Here we go - home recording buffs, pc or Mac?

xmrchi

Sorry I have to reply to jes, sorry bud that's truly laughable, windows does not tie any hard drive to be native windows only, windows is and never really has been bad for music, from 2007 onwards, myself and the previous production team used sonar, Cubase and reason back in the day up until recently on Windows pc, obviously we had some issues over the years but never anything that made us question os's

IanSavage

stonevibe said:

guitarmangler said:

A mac mini? Not too expensive , and logic is reasonably priced, too ( cheaper if you can buy it when your a student)
Also, budget for a good sound card/interface.
Have you thought about both in one handy device?
Cough, hackingtosh, cough..

Lets just say I work for a 'fruity computer company'.

One of the biggest record producers I know (produced Foo Fighters, Pixies etc) uses a Mac Mini to mix with and loves it. Me I've been Mac for over 25 years now, so I'm biased.

That's encouraging, I've just treated myself to a 2010 (probably the newest Mac I've ever owned) Mac Mini with an SSD hard drive to use purely as a music / video machine - should do alright for basic tracking and mixing then?

 

Since I've got your ear @stonevibe - don't suppose you know if the Superdrive changed at all between 2007 and 2010 do you? I'm going to retire my old Mini to purely jukebox duties and the Superdrive in the new one doesn't work, was thinking about doing a transplant...

Danny1969

My Mac in the studio is 2006, your 2010 is positively new in comparison

digitalscream

Spec isn't everything. Our album was recorded entirely using a Windows machine (+Reaper) I cobbled together from spare parts that were lying around. A knackered case and motherboard I rescued from the local dump, an Intel Q6600 (2.4GHz, quad core), 6GB of mismatched RAM from various sources and a 60GB refurb SSD I picked up for £25. Probably cost about £100 in total.

The key is to avoid bottlenecks. Slow hard drives, dodgy motherboards and totally crap CPUs (like the low-end dual core ones) are the usual suspects.

Oh, and it runs OS X too. I just don't like it.

ThePrettyDamned

The Mac mini appeals for size but seems a bit pricey for something so unpowerful.  Looks like Reaper will work on it though, which is nice. Integrated intel graphics can suck balls though, is there scope for upgrade in such a small chassis?  I do like playing games and won't be getting a new gen console when a computer can do the same and more...

Danny1969

ThePrettyDamned said:

The Mac mini appeals for size but seems a bit pricey for something so unpowerful.  Looks like Reaper will work on it though, which is nice. Integrated intel graphics can suck balls though, is there scope for upgrade in such a small chassis?  I do like playing games and won't be getting a new gen console when a computer can do the same and more...

You should try and keep the 2 things separate really. The best audio machines tend to run cool, have as little non audio connectivity as poss and pref not on the net at all. 

You want a games machine to have a fast (hot) GPU and be online for Steam and such

xmrchi

I have to disagree with the above comment, :-) these days pcs are so powerful you can happily use one machine for more than one sole application, my machine runs Cubase guitar rig absynth, massive etc whilst on the net, and then when I have finished I'll play skyrim for a few hours... I have never had any issues at all, it would be a total waste of machine power and money to buy a separate machine for games etc :-)

Danny1969

mrchi said:

I have to disagree with the above comment, :-) these days pcs are so powerful you can happily use one machine for more than one sole application, my machine runs Cubase guitar rig absynth, massive etc whilst on the net, and then when I have finished I'll play skyrim for a few hours... I have never had any issues at all, it would be a total waste of machine power and money to buy a separate machine for games etc :-)

It's not a question of CPU power but conflicting tasks. You don't want Norton scanning your audio drive or Windows applying an update when your streaming 60 tracks of audio off the drive in a session for example. 

Or fans on powerful GPU's wailing away while your tracking acoustic guitar or vocals in the same room. 

xmrchi

Have you heard a mac book fan at full rpm it's as loud as my g card lol :-) windows updates again no problem as your interface is hardware driven so won't really have an effect, the two issues of scanning and updates these days are pretty much a non issue, they make little difference to the running of a daw, conflicting tasks were an issue with xp but not win 7 or above :-)

guitarfishbay

Honestly, unless you're really pushing them the latest mini and rMBP with SSDs are nearly silent.  For general tracking with minimal plugins I've never heard my rMBP fans, I have more issues hearing street noises outside through condensor mics it is that quiet.  A friend has the i7 Mini and loves it, I've never asked him about fan noise but he's very picky about anything so I'm guessing he's happy.  My old plastic Macbook was fairly noisy though.

Karlos

You can't hear the fan on any Mac with an SSD unless you are watching porn with the Mac on your duvet cus the air vents are along the bottom at the back.

My breathing and farting is more of an issue.

My old MBP with a 5400 HDD makes a noise now but it's 4 years old and has been in constant use in that time.

None of my SSD based Macs makes a whisper and they get hammered.

Jalapeno

Danny1969;263069" said:

You can put a new blank drive in a Mac and load the OSX from the net if you want, you don't even need the DVD

Also not with a Mac Mini in my experience, tried the USB stick route too, no joy either. For a new SSD that isn't a Mac special there's a string of hex gobbledygook you have to enter on the Unix command line (or buy TRIM enabler) to make it work properly (once you've booted of course - which I haven't managed to achieve yet).

Hertz32

Just get a Hackintosh. Runs OSX but is built from compatible PC hardware. Better price, same OS

Jeremiah

Buy a Mac if you don't mind getting a whole new computer whenever you want to upgrade something.

I've been using Macs since 1998, but I'm almost certain my next computer will be a PC, even if that means I have to ditch Logic and all the years I have spent learning to use it.