laptop just died :( now the question is mac or pc? to use w/axe and for recordings

I'll share my experiences.

I've been a hardcore DOS and Windows user. From the very first release up to Vista.
I knew everything about the old win.ini and system.ini files, Registry tweaks etc. etc.
I was the guy family and friends always called upon to solve their computer problems. :-(

Windows wasn't stable and troubleshooting could be a nightmare. And the UI was not consistent. But OTOH you could make it work with almost every add-on available. And there always has been a wealth of utilities. You can make it do everything, in many ways. You could get under the hood. That's has been its strength and Achilles heel at the same time. Microsoft was not allowed to make it proprietary, it had to open its system to all 3rd party apps and add-ons. If such an add-on failed, Windows was blamed, not rightfully. I've had lots of problems, from iTunes syncing, to stuff coming down to incompabilities between motherboards and Windows. I don't ever want to go there anymore.

Around 2008 I switched my office and home to Macs.
And eveything advertized was true: no problems installing, connecting, upgrading. It just works. I've got a 2008 iMac on my desk which still runs everything as it should. In my Windows days this was unthinkable, running a 5 year old PC, as good as new.

Surprisingly some day to day tasks are more difficult than in Windows, but on the whole, I'm convinced you can't beat the user experience and stability on a Mac. And that's easy to explain: Apple holds everything to itself. Hardware and software. Microsoft got attacked in the past for that ("monopoly") but Apple gets away with it. If you possess both hardware and software it's much easier to control stability and maintenance.

Not that I haven't had issues. Laggy Magic Mouse movement when wifi traffic was high. Problem with my MacBook's wifi: they said they had to replace the $700 display (which contains the antenna) but I solved it with a $30 external USB adapter. Too many bugs in OS updates. Need to reset the Keychain to cure a nasty password bug. There are less games for Macs. And annoyances with the latest Time Capsule (I had to reset it to make it work, duh), and Airport Express (not recognised by Airport utility). Apple is getting sloppy.

I'll be buying the upcoming new Mac Pro with the Thunderbolt display in the next 6 monts probably. And a new generation MacBook.
 
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laxu said:
Sorry but this is actually nonsense. The registry has not been a problem since Windows 9x days.
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Is that when you quit using windows? Because the registry was then and IS now the number 1 plague for Windows that Bill Gates and company ever created.
Run System Commander on your perfect Windows OS, and find out just how many registry issues it, or any like it find on a daily basis. You will be amazed...
I own both platforms. I use them both every day. Look, Ive had WAY too much fun here pulling the PC chain. Im sorry if I offend folks.
Just having fun. That said, those that have not owned an iMac should, just once. When you do that, then you can claim its worth or not versus a PC.

Otherwise, its just pure speculation. Peace :mrgreen
 
Its a simple analogy to guys who like fast cars.

A PC is great if you like to build your own or tinker with it trying to get more performance. To do that you have to want to understand everything that's going on under the hood. If thats you.... then buy a PC .... and build your own hot rod.

A Mac is like buying a Porche and just driving it. No need to tinker. It already goes fast. Its great if you don't give damn how every component works under the hood. You just want to drive a car with really good performance.

The hot rod may go faster if the right guy is tweaking it. But it's a TON of effort that has nothing to do with just driving your car around.
 
spikey said:
Is that when you quit using windows? Because the registry was then and IS now the number 1 plague for Windows that Bill Gates and company ever created.
Run System Commander on your perfect Windows OS, and find out just how many registry issues it, or any like it find on a daily basis. You will be amazed...
I own both platforms. I use them both every day. Look, Ive had WAY too much fun here pulling the PC chain. Im sorry if I offend folks.
Just having fun. That said, those that have not owned an iMac should, just once. When you do that, then you can claim its worth or not versus a PC.
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As I mentioned in my previous post in this thread, I run a desktop PC with both Windows 7 and OSX (Hackintosh). As I also mentioned, many of these registry cleaners are not that useful. While they will tell you that there is a long list of unused keys, they don't know 100% that they are not used at all. Sure you can delete them, but that will not give you any performance boost. With Win9x, according to Wikipedia the issue of registry bloat was real because there were issues if the registry couldn't be crammed in the first 16 MB of RAM. I haven't done anything to the registry in any Win 7 installations I've had and my computer hasn't become slower.

yek, OSX is actually rather customizable as well. You can add quite a bit of functionality with apps like BetterTouchTool, Hyperdock, Path Finder etc. And thank your favorite deity for that, there are plenty of things that are annoying in it. Personally I can't stand Finder, it's an utterly terrible file browser.

Speaking of Apple hardware, IMO right now the only worthwhile purchases are the iMacs and Macbook Pros. The new Mac Pro is probably going to be very expensive and not particularly upgradable. iOS 7 is sloppy shit so personally I'll avoid iPads and iPhones until they get some polish on it. If you are tech savvy and want a traditional desktop Mac, build yourself a Hackintosh. It has become easier in the last few years as long as you pick the right parts.
 
