My DAW PC hates me though I shower it with nothing but love..time to switch to a Mac?

[egbert]

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/10/3 ... ll_laptop/

Analysis It may seem counterintuitive to use the launch of a new Apple laptop to argue that the company is trying to kill off laptops altogether but that is exactly what's happening.

[Synthman2000]

I don't even think of Macs these days W10 is stable and good enough for any production requirements I have.

Can the Mac/PC thing be boiled down to a 'I have a lot of money vs I don't have so much money' metric ?

As long as you go fairly high spec with a PC it should do you very well. Same for a Mac but it will probably cost you 40-70pct more.

Take your pic and get just working. Debating it is just a waste of precious time.

[egbert]

I think the relevant point there is that for the very significant proportion of people on this site who run a DAW on a laptop, the feasibility of doing this on a Mac laptop looks to be in decline. Not for technical reasons - the platform could easily support a competitive fully spec'ced laptop - it looks like they just aren't that into us anymore

[keyman_sam]

I'm tempted by the latest Mac mini i7, spec'd out (512 SSD/8GB ram).
I'm thinking - Either
A) Retire my current PC to be a slave, and build medium-sized templates using the Mac AND PC.
B) Use the Mac mini standalone (32GB), and build conservative templates that can be loaded in the Mac mini, in favor of simplified setup. The PC will be put to pasture. When the time comes, bring out the PC.
C) Get a Dell R720 server spec'd to 96GB RAM and build large templates with Mac + Server.

I've realized it's prudent to load VEP in a single machine. Either use VEP on a slave, and all the power it offers, or stick with a limited set of known instruments in a smaller, more solid setup. Trying to decide between the two.

[dellboy]

I'm tempted by the latest Mac mini i7, spec'd out (512 SSD/8GB ram).
I'm thinking - Either
A) Retire my current PC to be a slave, and build medium-sized templates using the Mac AND PC.
B) Use the Mac mini standalone (32GB), and build conservative templates that can be loaded in the Mac mini, in favor of simplified setup. The PC will be put to pasture. When the time comes, bring out the PC.
C) Get a Dell R720 server spec'd to 96GB RAM and build large templates with Mac + Server.

I've realized it's prudent to load VEP in a single machine. Either use VEP on a slave, and all the power it offers, or stick with a limited set of known instruments in a smaller, more solid setup. Trying to decide between the two.

Fully spec'd Mac-mini, including Logic Pro - UK £3,859 ($4,922)

Bargain, I'll take two !

[Sascha Franck]

I think the relevant point there is that for the very significant proportion of people on this site who run a DAW on a laptop, the feasibility of doing this on a Mac laptop looks to be in decline. Not for technical reasons - the platform could easily support a competitive fully spec'ced laptop - it looks like they just aren't that into us anymore

Every bit this. Seriously, any Macbook decent enough to run a more or less full production on, using just ITB tools, will set you short around 3k. That amount of money will get me both a really nice laptop and a desktop. Either of them fully upgradeable on my own.

Now, for a while the package of Logic and whatever Mac was pretty attractive - but by now most DAWs come with pretty decent content and there's tons of extremely nice freebies, some of them just as good as a the Logic plugins.

As of right now, used Macs can be a nice deal. My 2010 Mac Pro is almost smoking and I can upgrade everything, including the CPU. But of course it's only a matter of time that this machine won't be supported at all anymore (very likely to happen, even if Apple would have to pull of some stunts - but they're doing that all the time already) or that some relevant parts would break without any options to get them back (had to wait 3+ months for a fan that I needed to replace in my old Macbook).
And I think that newer machines won't give you a pleasurable experience when bought second hand, simply because you either won't be able to bring them up to actual standards or because Apple will render them electro-trash (just as with their iStuff).

And I don't even see a hint of a sign that Apple will be going back to a more consumer-friendly model portfolio. It's all sealed, soldered, "use me now and throw me away once something happens". Which even includes their ridiculously expensive iMac "Pro"s. Sure, building a machine with the same specs and equally good performance yourself will probably set you short about the same amount of money, but in 3 years from now, you will still be able to get your custom machine up to date. With an iMac you won't. Which, in return, forces one to buy as much RAM and diskspace as possible with your initial purchase - for prices which can only be called street robbery.

But hey, as long as people are camping in front of Apple Stores to be the first to get whatever iGimos, I guess they're doing things right. At least as long as you don't care about any ethics. But Apple never did, so that's an old hat.

