Computers

[ruler]

I was wondering, what you guys think about computers, What are the types do you perfer and are useing? (Mac or PC) and what would you suggest to get for a laptop and Desk top? Keep in mind its all for audio use.

[Mathieu Benoit]

I would consider a few factors that may affect your choice.

First I think that the Mac or PC debate can be quite subjective. I use both all the time, and I have no real preference. I use PT LE on my macbook and Cubase 4 on a custom built PC.

The laptop or desktop question ends up really being about portability. If you envision staying put and having clients come to you, then go desktop. I have a rack mount computer case that's totally flexible, and I can upgrade various components easily for years to come with out having to start from scratch everytime. I however have my own IT guy, lazy as he is, he's worth every cent I'm not paying him... Actually I'm due for an overhaul this coming month! I'm excited! So for power and flexibility, it has it's advantages.

If you envision going on site to see clients, then a laptop may be for you. You can get pretty powerful laptops these days but the drawback is that you don't end up with much flexibility.

What are your plans, and what's important to you? Everyone's got a different ideal setup. It depends on your needs.

[Mathieu Benoit]

For PCs, if you aren't inclined to build your own, or do not know anyone that can do it for you. Take a look at these guys:
Music XPC

They build PCs specifically for audio use.

Does anyone else know what their support is like? I think they are the same people that support Steinberg in Canada. If so, they are pretty good to deal with in my experience. Hard to get a hold of if both of them happen to take vacation at the same time. But they're on the ball.

[macrae11]

MusicXPC's are distributed by Music Marketing Canada which is also the distributer of Steinberg products. If you need support, I would probably suggest calling their head office in Toronto. You would probably even be able to talk to Les who is the top dog/head designer. Nice guy.

For me personally if I was going to spend that kind of coin, I would get a mac. I just think it's a better solution for what I do. Mac vs PC depends on a lot of things though, the main one being preference. For me I vastly prefer OS 10.* over any version of windows. I have nothing against PC's I just don't like windows. I might have to log on to that Mac bashing thread and dispel some of the myths that the guy on the video was spouting off about.

If you are capable of building a custom built PC, you will be able to get much more power for less money than with a Mac. However you will have to spend a fair amount of time researching components to make sure there are no conflicts. If you're just planning to buy a Dell of the shelf, do yourself a favor and either get someone to build something for you, or buy a mac or a MusicXPC.

Mac's generally have less maintenance to do and have a better resale value than PC's. In that they have a resale value.

You can produce great work on either it just depends on what your priorities are. For us running a business here, downtime doing maintenance far outweighs the slight added cost of getting a mac.

As far as specs, make sure you get at least two gigs of RAM, a separate hard drive just for audio that is at least 7200 RPM, and an audio interface with good drivers. Check to make sure the program you are using supports multiple cores.

[Jef]

I was wondering, what you guys think about computers, What are the types do you perfer and are useing? (Mac or PC) and what would you suggest to get for a laptop and Desk top? Keep in mind its all for audio use.

That is definitely a loaded question. There's no way to answer without knowing some preliminary stuff first. What program(s) do you plan to use? What external hardware & processing do you have in mind? How many tracks do you need? What sort of interface will you be using? Also, will you be using this computer for other purposes too?

You can easily narrow down your search if you do some pre-planning. The first thing should be what recording software do you plan to use? Some programs are only compatible with MAC while others will run on MAC or pc. Start there and compile a list of what you think you will be needing and then we can see what sort of rig will work for you. You could save yourself a lot of frustration and expense by planning ahead and then getting what you need, rather than buying a really cool 'top of the line' computer only to discover later that it doesn't do what you need it to.

One thing I will say if you decide on a pc. Stick to the Windows XP operating system. Vista hasn't proven itself yet and so far I've heard nothing but complaints about it.

[Mathieu Benoit]

MusicXPC's are distributed by Music Marketing Canada which is also the distributer of Steinberg products. If you need support, I would probably suggest calling their head office in Toronto. You would probably even be able to talk to Les who is the top dog/head designer. Nice guy.

yeah Les, that's his name. He's the one that solved my dongle issue! (Wait a sec, that sounds really wrong when I read it back...)

For me personally if I was going to spend that kind of coin, I would get a mac. I just think it's a better solution for what I do. Mac vs PC depends on a lot of things though, the main one being preference. For me I vastly prefer OS 10.* over any version of windows. I have nothing against PC's I just don't like windows. I might have to log on to that Mac bashing thread and dispel some of the myths that the guy on the video was spouting off about.

I agree, I think Mac bashing is mostly without merit. But I simply can't afford to get a Mac that could kick the ass of the computer that Sub build for me. If I could afford it, then it'd be a different discussion.