If you are tech savvy and want a traditional desktop Mac, build yourself a Hackintosh. It has become easier in the last few years as long as you pick the right parts.
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Almost exactly what I plan on doing.
Get a laptop that is certified to run Mac OS....
My first step towards the dark side ;)
 
laxu said:
As I mentioned in my previous post in this thread, I run a desktop PC with both Windows 7 and OSX (Hackintosh). As I also mentioned, many of these registry cleaners are not that useful.
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Have you tried System Mechanic? It's very useful. It fixes registry issues. I use it every week. Try it and then tell me what you think before lumping it in with the rest. Your registry is fragmented right now, even if you can't tell it. And it may not get slower, until the day without a good program to correct this (like S M ), it will just refuse to boot the O S. You probably won't believe me until it happens, but, Wiki won't help you then :D
System Mechanic is a needed expense for anyone running windows, and version 12 is powerful stuff...
 
And don't get anxious when System Mehanic counts plus 1.000 errors in your registration database. All for the better.
 
My point is don't assume that just because you havent had issues yet in Windows that every thing is Hunky Dory. Most of the time the problems are hidden from you until it refuses to boot up. By running a user friendly program that fixes registry issues, removes spyware and defragments stuff for you regularly, you save yourself lots of headaches. These programs are not the "end all be all" of things but neither is Windows as being the OS of dreams. By a long shot. And again, without trying to step on any toes, notice I haven't once suggested using such a program for the Mac OS, and for good reason. Why?

It doesn't need one... ;)
 
I'm finding that programs that are supposed to help clean your Mac and delete useless files etc. are having very little impact on Mac, and I probably wouldn't have noticed them. With my PC on the other hand, whole different story.
 
The key thing missing in all these post is the fact the thread is regarding a Laptop! I too am in the market for a new Computer for Audio Recording. I am also looking at an Apple why, it is the most intuitive laptop made period and worth all the money paid for it. Again you can drive a Mercedes, or you can drive a Hyundai. Both drive well and do the same job... the key difference is design, interface cohesion, and the fact that the Apple Laptops out of the box will all support any DAW and also run multiple OS systems. Not so with most PC Laptops out there.

OSX in general has higher quality 3rd party apps - they have more uniform basic functionality, they fit the OS look better visually, the user experience is generally easier too.
 
it is the most intuitive laptop made period
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I would say this is down to the OS and that's why I would like to give it a try to see what the fuss is all about ;)

and worth all the money paid for it
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IMHO their upgrades are way overpriced and certainly not worth twice the price what you pay for elsewhere

Apple Laptops out of the box will all support any DAW
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Not all Apples as mentioned on AVID's website but certainly a great deal more than PCs
But if you do your homework and get a laptop with decent hardware they should be able to run all DAWs too.
I think with Apple it's more of a no brainer.
But I hope, if I can rely on V Music Pro's reputation, I'll get a problem free laptop with top notch hardware, tuned for DAW, easy to upgrade with upgrades that won't cost twice as much, and the possibility to run MacOSx.:devilish:
 
Last I checked, hackintoshes did not support power management, and generally just made system updates a crapshoot. I'd just get a Mini if you can't afford anything better, put an SSD into it (you can configure it as fusion drive if you keep the mechanical drive that comes with the mini), and max out the RAM. Tiny, fast, noiseless.
 
Just bought a mac :) standard 13 inch with 256 GB Ssd . now just looking for a good external drive to pout all the project files. Any recommendation s?

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk
 
I can't understand all the ranting about windows pcs and laptops here.

I've always owned pcs and laptops on all windows releases except for vista and never ever had stability problems with it since the release of Windows XP. And let's be honest here: both Windows XP and Windows 7 were pretty good OS. I had A LOT more compatibility issues on my macbook in the last two years than I had with both windows XP and windows 7 together for DECADES.
Yes, of course apple products work well with apple products. But as soon as you want non-apple products or devices to work on your mac, you are literally screwed. There's a reason why most IT-specialists do not use apple products in professional fields like server farms or industrial applications. Windows and Linux are just more flexible.
And yes, Windows XP was suffering from virus vulnerability a lot - but mainly because there was a much bigger community of virus programmers for windows that it was for mac systems. And let's face it: trojans and viruses were a 90's thing. I'm running a windows 7 machine for almost since the initial release of W7 and made the test not installing a virus software at all. No issues the entire time and the system is still 100% stable.

Newer windows OS, especially windows 7, which is my alltime favorite so far (have tried windows 8 though and didn't like the new interface), are much better than their reputation.

The reason why so many people have issues with laptops is because of the "it's a windows laptop anyway, so let's buy the cheapest shit on the market" mentality. If you ever paid the same for a windows laptop than you would for an apple, you'd get the same build quality, if not better (since the apple logo alone makes a product cost 300$ more).


