I personally run Sonar3 on a W2K system (self-built) but at work I specced two Dual-G5 and Digi-002 systems for our sound studios (I work in an art school department)
The ProTools systems, I have to say, have been pretty stable. There were some oddities with the RTAS versions of Reaktor and Kontakt we put in, but as far as I know updates took care of that, and there havent been any major issues with the systems since they were put in at Christmas.
On the other hand I know of no good reason a properly set up PC should be any less stable.
However I should also point out this - it happens that the bulk of what I'm involved with is 3D related, on W2K systems. Recently one of our postgrads got a dual-G5 to run Maya on for the research he's involved with, and its been one of the most unstable systems in the building. Severe issues, we suspect with the Apple-supplied ATI graphics card (which they've changed on the most recently announced G5's BTW). And from the sounds of it, the problems we're seeing arent exactly unknown. So not everything is wonderful in Jobsland.
If you're gonna spend that kind of money in one go, I'd seriously suggest you buy it from a dealer you trust, who's a specialist in the stuff, and who's got plenty of other customers using similar setups, someone who cares about his/her reputation and who'll take returns and make replacements if there's a problem...
yet another question about pc vs mac
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- Beware the Quoth
- 35529 posts since 4 Sep, 2001 from R'lyeh Oceanic Amusement Park and Funfair
An idiot on Set Theory:
"In some cases there is an object called red that contains everything that is red. In much the same way a pot is a plate."
"In some cases there is an object called red that contains everything that is red. In much the same way a pot is a plate."
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- KVRAF
- 13446 posts since 14 Nov, 2000 from Hannover / Germany
Just recently I started working more often with a (pretty much well configured) G5 2x2Ghz. The machine is dedicated to music programs only (Logic basically), so there's nothing fancy to maintain (it's the music university machine and me and two friends of mine are the only people using it).
It's a powerful machine for sure but so far I didn't manage to see any advances over my Windows XP machines (apart from the fact that Logic/Win is discontinued for questionable benefits...).
No, I wouldn't say any of the computers or OS's is better or worse, for me they're working well.
As far as the "if you want a properly running Windows computer you need to get an expensive custom build one or do it yourself" argument, that's just plain nonsense.
What you need to do is to buy something from a reliable source, with proper specs. You could ask a LOT of people here and could come up with a nice machine which would run without any problems. The configuration would be done at your favorized dealer and that's almost about it. Anything else you'd need to ask for is to have your HDDs partitioned (in case you don't buy more than one straight from the start, which is a good thing anyways), but your dealer will almost certainly do that for you. Then you simply head over to www.musicxp.net, apply the most important tweaks and that was it.
And yes, I have done it EXACTLY like this for numerous machines now and there's not a single one of them which would crash more often than a Mac.
Please note that I'm talking about a dedicated music machine, so you better don't install any other fancy things.
Allright, this still doesn't mean that PCs are necessarily better, but they are cheaper for sure. As an example: I just configured a PC for a friend, 3gHz, 80/160GB harddisks, 1GB RAM, CD-Rom, DVD/CD writer, extremely silent fans etc.. All for 900 Euro. This thing smokes.
IMO these days the only reason to buy a Mac would be that there's some programs that just won't run under Windows, such as Logic, DP, ProTools (at least the full version), FCP and the likes.
I will buy a Mac more or less soon (hopefully this year) for myself because I'm some sort of a Logic addict, but that's got to be the only reason.
The bad thing about PCs is that people still seem to experience stability problems with their programs of choice. Very often I think this has got to do with bad hardware, overstuffed machines and the likes.
The dedicated music machines I was building so far don't suffer from such problems - and in case you consider yourself being serious I'd go for nothing less.
Then one point regarding Digidesign hardware: Why would you want this? Do you need PT that much? Elsewise there's not reason to buy things from Digidesign, this is especially true for the MBox. While it has Focusrite Pre's on it, the rest is completely overpriced BS and I've herad nothing else but complaints about their miserable generic drivers (smalles buffersize being something around 512 sammples etc.). Better get something else, no matter which machine you decide to buy. M-Audio is doing extremely reliable small audio cards, so is MoTU. For a larger solution you may also consider an RME Hammerfall. All these are working nice and reliable on both Macs and PCs. If you need a better preamp in addition, there's several, coming with or without their own converters, so it's just up to you.
