll just stay with the laptop for now, maybe upgrade to another PC at some point.

And as for the software, etc. every plug-in I use frequently or plan to use in the future runs on both Mac and PC, and I love Cubase, but was thinking of maybe switching to Logic at some point, which only runs on Macs. And the whole efficiency thing: I've worked off of Mac and PC workstations for a number of years, and based on the programs I use, Mac's do tend to run a little smoother than a comparable PC. Obviously the drivers and how well the program is written will affect the stability of a program, but also how well they interact with an OS, and you can't get around the fact that the Mac is the "industry standard" for whatever reason. And I have no intention of using Soundtrack Pro, so that shouldn't be an issue.

Josh, I would be interested in your suggested soundcard, as MrMaestroRage so kindly asked!

:)

[joshhunsaker]

At 8/10/10 03:42 PM, MaestroRage wrote: lol, silly Josh. How about going on a rant regarding what kind of soundcard you think we should be getting to help with VST load!?

I'd want to read that ^_______^

The cheapest way to just essentially "add" processing power (and there is only one DAW I even know of that supports it) is to use Reaper (definitely worth the license anyway) and the included "Reamote" plugin to offload processing power to remote machines via ethernet connection with either 100mbps or gigabit NICs for the i/o. I would signup at the www.reaper.fm site at the forums as you can essentially talk to Justin there at the site personally and get feedback from the people he works with in terms of plugins and program design.

To get a little better idea of how this works, check out this thread on gearslutz.

The mentioned "FX Teleport" is also worth knowing about, though I personally feel that Reamote likely functions better (it's way cheaper anyway just to buy the full Reaper license which includes Reamote) and if you've got extra decent computers sitting around with space to set them up at your main workstation area, it's a no brainer.

Of course, you could look at the types of proprietary DSP based cards (if you haven't seen these already - they are pretty cool and definitely worth knowing about) which does allow you use the processing in specially designed chipsets running their own plugs on either PCI/PCIe type cards or firewire/usb breakout boxes. Here are a couple to check out in that sense:

Focusrite Liquid Mix - $200 (I'm actually planning on getting one of these, very very cool implementation for the price)
UAD cards with expandable plugin selection (these are typically very popular in studios running top-end computers for mixing/production)
TC Electronics Power Core (another breakout-box style firewire interface with a large selection plugins that are supported)

[MillsApparatus]

At 8/10/10 02:58 AM, Darkmaster603 wrote: For the price of a decent mac you could get a great windows. I honestly don't know why people would want mac's for music or video editing, probably just for protool's and stuff. I've used both mac and windows for video editing, website and graphic design, and music production and while the mac OS is nice, I liked windows better.

If it's just the OS you like though, I'd build a PC and put osx on it.

Or it's because industry standard equipment like Final Cut Pro, Shake, Logic, etc. don't run on Windows. And Pro Tools, Reason, Photoshop, Illustrator, Quark Xpress, and other programs don't run that well on a Windows because it doesn't have enough RAM, drives, Direct X compatibility issues, slow startup time (photoshop on my Windows took 3 minutes to load, it takes 20 seconds on my mac, and my windows had nothing on it, bare bones and still ran like a snail on hot tar).

Instead of making guesses why not look up a studio's website and see why they use what they do?

[Zooloo75]

Why would you have a slow pc and upgrade to a mac? That's pointless. Mac's cost more, for just the name.

It is not good at all like some people think.
When I used to be in middle school, they had some nice Mac computers (not the old crap ones that are built into a CRT; they had the LCD ones.) It couldn't even handle heavy synthesis in Garageband (which is a shitty DAW btw.)

If you have a weak PC, learn how to build a PC yourself. It is much cheaper, and you can get what you want, the way you want it. You will also know your PC better if you build it yourself.

I built my PC myself, and I can use alot of VST's and VSTi's without a strain on my system.

For music production, I suggest getting a good soundcard, CPU, RAM, and harddrive space for any samples or such.

Get an i7, as the Hyperthreading would help you out tremendously, and it is a quadcore, so more speed for your programs :)

(I'm not going to get all technical on you, because you are suggesting to buy a mac, so I'm assuming you know nothing about computers.)

If you don't know how to build your own computer, then go on Newegg.com and look for some prebuilt PC's.

If you do actually plan on learning how to build a computer, then the simplest thing to do is just do some research through Google, and Youtube.
When you build your first PC, it may take you around 8 hours. (It did for me, because I had to strip down my old PC and use some parts from it for my new PC.)

I'm guessing your pricerange is around $1200 since you are thinking of getting a Mac. A PC can be built for less than that, and have much more performance.

Also you can always upgrade your PC whenever you need more performance. AFAIK, Mac's are very limited to replacing/adding new hardware.