[jancivil]

I think the relevant point there is that for the very significant proportion of people on this site who run a DAW on a laptop, the feasibility of doing this on a Mac laptop looks to be in decline. Not for technical reasons - the platform could easily support a competitive fully spec'ced laptop - it looks like they just aren't that into us anymore

Do you mean competitive with window-run boxes in price? Yeah, that's never been the case so I'm not sure what moment that has. I'm not baited to click on some article speculating about it; "counterintuitive" or a non sequitur. I'm trying to be as bullshit-free as I can.

If not price, I don't know, I don't expect a 100 pc orchestra fully produced in real time on a laptop; but 6-core and 32GB is making a lot possible in real time with no external soundcard and it's been more robust than my Mac Pro 9 yrs ago which cost twice as much as this.

[jancivil]

I'm a fan of experience-based arguments.

As to an older machine, it has to be one before they made it so you can't get inside it and change components. I don't expect to live long enough for this machine to be a very old machine. Some people would just as soon buy the new hardware as dick about trying to upgrade (I was about to upgrade the RAM in the 2010 MBP before I got a financial break in Sept; no problem). So there's a division here between 'you can build your own computer for much less' and people that have little to no interest in it, which wouldn't be such a division for people that realize other people don't have to be exactly them.

[jancivil]

And I don't even see a hint of a sign that Apple will be going back to a more consumer-friendly model portfolio. It's all sealed, soldered, "use me now and throw me away once something happens". Which even includes their ridiculously expensive iMac "Pro"s. Sure, building a machine with the same specs and equally good performance yourself will probably set you short about the same amount of money, but in 3 years from now, you will still be able to get your custom machine up to date. With an iMac you won't. Which, in return, forces one to buy as much RAM and diskspace as possible with your initial purchase - for prices which can only be called street robbery.

This is definitely a bad thing, the price gouging on RAM. This was true in 2009, although of course then you could get the RAM from some other vendor. I think that move is kind of unethical.

I wouldn't defend the business model at all. However I don't think overall my computer was such a bad deal and I don't think buying a Dell laptop is a competitive idea here.


I was running Sierra (could have run High Sierra) on the mid-2010 MBP and all my audio software was up-to-date.

This MBP is optimized to render video, note well. Again, it's literally incredibly fast. So there's been this argument (promoted by journalism and clickbait) for years that Apple has no interest in professional users anymore but it doesn't really scan.

It's a corporation, they're pleasing stockholders first, that is beyond question.

[Sascha Franck]

@jancivil, it's not about building your own computers. It's also not about Macs being (too) pricey.
It's about performing trivial tasks to keep going without breaking the bank. Such as upgrading your SSDs. Or your RAM. And such as connecting whatever devices without paying a friggin' fortune for whatever certified TB (adapter-) cables.
Even low level consumers are doing these things every day. On a well configured computer, slapping in a harddrive takes 5 minutes and perhaps a screwdriver - and in case you're using a decent mainboard and case, not even that. It's easier than setting up whatever IKEA furniture.
But Apple simply doesn't want you to do so. It's not because that'd introduce any risks. They just don't want it. To gain ultra-profit.
They don't want their machines to be user serviceable anymore, either. They don't even want them to be serviceable at all, not even in their own shops.
In my book, all of that is highly un-ethical. And there's no excuse for behaving un-ethical. And yes, I *do* care about ethics.

[Tronam]

It’s funny how in threads like this people will always try to dramatize their point by maxing out the internal SSD on every Mac/iPhone/iPad order to make it as expensive as possible.

[Sascha Franck]

It’s funny how in threads like this people will always try to dramatize their point by maxing out the internal SSD on every Mac/iPhone/iPad order to make it as expensive as possible.

Who's doing that?

[Tronam]

Fully spec'd Mac-mini, including Logic Pro - UK £3,859 ($4,922)

Bargain, I'll take two !

Or pay 1/4 that price for the 6-core model and add up to 64GB of 3rd party RAM later on as needed. Thankfully they're replaceable SO-DIMMs like the 27" iMacs and the Mini has all the I/O for me to connect my external SSDs, HDs and RAID array. It even offers 10Gb ethernet as an option, which kind of surprised me. The Mini refresh is better than I expected.

[Sascha Franck]

Or pay 1/4 that price for the 6-core model and add up to 64GB of 3rd party RAM later on as needed.

Are you sure you can do that yourself?
And if so, what about the internal SSD?

[keyman_sam]

Isn't the i7 Mac mini more powerful than the iMac 5K?