Switched Studio to PC and Liking It

[Offshore Angler]

I'm not a MAC guy or a PC guy by nature, more of a Unix guy but for years for the studio I'd been using MACs because - they worked. Get a Mac, and Apogee interface and just plug everything in and no issues with drivers, clocking, and all the stuff we used to have to deal with. Logic was designed for the OS and so it was an easy integrated package.

When MAC started this "Operating System de Jour" strategy which made sure your computer was obsolete every 4 or 5 years, along with the insane prices they charge I decided a little over a year ago to convert my video editing software to PC, and also since PC has overtaken MAC as the de-facto standard now for video now.

Plus MAC's constant shuffling of OS's has made it impossible to keep a lot of gear working. Things a simple as bug fixes or driver updates on rack gear have become major headaches on MAC, if MAC is even supported anymore.

So after converting over to PC in the studio what do I think? It's way better. So much easier, faster and now all my gear is up-to-date and even has features I couldn't access on the MAC.

Besides the ease of use of the PC, a MAC with the power of my PC would have cost 5x more. I get the impression MAC really doesn't care about personal computers anymore and really only targets a very narrow market segment of MAC devotees who seem to like the fact they cost more. A lot more money to be made in phones I guess.

So I guess what I'm saying is I no longer recommend MAC if you're thinking about getting started in recording. Go with a gaming PC and you'll be happy.

YMMV,

Chuck

[DanTheBluesMan]

I'd want to call you a heretic, but unfortunately you're not completely wrong. It did used to be you could use Mac stuff forever but yes, they have to go change the OS every few years now, and the developers have not been keeping up

[OldStrummer]

Steve Jobs was always wanting Apple to be a "closed" environment. He wanted full control over everything from the hardware to the user experience. Apple is and always has been a hardware company.

Bill Gates wanted much the same control, but he took the software approach and found his stuff had to work on the mostly beastly of configurations. Windows was often the result of myriad compromises, which made it kludgy at times.

Both companies have gotten better. Apple works with more "outsiders" (although they still make it tougher to play) and Microsoft has gotten more tightened up with Windows.

Truth is, I'm a computer user. Macs, PCs, Linux, mainframes, Unix, it really doesn't matter. Yes, I have my personal preference, but I'm not going to foist them on others.

[gibsonjunkie]

I never got into Macs - always went the PC route (since my first 386-16 in the early 90's), so Macs didn't make sense to me. I learned a lot using PCs including how to blow them up ( ). My latest PC is an I9 (liquid cooled) that SCREAMS. Welcome to the Dark Side!

[Offshore Angler]

He he, I have an original IBM 5150 I used, along with the green monochrome CRT. Still works. I wrote a lot of code on that baby.

[Bill Moore]

We have a '79 IBM upstairs that my wife used when we first opened the shop, she said you had to be extra careful when you asked it to work, as it would lock up easily. I think there is still a box of 8" floppys somewhere.

[Michael Smith]

Hmm, I wonder how my 1980's Tandy Model 4P computer would work with ProTools? The "p" stood for portable, but it is quite heavy. I fired it up a year or so ago and it still worked.

I have always used PC's for ProTools, first with a dual core Pentium D rig that I bought from Sweetwater, to my current 6 core AMD rig. It's probably time for an upgrade, especially with new newer line of AMD Ryzen processors available at reasonable prices.

[jrgtr42]

Our first computer when I was a kid was an Apple IIe, with the keyboard built into the CPU, piggyback 5 1/4" floppy drives and the monochrome monitor - amber, not green.
Had a few things for it, then when we got our first PC*, I got the Apple in my room to play whatever games we had - mostly Oregon Trail, and one or two other text based, plus for use as a word processor for school work.

*the PC was a screamer at the time; mid-80s, a 286, with 125MB hard drive, and 4 meg of RAM when it waas $200 a meg...
Amazing how much more power |I have in my pocket right now in my phone. THese little gadgets have far more juice than all the computers that sent people to the moon in the 60s all put together.

[gibsonjunkie]

My first was a 386-16 Leading Technologies computer. I soon wanted to upgrade the 40 MB hard to add a (gasp!) 128 MD drive, but the motherboard wouldn't let me do that, so I got a new motherboard with a (gasp) 386-40 MHz processor which was noticeably faster. I eventually upgraded it to (gasp!) 8 MB of RAM. I've kept a digital calendar since March 1992 - every meeting , appointment and event is there to peruse...

This is my new one.... a far cry from 1992!

[DanTheBluesMan]

looks more like a car engine than a computer

my first was a 286-12Mhz, back in 1991. At the time it was a pretty fast machine. I had it built at a shop the next town over. I'm pretty sure it was over a thousand dollars. I think it had 256K of RAM. That was the only place I didn't spend on.

I didn't keep any calendars but I did type journals. I'm now into my 4th decade of journals. I do not often go back to re-read them, except when I'm trying to see if I mentioned some specific incident and when it happened. I do know that I kvetch about the weather like an old woman, and always have apparently. I also seemed to be sick a lot, which seemed to have sharply subsided once I did not have a regular 9-5 job anymore. Coincydink? I don't think so.

I retired one mac at 11 years of age, the one I'm on will be 10 this fall and the mac M1 I bought last year is my music machine ... which hasn't done much music at all, to tell the truth. I pretty much bought it to be sure I had a functioning second machine when the above-mentioned was retired. There's so much to be done around the house, and I'm not allowing myself to indulge in music making as much as I'd like out of guilt for not getting more house stuff done. It's one of my hangups, I know.