Mac or pc,?

[charlie2]

Never had a mac but starting to brain storm it

Macbook or imac,,? Macbook is cheaper isnt it,? I'm looking to run the latest protools.

Anyone have experience w a macbook and pt12?

[cosmicdolphin]

According to Avid you need an i5 with 16gb for it to run on either platform so that rules out the cheapest Mac Mini. Everything else should run it.

My job for many years was selling computers both Mac & PC , Desktop & Laptop and although those days are behind me I still follow tech stuff like I always did. I did tons of research before I upgraded my rig a couple of months ago, the things I looked for that can apply to either Mac or PC platform were:

1. A modern processor ( 9th gen Intel - 10th gen is just out now too or Ryzen 3000 series which is PC only ) ..i5 is minimum, personally wouldn't go below an i7 but it depends on how you work

2. An NVME boot drive as they are much faster than standard SSD for your O/S and programs ( went with a 512gb )

3. A good sized SSD as the 2nd drive for projects , samples , Kontakt Libraries etc. ( went with a 1TB )

4. At least 16gb of fast ram and a couple of spare slots on the motherboard to allow upgrade. Some folks will probably advise 32gb although I've not seen my DAW use all of mine on a project yet.

Laptops are great for on the road but generally cost more and are less easy to upgrade, if you get an Imac you're paying for the very nice screen as well.

Being both a Mac & PC house I don't find there's much difference in how good or bad the O/S is. My wife won't let her Mini upgrade as each time it screws something up and she uses it for her photography business, Win 10 won't let you not do the updates but I've not had any issues personally.

Horses for courses really. Macs are pretty and sleek with nice screens and easy to use but they are expensive for what they are in pure hardware specs and not that upgradable until you get to the $5k Mac Pro. I always think of them as computers for people who don't like computers but need one to work on.

PC's I always think of as being for more geeky types who like tinkering with stuff and doing their own upgrades and stuff and like value for money over visual design etc.

Mark

[RPaul]

Being both a Mac & PC house I don't find there's much difference in how good or bad the O/S is. My wife won't let her Mini upgrade as each time it screws something up and she uses it for her photography business, Win 10 won't let you not do the updates but I've not had any issues personally.

Your wife is smart. I'm a PC user (longtime SONAR/Cakewalk user and also Cubase Pro these days -- probably about 50/50 between Cubase and Cakewalk for new projects), but I'm also a music software junkie and work closely with one high-end plugin developer, while also getting the typical software update notices from a bunch of others. Almost every time there is a major Mac operating system upgrade, quite a few of the software vendors, especially for DAWs but also plugins and various other types of software (e.g. notation), send out notices to warn their Mac users to hold off on upgrades due to incompatibilities. They eventually release updates for their own software to address those problems, but sometimes it takes a month or more.

Other than when moving from a 32-bit version of Windows to a 64-bit version, and also to a 64-bit version of SONAR in parallel, I don't think I've ever seen such an issue with Windows. Even in those major moves, the casualties were only 16-bit software (which now requires a virtual PC running an older version of Windows to run under 64-bit Windows) or drivers for older hardware. And in the latter case, I sometimes found workarounds. (While I did use the virtual PC solution for a while to run some older 16-bit applications that never made it to 32-bit versions, and have long since been discontinued, that ended up being too much of a hassle in practice. Thus, I long since gave up on all three programs I really wish were still available, specifically ones I used in lyric writing -- RhymeWizard, IdeaFisher, and the American Heritage Talking Dictionary -- where I really don't like any of the current alternatives anywhere near as much.)

Rick

[cosmicdolphin]

Almost every time there is a major Mac operating system upgrade, quite a few of the software vendors, especially for DAWs but also plugins and various other types of software (e.g. notation), send out notices to warn their Mac users to hold off on upgrades due to incompatibilities.

Similar situation to the Photography World except I've never heard mention of a warning email. She hadda learn the hard way !...I told her next time she can buy her own computer as the Mac Mini prices have gone crazy..remember when they started at £399 !

Now they are £799 for a £399 spec

[charlie2]

One tech guy said theres problems with drivers and other issues w pcs which is why he recommends macs.

Does anyone agree with that,?

Not only am I running the latest ver of pt but I'm concerned bout the external hard drives I have from my old pc.

I have a glyph drive which holds my pt files plus around 7 more other drives which also holds them plus finale files. They're mostly seagates w a buffalo and my book too.
My MAIN WORRY is not being able to transfer all these files to a mac.

Can you tell what my chances are in transferring my files to mac? That's my MAIN concern!

[cosmicdolphin]

One tech guy said theres problems with drivers and other issues w pcs which is why he recommends macs.

Which drivers specifically was he talking about ? If you mean your Audio Interface then you should be able to check if it runs on whichever OS in advance.

They did change the way that Win 10 handles Firewire a while back which meant that some older interfaces don't work because the manufacturer stopped supporting them after Win 7 and never coded new drivers.

Not only am I running the latest ver of pt but I'm concerned bout the external hard drives I have from my old pc.

Can you tell what my chances are in transferring my files to mac? That's my MAIN concern!

You might wanna test this first, I have had issues transferring files between systems, I mean just simple stuff like files on USB sticks etc...folders showing up on Windows but not Mac and vice-versa.

Not a PT user though so I can't confirm or deny but I would definitely check it out in advance. Bound to be PT user forum with the info on somewhere.

[RPaul]

One tech guy said theres problems with drivers and other issues w pcs which is why he recommends macs.

Does anyone agree with that,?

The biggest difference, in a philosophical sense, between Macs and Windows, in my opinion and experience, is that Apple tends to force you into their world of both hardware and software, while Windows allows you to mix and match according to your preferences. There are pros and cons of each approach.