[Zooloo75]

At 8/10/10 07:45 PM, MillsApparatus wrote:

At 8/10/10 02:58 AM, Darkmaster603 wrote: For the price of a decent mac you could get a great windows. I honestly don't know why people would want mac's for music or video editing, probably just for protool's and stuff. I've used both mac and windows for video editing, website and graphic design, and music production and while the mac OS is nice, I liked windows better.

If it's just the OS you like though, I'd build a PC and put osx on it.

Or it's because industry standard equipment like Final Cut Pro, Shake, Logic, etc. don't run on Windows. And Pro Tools, Reason, Photoshop, Illustrator, Quark Xpress, and other programs don't run that well on a Windows because it doesn't have enough RAM, drives, Direct X compatibility issues, slow startup time (photoshop on my Windows took 3 minutes to load, it takes 20 seconds on my mac, and my windows had nothing on it, bare bones and still ran like a snail on hot tar).

Instead of making guesses why not look up a studio's website and see why they use what they do?

That's because an OS has little to do with actual performance. (unless you are using Vista.) Your PC has weak hardware compared to a Mac with better hardware.

---

So far from what I have read from this thread, the only people suggesting a Mac are people that think that software makes you a better musician, and those that know nothing about computers.

[Darkmaster603]

At 8/10/10 07:45 PM, MillsApparatus wrote:

At 8/10/10 02:58 AM, Darkmaster603 wrote: For the price of a decent mac you could get a great windows. I honestly don't know why people would want mac's for music or video editing, probably just for protool's and stuff. I've used both mac and windows for video editing, website and graphic design, and music production and while the mac OS is nice, I liked windows better.

If it's just the OS you like though, I'd build a PC and put osx on it.

Or it's because industry standard equipment like Final Cut Pro, Shake, Logic, etc. don't run on Windows. And Pro Tools, Reason, Photoshop, Illustrator, Quark Xpress, and other programs don't run that well on a Windows because it doesn't have enough RAM, drives, Direct X compatibility issues, slow startup time (photoshop on my Windows took 3 minutes to load, it takes 20 seconds on my mac, and my windows had nothing on it, bare bones and still ran like a snail on hot tar).

Instead of making guesses why not look up a studio's website and see why they use what they do?

You must have a shitty computer if it took 3 minutes to load a program. My CS4 runs smoothly, no problems and starts up in ~30 seconds, even with my huge amount of fonts. I said I personally use PC's, and have had no problems at all.

Studios use mac's because they are an industry standard obviously. I was referring to the average musician using a mac book pro.

No need to be a dick all the time mills.

[joshhunsaker]

At 8/10/10 07:45 PM, MillsApparatus wrote:

And Pro Tools, Reason, Photoshop, Illustrator, Quark Xpress, and other programs don't run that well on a Windows because it doesn't have enough RAM, drives, Direct X compatibility issues, slow startup time (photoshop on my Windows took 3 minutes to load, it takes 20 seconds on my mac, and my windows had nothing on it, bare bones and still ran like a snail on hot tar).

"A windows machine doesn't have enough RAM, drives, Direct X compatibility issues, slow startup time...etc."

A windows machine eh? I guess "a windows machine" is the only one you can purchase nowadays. Pity, I was planning on using 24 gigs of RAM with one of the new ASUS P6T Deluxe V2 mobos and 1366 socket processor. But that sucks - because it I suppose it just must not exist anymore. What does that highest end 12-core "Mac Pro" come with in terms of RAM standard? Oh shoot, it was like a fraction of that like, only 6 gigs. And they cost...let's see - $5 grand.

The really funny part is just upgrading to the amount of RAM on the top-of-the-line mac pro that I could potentially put on a PC costs near as much as the comparable entire PC does by itself. That's prestige right there.

Guy 1: "So, how much did you pay per gig of RAM for your PC??"
Guy 2: "Dude, like $35 per gig"
Guy 1: "LOL man, your a loser dude, I paid like over TWICE that amount per gig for my MAC"
Guy 2: "Oh dang dude, you're like a God or something ...
Guy 1: "Pretty much"
Guy 2: "Sh*t, I wish I were that cool"
<Guy 2 goes into a corner a cries>

So, I could buy the top of the line i7 processor which outclasses all the Mac Pro intel Xenon types by a rather insane percentage per processor for a single grand, then get 24 gigs of RAM and the entire rest of the mobo and that setup for under $2 grand - and by done with it for about 60% of the price of the Mac Pro and have a PC system that would eat it for breakfast for half the price. Oh, and the case isn't going to weigh 100 lbs. and I can overclock it and tune the performance.

But yeah, totally like you say, the only way you can have the absolute assurance that you will definitely be getting something like half as good for twice the price is to buy a mac because it will make you sound totally pro and well, certain studios use 'em so they must be really special. And yeah photoshop on a PC is just not hip at all guys. I'm not sure why but all the cool kids tell me that, so it's legit.

