thinking about going back to pc after many years of mac usage

Ash Holmz

The Bed-Stuy Fly Guy
ill o.g.
Battle Points: 207
maybe i just need to chuck pro tools lol.. honeslty i dont like it very much since the day i got it... it seems to be catered more to the engineer than the producer/sound designer .. now cubase .. thats such an easy program for making music.. i havent fuced with logic enough to really understand it but ive heard nothing but good things
 

Ash Holmz

The Bed-Stuy Fly Guy
ill o.g.
Battle Points: 207
i hate the pro tools tools audio icons and the way they are setup .. the chopping funtion in pro tools is retarded the way the way do it .. in cubase u can cut up and mainpulate ur audio like crazy with ease .. in pro tools u can do the same stuff it just takes longer and is hidden under menus and sub commands and all other types of shit.. i dont doubt pro tools is a great program, but i just dont feel it like that esp cuz its draggin up all my power .. and the other thing .... i cant listen to pro tools and any other audio program at the same time on my speakers. which is extremely gay and annoying ... in other words if i have pro tools open my itunes will play through the computer speakers only.. not my monitors.. or if im watching a movie or crusing the net when pro tools is open the sound will not come through the monitors......GAY .. i hate that crap.
 

J Rilla

Tha Fresh Prince of L.A.
ill o.g.
i hate the pro tools tools audio icons and the way they are setup .. the chopping funtion in pro tools is retarded the way the way do it .. in cubase u can cut up and mainpulate ur audio like crazy with ease .. in pro tools u can do the same stuff it just takes longer and is hidden under menus and sub commands and all other types of shit.. i dont doubt pro tools is a great program, but i just dont feel it like that esp cuz its draggin up all my power .. and the other thing .... i cant listen to pro tools and any other audio program at the same time on my speakers. which is extremely gay and annoying ... in other words if i have pro tools open my itunes will play through the computer speakers only.. not my monitors.. or if im watching a movie or crusing the net when pro tools is open the sound will not come through the monitors......GAY .. i hate that crap.

Yeah i feel the same way about PT when listening to shyt.once i learned logic it was easier to do alot a shyt it took five step to do in PT.....and the freezin tracks is cool in logic which either i cant figure out in PT or it doesnt have the feature..the only thing that stops me from just switchin is then i would have to sell my Digi rack...which kinda sux
 

Ash Holmz

The Bed-Stuy Fly Guy
ill o.g.
Battle Points: 207
Yeah i feel the same way about PT when listening to shyt.once i learned logic it was easier to do alot a shyt it took five step to do in PT.....and the freezin tracks is cool in logic which either i cant figure out in PT or it doesnt have the feature..the only thing that stops me from just switchin is then i would have to sell my Digi rack...which kinda sux

yeah i know .. thats my dilema too .. i could sell the digi rack and get maybe 700 or so... then i would have to get logic .. which costs 1000, and a soundcard like a motu or rme for prolly another g. overall id be losin out about 1300. I DO have digital performer installed on my comp though but i havent tried messing with it yet though. who knows, maybe thats the one for me lol...
 

Mantas

Diggin 4 Life
ill o.g.
i've also been through this mac and pc dilema lately. my advice is go with pc. u can build a MONSTER pc (2.6 GHz core duo, 4 gb ram, 500 gb hdd, etc.) with dual 19" monitors for the same price as macbook pro (or even cheaper). i dont even talk bout a mac pro which price is way too stupid. and with pc u can always change whatever part u want with ease (macs are limited). plus windows (except vista) are pretty stable and easy to use. people say mac os is the best, the most stable, bla bla bla, cause they're too LAZY to learn their software. they want everything put on their table.

shit, u could always get linux lol
 

LDB

Banned
ill o.g.
Battle Points: 73
i've also been through this mac and pc dilema lately. my advice is go with pc. u can build a MONSTER pc (2.6 GHz core duo, 4 gb ram, 500 gb hdd, etc.) with dual 19" monitors for the same price as macbook pro (or even cheaper). i dont even talk bout a mac pro which price is way too stupid. and with pc u can always change whatever part u want with ease (macs are limited). plus windows (except vista) are pretty stable and easy to use. people say mac os is the best, the most stable, bla bla bla, cause they're too LAZY to learn their software. they want everything put on their table.