On the Apple/Mac side, the basic hardware and software are designed by one company, who basically assume you will use their stuff. They design with a certain set of principles, such as ergonomics, user interface standards, and sometimes limitations, to suit what they believe the best solutions are at any given point in time. This is how you get, for example, early dropping of the diskette drive ("so you want to load that old software, or your old data, that was on one???"), iPhones without the 1/8" headphone jack, etc. While those decisions aren't necessarily bad since they move toward a future vision in the present, they can leave you high and dry and/or force you to do a bigger (i.e. more expensive) upgrade than you wanted to do if you only wanted to get more power in one area. And the lack of backward compatibility can make third party product vendors have to scramble to deal with any incompatibilities caused by the latest changes.

On the Windows/PC side, compatibility with a large universe of third party products, even the basic computers underlying the Windows operating system, is a huge thing. This also means flexibility in choosing your components, along with backward compatibility, are key parts of the philosophy and practices. While you can buy off the shelf PCs, from a huge number of different vendors, you can also often choose your own third party hardware, and, of course, software, from an even huger number of parties, and those third party products have to work across basic PC hardware from an extremely large number of sources. Even on the CPU front, you've got various generations of Intel and AMD CPUs. And, of course, you can get varying levels of quality in hardware and drivers, and some of the vendors will either go out of business or stop supporting older hardware products when really major changes in driver models emerge. This can be a problem if you're choosing your own components, rather than relying on someone who either makes an off-the-shelf system designed for your needs or who really knows what they're doing for building custom systems.

As I mentioned in my earlier response, I've been a PC guy. I've used lots of generations of PCs over the year, having built my second PC (with the help of someone who'd built similar systems before) back in the days of the 8086 CPU, used some off the shelf PCs for music making at some points (including one that was an absolute lemon that stumped Korg, for whom I was beta testing an audio interface at the time), though for a few decades now I've exclusively used PCs I've built myself for making music. When I do an upgrade, it is often the case that lots of components from an earlier system end up making their way to my new system because I only have to replace the things I want to upgrade in most cases. And I can do things like pick a mid-tower case designed expressly to run very quiet (nice to have in a home studio where you're recording vocals in the same room with the computer), whatever motherboard and CPU combination puts me at that "knee" in the price/performance curve when I'm building my latest computer, whichever audio interface suits my needs, my choices of monitor, keyboard, and mouse, and so on. This typically results in a much more capable system than I'd get for anywhere near the same price in Mac-land, and one that lasts a good long time, and costs less to maintain since only what is needed gets added or replaced. For example, I built my current PC late in 2014, and it's still plenty powerful for running all the latest DAWs, virtual instruments, and plugins. I might have to add yet another multi-terabyte disk at some point in the not-too-distant future, though, as the 2 TB drive meant to primarily be for sample libraries (but also housing my photo library, among a few other things) is down to about 300 GB of free space. But I can just add another drive (or a few additional drives) because I've got plenty of space in my cabinet.

The key with drivers and stability is really to pick quality products from quality companies that have been around for a while, and who aren't trying to sell you upgraded hardware every couple of years. Those that are heavily consumer-focused, especially printer companies, where they bank on it being cheap to replace the printer and selling you their latest ink, will be the key areas where driver issues are encountered. I've rarely had any driver issues with music/audio-oriented products.

Not only am I running the latest ver of pt but I'm concerned bout the external hard drives I have from my old pc.

I have a glyph drive which holds my pt files plus around 7 more other drives which also holds them plus finale files. They're mostly seagates w a buffalo and my book too.
My MAIN WORRY is not being able to transfer all these files to a mac.

Can you tell what my chances are in transferring my files to mac? That's my MAIN concern!

I'd check the manufacturer's site for specs on the specific models of drives you are using to see whether they indicate compatibility with Mac, including the version of OS X you'll be using. Also, there may be some file system format considerations. PC file system recommendations (e.g. FAT, NTFS, etc.) have changed over the years, too, so beyond just making sure the drive itself is supported in OS X (and at the Mac hardware level), you may need to consider whether OS X can read the specific format you're using. Even if it doesn't there might be some third party alternatives for importing files. Large removable hard drives are pretty cheap these days, though, so probably the worst case is doing a one-time consolidation (still on your PC) of files from old drives onto a new drive that you know will be supported and is using a format that is acceptable on the Mac side.

Of course, beyond the possibility of reading the files themselves, there will be the question as to whether the Mac application software you are using can read all the older file formats. That could be true even on PCs (e.g. I don't have any current applications that can read my old Passport Encore notation files -- an earlier version of Finale Allegro could, but not current Finale -- and my MasterTracks Pro Audio files are now useless; on the other hand, current Cakewalk by BandLab can still read files from way back at Cakewalk Pro Audio 9, and even earlier, though I only started using Cakewalk at CWPA9).

If you have specific concerns, such as Pro Tools files, you'll probably be best off contacting the application developer whose file formats you are concerned about. But I'd strongly suggest keeping your PC around until you're positive you've been able to migrate everything you care about migrating and decide what, if anything, you are willing to just risk losing.

Rick

[RPaul]

Funnily(?) enough, after the recent mention of warning emails from music software vendors on Apple/Mac incompatibilities, I got the following email from Native Instruments this morning:

NEED TO KNOW: LOGIC PRO X 10.5 UPDATE

Hi there,
Apple recently released an update to Logic Pro X – Logic Pro X 10.15.

If you’re using MASSIVE X, CRUSH PACK, MOD PACK, REPLIKA or REPLIKA XT, you might encounter some issues or crashes after updating.

We’re already working on a fix, which we’ll share with you as soon as we can. Check our support area for the latest.

We’ll keep you updated.

Best wishes,
Native

Not even on OS X this time.

Rick