The Mac - a better audio platform ?

N

Nesby

New member
I've heard from several sources that the Mac computer is a far better platform than the PC when it comes to creating software-based music. The latency is reduced to near-nothing in most audio apps, and most soft/hardware combinations works with ASIO. Can this be? Or am I stupid to go and invest 2000$ on something that can be achieved on my 500mhz PC with proper audio soft/hardware?

/Nesby
 
Well, technically the Mac is better for audio purposes. BUT, the debate is a long and old one. Basically, if you've already got a PC and you're starting off it's good enough. The diff is such a fine one that only pro's and studios will care (oh and the odd few who like to think that the minimal diff is why their music's sh*t, like they'd be PVD if they had a Mac :rolleyes: ).
 
Well, no mention of the ever-ongoing PC<>MAC war, I suppose you people out there aren't interested in wasting time with that...Digital Dreams, you are abosolutely right that the PC is fine for beginners, but I'm using my equipment to play live gigs - and that's why the latency is a VERY important issue here. Currently I use old analogue equipment and software sequencers such as Fasttracker (no MIDI), both very responsive and fast to operate. For me, a delay of 50 ms or less is OK, but my sound card (Audiowerk-2) is sometimes giving me op to 1700 ms delays in the apps I use, which is totally unacceptable?!!
 
Umm i think you need to look into your hardware situation, I use my PC for live gigs and have no probs at all, me sblive is fine and the only thing that used to give me delays was my processor, but now I have a 500 i have no problems. Having enough memory as well makes ya machine run butter and a lot more stable.

I maybe wrong here but, look into your situation more properly and talk to people who understand more about what gives you latency.

Myself only really worries about latency when im playing online games as any when else its not a problem.
 
Ehrm..Sorry I was away for a few days...Maybe it's just a matter of tweaking and tuning as you propose, Sub, but isn't anybody out there experiencing the problems that I have? I don't if you know AudioMulch (PC shareware app, get it at http://www.audiomulch.com), but unfortunately it doesn't support ASIO. If anybody know a simular program that DOES support ASIO I would be *VERY* interested. Cubase isn't really an option as I enjoy creating really complex networks instead of linear sequencing, and use my Doepfer MIDI pocket control to do just that.
 
Actually thats not true!

That all depends on what you want to do with your system. First of all you have a limited selection of software and even ProTools (digidesign) is finding out that they too need to cross over into the PC land. ProTools free was released to test the waters so to speak. And the first week they released it they had a million hits a day to the free link. Second a stock G4 is nothing more than a 500mHz, ATA 66 hard drive (which do vary from system to system. sometimes you get a western digital sometimes IBM and sometimes Maxtor) PC100 Ram, an outdated video ATI video card and no room to add anything internal except a zip drive. Third the OS is plagued with extension conflicts that no one who use it will speak of. And finally the G4 was test against a PIII gig Hz and it smoked it in everything including mp3 conversion, ripping, and Photoshop. Then they under clocked the chip to 533 and it still beat it. So choose your platform wisely.

Kevin Maynard
http://www.thestudiobox.com
 
thats bull$hit the G4 is a far more powerful processor than the pentium, from personal experience i'd swap my PC for a Mac anyday, ur talking $hit the G4 is x3 quicker than any PIII of the same speed...
its appearent that u don't know anything about Macs

hello have intel ever produced a super computer? NO
never cross over from Mac to PC u'll be disappointed
 
Oh yes he knows very well what he's talking about.

500mhz G4 is about as fast as a 600 mhz P III.
Gets smoked by any decent 750+ mhz PC.

The Supercomputer hype Apple started was a joke, Pentium Xeons at 500 had surpassed billion instructions per second six months before Apple's G4 , nobody cared, because they did not need to resort to childish claims, they own the market unlike Apple who every couple of years is in danger of going out of business.

Only a moron would believe Steve Jobs' hype.
Take it from me SOMEONE WHO WORKS WITH PCs and G4s every day. The reason we have G4s still hanging around is because some of the high end audio software is still Mac only and we have to use it. But the speed is NOT THERE, G4 is a slow piece of crap compared to new AMD and Intel chips.
 
hey Digital Dreams i waiting for the new one to come out,
if everything goes well its come next year :D
 
Noooo!!! Another toy I have to watch through shop windows!! It's just not fair I tell you!!!!hehe
 
hehehe...I think there'll have some good news in january...surely the powerbook G4 ! hmmmm... it'll be a good reason for changing my old apple computer ! hehe

This war "PC against Apple" is so funny ! hehe

Just remember that high frequencies CPU are not the only factor for a good speed ! ;)

And I don't feel like a moron, Steve Jobs did and will continue to make a very good job at Apple (that's my point of view). I don't like much Bill Gates but I won't say that those who like him are morons...it's just a question of respect.

:)
 
Just so you know, I think Bill Gates own most of Apple now. I am definitly a PC guy, but I don't bash mac at all, I don't care you use what you like the best :D but they DO crash the same way.
 
That they do... It's nice to know that no matter how big a firm gets, they still keep their old values :)
 
Shhhhhhhh!!!!!

Macs especially the G4 Cubes are a well kept secret!! We love them!!!
 
Sorry, but I stand by my post.

Only a moron would believe Steve Jobs.

I don't care about Gates or Jobs and do not believe either one, but NOBODY spews out as much crap and lies as much as Jobs.

What's Gates have to do with chips and megaherz anyway. AMD currently makes the best ones and they kill any G4 all while costing you about half the money.

By the way, only mac people still deal with megahertz.
PC people have moved on to Gigahertz.

[Edited by rancid on 12-29-2000 at 01:08 PM]
 
I don't think Jobs is a God ! But he has relaunched Apple when it was very bad...and I got respect for that, because I like Apple products. I used them since a few years and it'd be very hard for me to go for a PC platform.

Now Apple have to do some improvements to their product line, like a CDRW, better graphic card and some MHz increases.
I'm waiting for the new products to be announced to see if I'll change my current one. I hope Apple will surprise with some new good things because I want to stay on Mac ! :)

and I'm still not a moron ! :D
 
The PC/Mac war!!

I can't wait to see what Apple will produce next! Im looking forward to the OS X O/S. I had a read about it the other day and it looks like they've made a great deal of improvements. I work on a pc pentium 3 in the day but i have had a lot more fun with the macs and i think they will get better and better. Just waiting for the prices to decrease!!
 
There may not be an Apple

I don't know if you all know this but apple is in trouble again. I'm not saying that they're going down some one may invest in them to keep them going and it would be wise for them to do so because the only reason PC has reached and succeeded Apple speeds is because of the competition between the two giants.
But on a lighter note if your looking to buy an Apple and save the company now is a good time cause they just dropped their prices again. (See what loosing a little market share will do to a company)

http://news.lycos.com/headlines/Technology/article.asp?docid=APV0018&date=20010102

Bottom line of which platform is better...

The one that gets the job done for you.


Kevin Maynard

http://www.thestudiobox
 
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