shit, u could always get linux lol


Agreed! I think vista will eventually be the shit. I like the interface. But it's too young in the game as far as capatiblity. I just bought a monster computer with vista preinstalled. I just set my shit up to dual boot and I'm str8. I would always have a monster external hard drive along with any computer mac or pc. I have a 320G internal hard drive but as far as my music shit...I put the bare minimum on it. An external hard drive is more stable in my opinion and more safe as far as not losing your stuff. With a dual processor and the new usb 2.0 my external hard drive flies along with my computer...very little delay. Just my 2 cents.
 

Hi-Lo

ILLIEN
ill o.g.
ash logic is great but if you have dp there's no need to pay that kind of money for logic. also, logic 8 is literally a month or two away, no sense in paying for it now. i know a bunch of film people who swear by dp for sound design and sequencing and from my experience with it its as good as anything for mac.

cubase sx3 is cheap now too, i'd probably go that route.
 

thedreampolice

A backwards poet writes inverse.
ill o.g.
Battle Points: 21
"logic 8 is literally a month or two away"

Um no. Sorry I wish this was true. There was an apple/logic/emagic rep in Sweetwater today and we asked them about Logic 8 and they said apple has not told us anything yet. They would know if it was a month away. That would be cool.
 

MPCaddict

ILLIEN
ill o.g.
to the original poster: it's just your Mac man. I have a MacBook laptop with Core 2 Duo and I've recorded a Protools session with 24 audio tracks, 4 tracks from Sampletank, rewire another 2 from Reason, with Izotope running altogether just fine. The older G5's or anything previous to the Intel Macs are shitty, but the new Macs are the shit. And I grew up using PCs, but ever since I switched to Mac, everything has been flawless. No more root, registry hell, no bugs or viruses or system crash down like PCs.

Just sell that iMac G5 that you have now and cop a new Mac, it can be anything. Heck, my classmate has a Mac Mini and he can run Protools off of that shit just fine.
 

Hi-Lo

ILLIEN
ill o.g.
"logic 8 is literally a month or two away"

Um no. Sorry I wish this was true. There was an apple/logic/emagic rep in Sweetwater today and we asked them about Logic 8 and they said apple has not told us anything yet. They would know if it was a month away. That would be cool.

i believe it will be here sooner than you think. i'm not trying to get my studio taken away by apple so that is all i know.


ash by the way how much ram you got on your setup now, and whats the rpm of your drive?
 

Agent Smith

IllMuzik Junkie
ill o.g.
hmm i agree, if you have digital performer, run with that for a week and see how you like it. i've never used it but i do remember having to deal with nothing but wackness when i was running pro-tools le on a powerbook. that does suck about having to get rid of the digi rack but you could get a tascam fw interface/controller to replace it and itll work pretty much the same. the upside is if you're sure you want to switch, the interface you'll use with dp, you can use with pretty much any other DAW since pro tools is the only one i can think of that has exclusive hardware.
 

Hi-Lo

ILLIEN
ill o.g.
i got 1.5 gb .. i dont know the hard rive rpm .. whatever the stock drive that comes with it has

7200rpm drives are mandatory for good audio work especially with pro tools and most imacs of the last generation didn;t come with them. that is a huge thing that will slow your pt sessions down, and its not a mac issue, same thing with pc's.

also 1.5 gigs isn't much anymore. i just upgraded from 1 to 3 gigs on my macbook pro last week and it feels like a new computer. if you're going to get a whole new comp nevermind but i'd really suggest you fix those 2 things if you're needing more speed on the imac.
 

Hi-Lo

ILLIEN
ill o.g.
Hi-Lo I smell a NDA

know something I dont?