[joshhunsaker]

I will say this though about likely why macs are used everywhere for production, and TBH - it is a huge huge key point (one that Mills didn't even address):

They don't get viruses, malware, rootkits, trojans, backdoors, major exploits etc. in any way shape or form akin to how much PCs get them.

Yes. Malware exists for macs but you really essentially have to go looking for it, and it is getting so bad for the PC market nowadays that you have to really careful with what employees and regular joe-blow consultant/clients are doing on a network. I wouldn't hesitate for a moment to say that this is main reason why you see macs in a business environment so often when you are dealing with creative forms of engineering (arts, media, etc.) Creative types typically don't want to jack around with $100 per hour IT admin gurus to secure a network to the hilt and then be blocked by all kinds of firewall and file permission issues, that just doesn't make sense for a creative environment. It makes perfect sense for when a conglomerate or company just needs to cut costs on tech expenditures and they don't want people checking out their facebook and being online doing whatever they well please anyway and the software works fine that they currently use.

[KgZ]

At 8/10/10 06:26 AM, Synphonic wrote: I bought a PC for music and games that is 3 times as better than a Macbook Pro and mine cost $600 less. Seriously, don't go for a Mac if you are using quite a lot of VSTs.

Uh ding dong, macs dont support VSTs, only AU.

[TheNossinator]

Simple solution (what I did).

1. Buy a nice PC.
2. Buy Snow Leopard (it's $30 or something)
3. Run Hackintosh on your PC.
4. ????
5. Profit!

I dual boot actually, but all the same. Mac hardware is just too expensive, because there's no competition (Apple is the only authorised Mac hardware producer). So, get an Intel-based CPU (OSX can only run on Intel or Apple processors, I believe) and get a nice, pimped out PC, and install OSX.

Have fun!

[joshhunsaker]

At 8/11/10 12:03 AM, KgZ wrote:

At 8/10/10 06:26 AM, Synphonic wrote: I bought a PC for music and games that is 3 times as better than a Macbook Pro and mine cost $600 less. Seriously, don't go for a Mac if you are using quite a lot of VSTs.

Uh ding dong, macs dont support VSTs, only AU.

Mac do support vsts. It just depends on the host program.

Proof of that here.

[TheBenjerman]

Alright, a couple of things here:

First, My main question has been answered. I was really wondering if there was anything besides the obvious that would be a compelling reason to buy a Mac, and it seems the answer is no.

At 8/10/10 08:05 PM, Zooloo75 wrote: If you have a weak PC, learn how to build a PC yourself. It is much cheaper, and you can get what you want, the way you want it. You will also know your PC better if you build it yourself.

(I'm not going to get all technical on you, because you are suggesting to buy a mac, so I'm assuming you know nothing about computers.)

Dude, I've been building PCs since middle school for fun and profit, and I did tech support and troubleshooting for Macs for 2 yrs. I know the cost advantages of building from scratch, and there are places significantly cheaper than Newegg.com (though they do have pretty low prices).

At 8/11/10 02:07 AM, TheNossinator wrote: Simple solution (what I did).

1. Buy a nice PC.
2. Buy Snow Leopard (it's $30 or something)
3. Run Hackintosh on your PC.
Have fun!

Problem here: running snow leopard on a PC just for the OS is pretty much useless unless you check to make sure all of your components work well with said OS. If you have stuff that is not built to work with Snow leopard, it will slow up your system immensely. I suppose I could go this route, but it is time consuming.

[MillsApparatus]

Well have a fun time failing then there Fruityfag. You'll never get any decent work in any industry now, but then again, your music isn't good enough and never could be, not good at all. Now, a genius like myself on the other hand knows how to use the tools of the industry so I can get work in any studio and my CD has sold over 10,000 copies since it's release last year. How many have you sold?

[Chris-V2]

Why not build a PC that can support the Mac OS (Or a Hackintosh, to some)? It requires you to use certain specific motherboards and processors, yes, but at least you have the option of both.

[Nav]

At 8/12/10 12:27 PM, MillsApparatus wrote: Well have a fun time failing then there Fruityfag. You'll never get any decent work in any industry now, but then again, your music isn't good enough and never could be, not good at all. Now, a genius like myself on the other hand knows how to use the tools of the industry so I can get work in any studio and my CD has sold over 10,000 copies since it's release last year. How many have you sold?

Trololololololololololololololo.....

Because Macs make you a production genius. Clearly.

[B0UNC3]

At 8/12/10 12:27 PM, MillsApparatus wrote: Now, a genius like myself on the other hand knows how to use the tools of the industry so I can get work in any studio

I'm sure they'll contact you if they need some arps.

=)=)=)=)=)=)