ADVICE FOR TRANSITION TO WINDOWS 10 DAW PC FROM MAC?

bradlake

Axe-Master
Forgive the lengthy post to come......I’m in unfamiliar,waters now.
As I have become sorta frustrated with the current Audio/Midi behavior of my 2018 MacBook Pro, not only the occasionally less-than ideal interactions with the betas of AxeEdit III and Logic, but numerous other onerous
Symptoms such as increased RF or some other interference that I believe has to do with the various Thunderbolt 3 hubs and dongles required to attach all my audio/computer gear (AFX III, Multiple UAD Apollos, IconnectMidi, Linnstrument, Tripleplay, et.al...) and LOUD fans most of the time. And most scarily..I attempted to update to Mac Mojave Public beta, which made Every audio device completely unusable (silent)..Which doesn’t bode well for the future...(yeah I know these are all betas...but..) and I rolled back
To High Sierra.
..So I’ve decided to try to adapt a recently purchased well appointed PC tower put together for VR use..I’ve been a Mac guy since 1984 and really wouldn’t know a .dll if it bit me on the ass, so questions abound as I flounder around the new setup which I think has great potential......
all my FAS and UAD drivers and software on this PC seem, in my initial attempts , to be more stable, and
To my ear sound even better, with a silent PC and seemingly much less RF noise.
BIG QUESTION #1- I have searched the interwebs but can’t get a clear answer about AGGREGATE
Devices, apparently one thing that Mac OS does better...is ASIOforall ( which I don’t really u derstand yet)the only way to be able to use The III
And it’s USB in/outs at the same time as my Apollo’s in’s and monitoring , Is there a PC DAW out there or some magic app I haven’t seen that will create the routing ease I’m used to? Seems that the 2 daws I’ve tried so far (reaper and bitwig) only allow one interface to be active at a time........
BQ2- Which Daw provides the most similar experience to Logic?
BQ3. Tips for optimizations for a music creation PC..?
BQ4. Am I Pissing in the wind on this?? (I’m still going back and forth between the two computers...
I’m an old dog and new tricks are increasingly challenging......)
I may consider reaching out to experts on this for maybe a skpye session or two if it’s worthwhile

Thanks!!!!
 
Methinks you'd better better off sticking with the Mac platform for audio.
I'm a wintel kinda guy, and while my PC's (XP64, Win7x64, win10x64) have ALL been fairly stable (I keep 'em CLEAN), given the number of issues with USB drivers, MS built-in drivers (and lack thereof), challenges with ASIO, WDM and other generic drivers, I'd have to ask why you are moving off Mac's toward those [potential] headaches ??

Aggregate devices don't exist for audio on PC's.. ASIO4ALL is the closest equivalent that supports it, and I've had little success with it over the years. Plus, MS has a habit of grabbing a device (MIDI over USB for example) for exclusive use.
 
Methinks you'd better better off sticking with the Mac platform for audio.
I'm a wintel kinda guy, and while my PC's (XP64, Win7x64, win10x64) have ALL been fairly stable (I keep 'em CLEAN), given the number of issues with USB drivers, MS built-in drivers (and lack thereof), challenges with ASIO, WDM and other generic drivers, I'd have to ask why you are moving off Mac's toward those [potential] headaches ??

Aggregate devices don't exist for audio on PC's.. ASIO4ALL is the closest equivalent that supports it, and I've had little success with it over the years. Plus, MS has a habit of grabbing a device (MIDI over USB for example) for exclusive use.
Yeah, it’s becoming clearer to me what I’m up against....I am hoping that Apple and FAS solve their incompatibilities when they’re all out of beta.......looks like I may just plug that Oculus back in......
 
What problem are you having with Logic exactly? I''m sure you posted that somewhere but I'm lazy!
 
Yeah, as one who came from Windows, IMO IMO the problems you have on a Mac will be Threefold on a Windows box (again this is MY experience with the two platforms.)

I wish you luck on this, but you might have to decide just how much of an investment you're going to make on this (in money AND time.)

Cheers.

R
 
Yeah, as one who came from Windows, IMO IMO the problems you have on a Mac will be Threefold on a Windows box (again this is MY experience with the two platforms.)

I wish you luck on this, but you might have to decide just how much of an investment you're going to make on this (in money AND time.)

Cheers.

R

What problem are you having with Logic exactly? I''m sure you posted that somewhere but I'm lazy!
The specific issue with Logic is mainly how Axe Edit screws with all incoming MIDI in a way I cannot determine or correct short of never using the two apps at once...
More disturbing is how much extraneous noise the 2018 MacBook Pro creates when using AxeFX III and Apollo
Over Thunderbolt and USB audio, the same gear hooked up to my PC has virtually no RF or other excess noise....but I still have little to no context on how to really get everything working, and the nonexistent Aggregate Device support really suck. ...
it appears that my custom PC build may be a good candidate to Hackintosh, as @ug65 has done ..but that is a potential whole nother bottle o headaches.......
Conundrum.
 
The specific issue with Logic is mainly how Axe Edit screws with all incoming MIDI in a way I cannot determine or correct short of never using the two apps at once...
More disturbing is how much extraneous noise the 2018 MacBook Pro creates when using AxeFX III and Apollo
Over Thunderbolt and USB audio, the same gear hooked up to my PC has virtually no RF or other excess noise....but I still have little to no context on how to really get everything working, and the nonexistent Aggregate Device support really suck. ...
it appears that my custom PC build may be a good candidate to Hackintosh, as @ug65 has done ..but that is a potential whole nother bottle o headaches.......
Conundrum.
I understand.

Do realize that the MBP has no grounding. You might find that the noise disappears when you let the Mac run on batteries. You have to make sure that all your components are grounded to the same outlet. I've had huge grounding problems with my MBP which resolved when I switched to an iMac simply because the iMac is grounded.

I don't use midi much so I can't offer constructive advice on this. But possibly you could route the Apollo midi THROUGH the Axe FX so there is only one stream coming into Logic?
 
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