I'm a fan of actual PCs either. I simply love modularity and nothing beats windows PCs when it comes to modularity and upgradability. I custom-built a PC back in 2006 and still run it today as my main gaming machine. Over time, I upgraded RAM, graphics card and hard disc. No issues at all. I also recently upgraded the 6-year old PC of a friend of mine. 80$ for a new graphics card and another 80$ for more RAM were enough to make it run modern PC game releases.


So my advice on this thread is to not take obvious prejudice from long-time mac owners too serious. Quality comes at a price, yes, definitely; but there's no need to pay twice just for the apple logo if all you need is stability and durability.

However, apple does have a point in designing user-friendly devices and systems. They just mastered that 'design' thing ad absurdity. It's literally plug-and-play right from the beginning and therefore awesome for mommys and daddys. But don't you dare trying to do a thing that the majority of people won't need...


On a side note, people also like to steal iphones and macbooks. It's the same with bikes: If you don't want your bike to be stolen, place it next to an expensive one.
 
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MaxTwang said:
My experience from years of helping friends: my non-tech friends have moved to Macs and I keep hearing "why didn't you get me on one of these earlier'. The non-techies love what they see as easier, simple and straight forward and the hardware works well and a system that does just what they want to do. Techies tend to go Mac and Windows or just Windows. I have both but I like to play with tech, if it were just music, DAW, Axe I would probably go Mac.
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These are some inept techies then, whose days are numbered. I am a "techie". I need a UNIX programming environment. OS X has one, it's even certified as UNIX. Windows doesn't. It has Cygwin, but the rest of the environment is still sort of fucked in the head if you need UNIX. I even used a Linux laptop for a couple of years until Ubuntu screwed up ACPI support and it wouldn't suspend anymore.

For recording, too, you just plug stuff in and it works. No ASIO, no schmasio.
 
adildo said:
Just bought a mac :) standard 13 inch with 256 GB Ssd . now just looking for a good external drive to pout all the project files. Any recommendation s?

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk
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Any half decent 2TB USB drive would do in my opinion. You could go for Thunderbolt but it's not needed for general archiving drives - you're read/write speed is well catered for in the SSD drive.

My preference is to stay at the 2TB maximum as I suspect Macs can get a bit iffy with larger partitions in external drives. I'd also stay clear of RAID drives ..... usually its cheapo crap hardware in the external.

As for the Mac/PC thing ...... I love Macs and have used them since the very early nineties .... to me there was no comparison with the Windows of the time. However, the Macs of the last 5 or 6 years are great while they work .... but the design has switched to practically all on the main 'logic' board (motherboard) and any fault generally ends up with the need for a replacement board at extortionate costs if out of warranty.

I still use them at work and at home and have a museum of them practically but I have 2 dead macbooks and one dying iMac all youngsters compared to the old PPC andG3 G4 G5 machines that still boot..... the Mac ain't what it used to be in terms of hardware reliability. Thin is lovely and all that - but they can overheat on the wrong surfaces and then the probs can begin.

PS I'm using a W7 HP i3 PC laptop to send this - it's been kicked. dropped and abused for 3 years and still works fine ...... hateful .... but still works fine!
 
I use PCs and only PCs. For recording, for computing, for media, and I've never had a single issue that I wasn't able to address with relative ease.

Use whatever works for you, the PC vs. Mac debate is dumb (on both sides).
 
This is a very personal question as everyone has their personal reasons for choosing their OS but I can say that I'm a Mac user and will be forever.

I've had my share of Windows computers growing up and even in college with nothing but ongoing troubles, crashes, viruses, slow performance, etc. After college I invested in my first PowerMac G5 and built it up to be a beast of a machine that worked flawlessly, powering through anything I threw at it... Rendering, music, graphic design/photography, etc. without skipping a beat. I still have this computer and after 14 years, it still performs well even though it's not an intel-based Mac, so I can no longer upgrade this computer and is due for replacement very soon. Currently I share my girlfriends iMac, that I turned her on to and she hasn't looked back to Windows machine ever since.

I am currently looking into a new Mac and have been holding out for the new Mac Pro, but now that I've had the chance to see it in person and mull over the specs, I feel that a high-end iMac is more than sufficient for all my needs and in many ways better than the Mac Pros. Back in the day there used to be a huge gap between pro level and consumer grade computers, but today I do not see that as being the case. With the new TB connections and the ability to add external HDs, SS memory, etc., the iMac can offer everything of the Mac Pro at a fraction of the cost.

I will be adding a 27" iMac to my studio very soon and would suggest looking into the full range of Apple computers to find which suits your needs best, as they are fantastic machines offering world class design, solid architecture and will offer you many, many years of near-flawless performance.
 
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