Why do most producers prefer Mac OS over a PC?

H

HighGinx

New member
I'm a die hard PC user and the software I use is reasons propeller head, however based on my observations both on youtube and in the real world most producers/Dj's use macintosh computers and it drives me crazy not knowing why! it seems that it is almost a fad "if you're a music producer than you need a macintosh" this seems to be the standard of the status quo for the music industry. My question is why do people think that the mac operating system is far superior to windows when it comes to any type of production. Is there something i'm missing out on?
 
Don't allow yourself to be conned - if you are watching vids about logic then it is only available for mac.

If you are watching vids about pro tools it just may be that the vid creator uses a mac.

There is no benefit in buying one over the other these days except to access some mac only sw - do not let their business model con you otherwise.......

As for using one over the other - it is more akin to religious zealotry than anything else....
 
SwagProductionz said:
Macs don't get virus's...
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Neither does my PC. In fact, since Win7, I haven't had a single hiccup. Whereas my Mac's capacitors crashed and burned 3 times within the first 3 years I had it (AppleCare was busy with me).

I've used both. I can't say either machine is better than the other (when they run right), so my next comparison would be price, and I claim Mac to be almost laughable in that regard. A mac with my current PC specs is almost $3,000. That's triple what I paid for my PC!! Is Mac better? Maybe for certain things.... But triple better? No. Not in my experience.
 
viruses are no longer the delineator as both machines effectively have a version linux under the hood and an intel processor instead of the old Motorola/Intel divide.

So a virus written to exploit a weakness in the underlying os on one will now work on both machines effectively
- a little hacking of the code to address specific memory addressing issues and hdd addressing issues aside
- it also means that writing a virus to attack specific core processes is that much easier (as there is no longer the big-endian/little-endian divide that there once was)
- end product is that virus protection has had to improve by at least an order of magnitude for both types of machine, making it that much more difficult to infect a machine of either type.

The price gap for similar specs is still laughable, always has been really. Power/price/performance ratios are now equivalent so in the end it comes down to what you want to spend and whether you feel the need to be trendy with the apple logo or a no-name machine
 
No Viruses, More User-Friendly IMO, No Where Near As Much Crashes (Practically Never), & Fast As Hell
 
FCNYJordan said:
No Viruses, More User-Friendly IMO, No Where Near As Much Crashes (Practically Never), & Fast As Hell
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We covered viruses already. User-friendly is a matter of opinion - I never liked having to press the option key for mouse functions. Win7 is as stable an OS as I've ever used. My PC does NOT crash- ever. And I would bet my PC is as fast or faster than most people's Macs.

These Mac points are MYTHS today. That stuff about viruses and crashes is old news.
 
Macs are way to pricey. i could buy a pc and still have some money left over to buy software or some gear
 
SwagProductionz said:
Macs don't get virus's...
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Viruses:
The easiest way to avoid viruses is to not watch porn on your audio computer and avoid torrents.

Crashes:
Can happen on any machine, PC or Mac. In most if not all cases are user related one way or another.

Speed:
Depends on you system. Way cheaper to build a PC.

If you are a Logic or Final Cut user then yes you need a Mac. Or if you just like Mac, you need a Mac. Just don't get sales pitched into a Mac.
 
I agree with you on that one, Apple is a large monopoly and they only expose you to the software that they make you think you want just because everyone is trying to be a DJ and people just wanna hop on the band wagon. I believe windows is more of a personalized OS whereas with a mac you're limited to what apple gives you and can allow you to do. Reason 5 runs perfectly on my windows laptop which has 2.50 GB of ram and reason runs perfect I have never experienced hiccups of any type! and as for music production software goes using reason over Logic, pro tools ect.. It is the equivalent to android being the superior platform for smart phones..
 
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The popularity of the Mac as a music computer can historically be attributed to Digidesign's hardware and the funny thing about this is that people often overlook the fact that the Pro Tools hardware is doing all the heavy lifting, all they see is that all the big studios use Macs without understanding what is actually going on.
 
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hollandturbine said:
The popularity of the Mac as a music computer can historically be attributed to Digidesign's hardware and the funny thing about this is that people often overlook the fact that the Pro Tools hardware is doing all the heavy lifting, all they see is that all the big studios use Macs without understanding what is actually going on.
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weren't macs heavy in the audio world before pro tools also because pcs simply were not stable at all.
 
Nowadays it's strictly down to preference. Both have their pros and cons, and nothing that would make either strictly better than the other for music stuff.
 
Xabiton said:
weren't macs heavy in the audio world before pro tools also because pcs simply were not stable at all.
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yes in the mid-90's - macromedia's audio program soundedit16 was the premiere program at that point - I remember we could run it on a PPC6100 with only a few MB of ram and not much more in the way of hard drive space- we also had an 8100 that was being used as a server at one point and then was retasked as a protools machine in another area of the arts faculty - I provided tech support in 94 and 95.....

hollandturbine said:
The popularity of the Mac as a music computer can historically be attributed to Digidesign's hardware and the funny thing about this is that people often overlook the fact that the Pro Tools hardware is doing all the heavy lifting, all they see is that all the big studios use Macs without understanding what is actually going on.
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agreed 100% - before protools mid-80's MOTU (Mark of the Unicorn) provided interfaces - the jamBox - and software - Digital Performer and Digital Composer which were Mac only - a conscious choice on their part as they saw that the mac provided a more stable environment than the pc......

and before that/alongside of that the two most common computers in a studio were the Atari ST1024 and the Commodore 64, running sequencers mostly.
 
Xabiton said:
weren't macs heavy in the audio world before pro tools also because pcs simply were not stable at all.
Click to expand...


Early computers could handle stuff like MIDI sequencing and basic wave form editing but anything beyond farting out some short primitive digital audio required dedicated hardware and this is where Digidesign is quite important as it's hardware made digital audio possible, not just for it's own software but for other developers as well and even after native processing became a reality there was still an advantage to be had by using dedicated DSP hardware and this is the system retained by professional studios today.

The PC did not rate very highly as an early music computer compared to the Atari, Amiga and Apple machines because the PC used DOS as opposed to a mouse based GUI and by the time Windows was gaining momentum most studios had already switched to Macs to make use of Digidesign's hardware if they were not using some other dedicated digital audio hardware system such as ADAT.

Without rambling on too much about ancient history the Halo effect in regard to the Mac is basically due to people looking at the cart and not the horse that pulls it, they know big studios use Macs and Pro Tools and so they assume that an iMac and a native version of Pro Tools is somehow equivalent to a two year old Mac Pro hosting Pro Tools hardware when the current reality is that Windows out performs OSX when it comes to running such a native DAW.
 
well i have both mac and pc. Pc is easier to use but mac is built to last now dont get me wrong i love my pc cause its my laptop so i travel with it on a reg but for home its the mac most of the pc's ive had didnt get the viruses but i had them when i didnt have change but i broke down and invested in a mac and plan to get another one.
 
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