Re: Please help Convince me to Switch!
Originally posted by Frisco
I know that MACs are pretty much the standard in the Audio world, which is what I mostly use my PC for now--Audio editing, recording, remixing, etc. Software I use Cubase, ProTools, Reason.
Before I make the decision of whether or not to "Switch" I would like some feedback as to the advantages of Macs over PCs in this area.
Please help convince me to Switch!
OK, first of all, now is the time to get a Mac! Certainly for Audio stuff (and everything else!) - you just can't beat it. With 10.2, OS X has really come of age, and the things that have been spoken about a lot in the audio world as "great, and coming soon" have now been fully implemented into the OS.
Stuff like CoreAudio - in OS 9, in Windows, different formats exist(ed) for the drivers that allowed your hardware/software to communicate - ASIO, DirectX, Apple Sound Manager, MAS (MOTU Digital Performer etc), DAE (Digidesign's Protools), which meant that your system could sometimes get a bit complicated. Developers couldn't really concentrate on one standard, because they had to be compatible with all sorts of formats (a bit like the writing for mish-mash PC components rather than the uniformness of the Mac/MacOS). You had to select which type of device/driver you were using out of a big choice in all the different apps you were using. CoreAudio in MacOS X doesn't need any other drivers to work - it just works. The drivers needed to communicate with the hardware are built into the OS (or at least will be - but for the moment, the CoreAudio drivers needed will come with your hardware, and they're already ready for products from MOTU, Midiman, Steinberg etc.) - and, skipping the extra link of having to go from the OS to software, software to driver, driver to Hardware (and back again), means a BIG performance increase. A lot of peeps drag on about "latency" - the delay it takes your computer to take the input of audio/midi data, process it, and output it back out to ur speakers, which sometimes can be unmanageable. But, OS9 and even 98/XP still had very good latency - around 10ms if you had a good card/driver. But with CoreAudio (and CoreMIDI, the MIDI equivalent - replacing OMS in OS8/9), it's been seen to be less than 1 ms - pretty mental if you ask me!! That means that the delay that COULD (if you hadn't got your system set up right, with hardware mixers/monitor mixers etc) mean others got a standalone harddisk recorder because it just "worked", has now almost vanished (it can only get better) - practically taking away any negative things to using a computer for audio as compared to a standalone unit (and coupled with OSX's stability/performance/multi cpu support, which is great!).
Also, the different software/hardware manufacturers used to (and still probably will do - they have the choice) write plugins in their native format, which meant Digidesign/MOTU/Steinberg all had different plugin (effects etc.) types. And you couldn't easily switch. But with X, again, the plugins are called "Audio Units", and they can be all written in a universal format that all programs will understand - it makes your system much more together and cleaner, and everything will work much much better.
You won't seen any of those important features in any version of Windows (or indeed OS9!). The fact is, Apple seems to have recognised that the pro audio market is a big market for apple, so OS X is actually built with Audio pros/semi-pros in mind - it's not an afterthought that needs extra things added on to it in order to work.
Bottom line: OS 10.2 is very fast, incredibly stable (despite trying to crash it with as many audio tracks/plugins/overloaded MIDI data as possible, it hasn't crashed on my DP867 once yet!), a joy to use, and very powerful/flexible.
I love using my Mac, it seems to inspire creativity, whereas, I must say (I've used both platforms for a lot of work), the opposite is true with any version of windows I've used. And, even people who I work with that have grown up with PCs would love a Mac (actually, *every single* person), but it mostly comes down to money. Not that there's a massive price gap, but a lot of people don't realise that the relatively small price increase means you're going to get a system you love and that helps you, not something you just use. Your Mac will help your creativity, and the bit of extra money is SO worth it. You'll make it back 10-fold in the long run by the amount of time you save by using the stable/flexible OS!
Plus, everything, right from installing the software/hardware in your computer, to burning the finished CD in the built in CDR, is so much easier and nicer to use.
If you go for the Mac, you've just added on to the 90+% of audio professionals that already love and respect the platform
PS, if you don't already know - Logic is out for OS X now, Cubase SX will be out on Oct 10th, Reason 2 was one of the first OS X native apps out, and protools 6 for X will hopefully be out by the end of november. Hardware drivers for most popular interfaces are already out.