One thing I will say if you decide on a pc. Stick to the Windows XP operating system. Vista hasn't proven itself yet and so far I've heard nothing but complaints about it.

Amen. In the timeless words of Disco Stu: "Back away not today disco lady..."


What DAW are you planning on running, out of curiosity?

[macrae11]

MusicXPC's are distributed by Music Marketing Canada which is also the distributer of Steinberg products. If you need support, I would probably suggest calling their head office in Toronto. You would probably even be able to talk to Les who is the top dog/head designer. Nice guy.

yeah Les, that's his name. He's the one that solved my dongle issue! (Wait a sec, that sounds really wrong when I read it back...)

I think that must be a different Les. The Les I'm referring to works for MusicXPC. I don't think he has anything to do with Steinberg or Music Marketing at all.

[Mathieu Benoit]

Not sure of the name actually, it just sounded about right, it was a long time ago. But there was only two guys doing tech support (at the time), and the guy I spoke to said that they handled tech support for music XPC and Steinberg...

Anyhoo. Bottom line is they fixed me dongle!

[macrae11]

hmmm could be. I know Les used to handle all the MusicXPC stuff. I suppose it's possible that he worked out a deal with Music Marketing.

[Mathieu Benoit]

hmmm could be. I know Les used to handle all the MusicXPC stuff. I suppose it's possible that he worked out a deal with Music Marketing.

This was 2 or 3 years ago... so who knows.

What are the specs on your main audio computer over there BTW?

[macrae11]

Mac G5 Dual 2.3 GHz Processor. 8 GB RAM, 250 gig system drive, 500 gig work audio drive, 2 terrabytes of external drives.(archives and backup) Running OS 10.4.11. Plus the two HD Accel cards. Dual 19" Samsung monitors running off a nVIDIA Geforce 660 with 256MB of RAM.
I also have an external Lacie DVD burner so I don't have to run down to the basement where the tower lives to burn CD's and such.

[ruler]

well the think is I am doing reseach on this subject now and have been for months or so about what kinda of system to run so thought it was about time I ask you guys about it and what yeah thought, did not expect a so such. so Thanks but I think I am still going to have yo do alote more reseach...

[Mathieu Benoit]

Mac G5 Dual 2.3 GHz Processor. 8 GB RAM, 250 gig system drive, 500 gig work audio drive, 2 terrabytes of external drives.(archives and backup) Running OS 10.4.11. Plus the two HD Accel cards. Dual 19" Samsung monitors running off a nVIDIA Geforce 660 with 256MB of RAM.
I also have an external Lacie DVD burner so I don't have to run down to the basement where the tower lives to burn CD's and such.

8GB of Ram? I'm only running 2GB, and it's been fine so far, not that Windoze XP would recognize more than 3GB anyways... 8GB though, that's pretty much balls deep...

I did upgrade my processor this spring though, I picked up a AMD Athlon 64 X2 6400+ Dual Core 3.2GHZ. I did a big project this spring that when said and done was over 40 tracks, and I finally started to see some lagging in my system, so I upgraded my processor, and problem solved!

[macrae11]

Yeah I had 4 gigs of RAM which was working fine. But we had a computer tech "error" so we bought another 4 gigs. We were unable to return it, and we didn't have any other computers that it was compatible with so I just put it in. I do notice a nice increase in performance though, especially when multitasking, which I'm famous for. Sometimes I'll be mixing a song, editing video, and burning a DVD all simultaneously, which are all fairly RAM intensive tasks. the G5 can actually handle 16 gigs of RAM and the new MacPros, can do 32 GB! You could mix an entire album just in RAM!


As far as track count, thats the nice thing about HD. I can actually playback 96 tracks without any load on the processor at 96 kHz. Usually with plugins and delay comp I start to notice a little lag around 60 tracks though.

[Mathieu Benoit]

Usually with plugins and delay comp I start to notice a little lag around 60 tracks though.

Awww muffin...

Haha, cool stuff man!

[Malcolm Boyce]

I'm using my old faithful P4 2.4Gig with 2Gig of RAM. WinXP for sure. From what I've heard, I would second the opinion of staying away from Vista for now. I guess that's a win for the Mac OS guys...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfCHuVrW ... re=related

I easily run process heavy mixes in the 35-40 track range with this "old" rig with few problems. Track "freezing" in Sonar makes pretty much anything possible with a modest system.

Unfortunately, until this rig lets me down, it's hard to justify upgrading with so many other toys to look at...

[macrae11]

Yeah my old personal rig, which is now my home computer is a 2.6 with only 1 gig of RAM, which did me fine for many years. It would still be going if I used my own gear for projects.