I hope logic 8 is out tomorrow!

don't know much, all i'd say is have faith. aside from logic 8 coming out sooner or later it sounds like apple might be getting the message finally that their pro users deserve some kind of communication between versions, so hopefully that changes in the coming years. and in fairness i dont think more than 2 or 3 people at apple even know exactly when it is coming out. i think expecting to hear about it around leopard's release is pretty reasonable.

all of the logic 8 stuff aside though...logic 7 kills the other daw's out there, aside from audio editing, and its 4 years old while most of the others have been updated in the last year. thats saying something.
 

Hi-Lo

ILLIEN
ill o.g.
i been reading about the hard drive .. maybe thats my problem.. imma try getting a firewire to record my projects into...

yeah get a fw800 with 7200rpm. also remember to put any samples/vst libraries you are streaming from disk or vsts on that drive also.
 

O-H-TEN

aka Tha' NVZABLE DRAGON
ill o.g.
Battle Points: 3
I've been running my digi 002 rack on a dell 9150 with a 3.0 duo core processor and 2gb of ram. I also have a 320gb of hd space. The hd is partitioned for system and audio use. All stock dell stuff. I also have cubase SX3 on it. They both run great with no problems or crashes whatsoever. The key I think is to keep your studio computer off of the internet. I only connect it to update the virus software and update XP itself. I am running Bitdefender for virus software. I hear all types of horror stories from people using protools on a pc, but I can't understand why. Before I bought my studio pc, I went to the digidesign website and got the exact specs for what I needed and then I searched for it. PC's are not the unstable environment that they used to be. IMO XP is very stable. I can max out my digi 002 with mad plugins and whatever with no problems.
I agree that editing in protools can be a pain sometimes. At times it actually curtails my creativity instead of helping it. lol That's where Wavelab comes in handy for me.
Whatever audio I plan to use in protools, I work with it in wavelab first. I can import the audio with an effect already on it because it uses the same plugins as protools.
Well anyway, you will never be satisfied untill you get a system that works for you. If you have outgrown your current comp then it's time to move on. Someone with your skills has no time to be handicapped. Especially with all this new technology out here.
Personally; for price, upgrade ability, compatibility, and even new found stability, I would just get a new PC. ( with XP not Vista) I believe that Vista will become a powerhouse in the future. It just needs to tweaked some more just like XP did.
BTW
My old mac is in the basement cause it could'nt handle the whole weight anymore. lol
ONE
 

konceptG

ILLIEN
ill o.g.
7200rpm drives are mandatory for good audio work especially with pro tools and most imacs of the last generation didn;t come with them. that is a huge thing that will slow your pt sessions down, and its not a mac issue, same thing with pc's.

also 1.5 gigs isn't much anymore. i just upgraded from 1 to 3 gigs on my macbook pro last week and it feels like a new computer. if you're going to get a whole new comp nevermind but i'd really suggest you fix those 2 things if you're needing more speed on the imac.


wow... I mean... f_ckin WOW!!!


Y'all must not have been around for too long. You can comfortably fly 24 tracks of audio off of a 5400RPM drive as long as the interface you're using is fast enough. To give you an example, my first serious DAW machine was a Pentium 233MMX machine with 128MB RAM, Win95b (later upgraded to Win98SE), Adaptec 1520 SCSI card, pair of Seagate 4.3GB SCSI-2 hard drives, Pinnacle 4x external SCSI CDR drive (that's burn only y'all, no RW), Event/Echo Darla, and Cubase VST 3.7. Even though I had other machines before this one, I consider this to be the first serious one 'cause it had everything you needed to fly 24 tracks off ya PC.


And that's what it could do. 24 tracks of audio without a hiccup. Couldn't use much in the way of fx back then 'cause I was still on a Pentium MMX and not a P2 but it didn't matter much 'cause I was running a hardware-based studio and had a rack full of fx.


So... 7200 RPM ISN'T mandatory, it's just nice to have. What matters more is your sustained data rate; not RPM speed. My old SCSI disks had great sustained data rates and these days even an old ATA100 drive will too.


As for 1.5GB not being enough, I scoff at you. My main DAW (Athlon XP 2000+) has 1GB of RAM, what WAS my second DAW(P3-850/100) has 512MB RAM (I just gave it to my wife to replace her old PC). My current backup DAW, known as Three-66 for it's Celeron 366, has 256MB of RAM.
 
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