Allright, the final question: If money was no issue (so far it is for me, but I might get that sorted...), would I get a PC or a Mac?
Answer: I would get both. And here's why:
The Mac to use Logic (so far, apart from Urs Heckman's synths, there's nothing else that would make me interested at all).
The PC to make use of all those fine programs that just don't exist for Macs, such as WaveLab, DR-008 (well, there will be Drum 9 which will be x-platform), several plugins that I just love (the Kjaerhus Audio ones, Voxengo's, some other beauties such as blood overdrive and so on).
And after all this will be the route for me. Next week I'm gonna get my copy of Cubase SX, we'll see how much I like it (I've been using Cubase for a long time allready but never looked back after I switched to Logic...).
I'm sure both machines (well, at least when I finally can afford some Mac) will happily coexist.
It's a powerful machine for sure but so far I didn't manage to see any advances over my Windows XP machines (apart from the fact that Logic/Win is discontinued for questionable benefits...).
No, I wouldn't say any of the computers or OS's is better or worse, for me they're working well.
As far as the "if you want a properly running Windows computer you need to get an expensive custom build one or do it yourself" argument, that's just plain nonsense.
What you need to do is to buy something from a reliable source, with proper specs. You could ask a LOT of people here and could come up with a nice machine which would run without any problems. The configuration would be done at your favorized dealer and that's almost about it. Anything else you'd need to ask for is to have your HDDs partitioned (in case you don't buy more than one straight from the start, which is a good thing anyways), but your dealer will almost certainly do that for you. Then you simply head over to www.musicxp.net, apply the most important tweaks and that was it.
And yes, I have done it EXACTLY like this for numerous machines now and there's not a single one of them which would crash more often than a Mac.
Please note that I'm talking about a dedicated music machine, so you better don't install any other fancy things.
Allright, this still doesn't mean that PCs are necessarily better, but they are cheaper for sure. As an example: I just configured a PC for a friend, 3gHz, 80/160GB harddisks, 1GB RAM, CD-Rom, DVD/CD writer, extremely silent fans etc.. All for 900 Euro. This thing smokes.
IMO these days the only reason to buy a Mac would be that there's some programs that just won't run under Windows, such as Logic, DP, ProTools (at least the full version), FCP and the likes.
I will buy a Mac more or less soon (hopefully this year) for myself because I'm some sort of a Logic addict, but that's got to be the only reason.
The bad thing about PCs is that people still seem to experience stability problems with their programs of choice. Very often I think this has got to do with bad hardware, overstuffed machines and the likes.
The dedicated music machines I was building so far don't suffer from such problems - and in case you consider yourself being serious I'd go for nothing less.
Then one point regarding Digidesign hardware: Why would you want this? Do you need PT that much? Elsewise there's not reason to buy things from Digidesign, this is especially true for the MBox. While it has Focusrite Pre's on it, the rest is completely overpriced BS and I've herad nothing else but complaints about their miserable generic drivers (smalles buffersize being something around 512 sammples etc.). Better get something else, no matter which machine you decide to buy. M-Audio is doing extremely reliable small audio cards, so is MoTU. For a larger solution you may also consider an RME Hammerfall. All these are working nice and reliable on both Macs and PCs. If you need a better preamp in addition, there's several, coming with or without their own converters, so it's just up to you.
Allright, the final question: If money was no issue (so far it is for me, but I might get that sorted...), would I get a PC or a Mac?
Answer: I would get both. And here's why:
The Mac to use Logic (so far, apart from Urs Heckman's synths, there's nothing else that would make me interested at all).
The PC to make use of all those fine programs that just don't exist for Macs, such as WaveLab, DR-008 (well, there will be Drum 9 which will be x-platform), several plugins that I just love (the Kjaerhus Audio ones, Voxengo's, some other beauties such as blood overdrive and so on).
And after all this will be the route for me. Next week I'm gonna get my copy of Cubase SX, we'll see how much I like it (I've been using Cubase for a long time allready but never looked back after I switched to Logic...).
I'm sure both machines (well, at least when I finally can afford some Mac) will happily coexist.
There are 3 kinds of people:
Those who can do maths and those who can't.
Those who can do maths and those who can't.