Mac versus Windows

[IndyWS6]

I'm a graphic designer and have been using Mac's since 1985 (still have the original 1985 Mac my dad bought and it still works). Recording and design have always been a Mac vs. PC thing, but things have changed. I still use Mac almost exclusively, but also have a $11,000 PC sitting right next to me with 4 titan graphics cards and all of that for rendering. It was the first PC I EVER used (don't know how i managed to avoid Windows all together for 20 something years) and you know what? It works just fine. Faster actually (as it should, it's got the latest and greatest available in just about every department). Windows is simple to use for the most part. I had no issues figuring it out and jumping right into it. Screw it... i'll just say it. I like Windows. Prefer MacOS, but like Windows just fine. MacOS still has the advantage in color management by a long shot, but that has nothing to do with recording, so i'll digress on that. The vast majority of flagship applications are available on both platforms as well.

TL;DR: They are both pretty much the same these days. Depends on what software you want to use really. You could build a sick dual boot PC and Hackintosh it and have the best of both worlds. or you can buy a Mac and dual boot it with Windows too.

PS: I just recorded in a professional studio and they were PC based (Samplitude). Best recording i've ever done.

Yeah...but that 11,000 dollar machine is purpose-built specifically for graphics rendering (and a specific piece of software...I would even bet that the company that designed the software "suggested" a specific build to best work with their software). There is a GOOD chance that I could hook up some USB2 shitbox recording device that could wreak havoc all over your memory allocation tables and that thing would run like absolute crap going forward...probably blue screen of death the damn thing every third boot up

Damn, man. Seriously? If someone needs to run high-end software, be it for rendering or recording, they would be fools to NOT follow the manufacturer's recommendations for hardware and software. And, being able to sabotage a machine by running sketchy hardware and/or software doesn't prove one is better than the other. There are combinations of hardware and software that will drop a MAc to it's knees, too.

To the OP...

* For almost anything outside of a special use case, it doesn't really matter which one you pick. Both will reliably deliver the goods.

* If you have specific hardware components you want to run, check the requirements and make sure the machine you buy/build meets them. The same goes for software

* Buy as much computer as you can afford and focus on processor speed/number of cores, I/O capabilities and memory. Make sure it has the right quantity and type of ports for external devices (USB, FireWire, Thunderbolt, etc)

* If you can afford it, consider dedicating a machine to the audio/video tasks and do all of your other computing elsewhere. It will be easier to avoid virus and malware issues, especially on Windows. Barring that, use common sense. That goes a long way...

* Take stock of what the people you will turn to for help are using. It's easier to get help from someone that has a similar system

 

[atrox]

I'm a graphic designer and have been using Mac's since 1985 (still have the original 1985 Mac my dad bought and it still works). Recording and design have always been a Mac vs. PC thing, but things have changed. I still use Mac almost exclusively, but also have a $11,000 PC sitting right next to me with 4 titan graphics cards and all of that for rendering. It was the first PC I EVER used (don't know how i managed to avoid Windows all together for 20 something years) and you know what? It works just fine. Faster actually (as it should, it's got the latest and greatest available in just about every department). Windows is simple to use for the most part. I had no issues figuring it out and jumping right into it. Screw it... i'll just say it. I like Windows. Prefer MacOS, but like Windows just fine. MacOS still has the advantage in color management by a long shot, but that has nothing to do with recording, so i'll digress on that. The vast majority of flagship applications are available on both platforms as well.

TL;DR: They are both pretty much the same these days. Depends on what software you want to use really. You could build a sick dual boot PC and Hackintosh it and have the best of both worlds. or you can buy a Mac and dual boot it with Windows too.

PS: I just recorded in a professional studio and they were PC based (Samplitude). Best recording i've ever done.

Yeah...but that 11,000 dollar machine is purpose-built specifically for graphics rendering (and a specific piece of software...I would even bet that the company that designed the software "suggested" a specific build to best work with their software). There is a GOOD chance that I could hook up some USB2 shitbox recording device that could wreak havoc all over your memory allocation tables and that thing would run like absolute crap going forward...probably blue screen of death the damn thing every third boot up

Damn, man. Seriously? If someone needs to run high-end software, be it for rendering or recording, they would be fools to NOT follow the manufacturer's recommendations for hardware and software. And, being able to sabotage a machine by running sketchy hardware and/or software doesn't prove one is better than the other. There are combinations of hardware and software that will drop a MAc to it's knees, too.

Ha. yeah. I mean, our two $11,000 PC's are essentially over the top gaming rigs, which is exactly what our rendering software calls for. They will however, also run Word and ProTools if you want them too. We also have two blades in our server room with $20, 000 worth of Telsa cards in them for the same purpose. I still use my old Mac with two Titan GPU's in it for all my modeling and initial design work however. The PC's are 99% just there for GPU rendering.

I've had scanner drivers completely make my Mac unusable before (Luckily Apples built in Imaging software was better than the manufacturers software anyway). It happens. Bad software is bad software.

 

[atrox]

I find the Mac/PC argument is usually started when someone buys a $500 PC and says "this isn't that great" then go out buy a $1400 Mac and go "WOW macs are amazing..."

When I say I prefer PC, I don't mean in general, I mean high end professional PCs equivalently priced to the "high end" macs

Here is my work Pro-Tools and rendering machine:

I need a Xeon processor and a Quadro... Mac doesn't do these features and I refuse to pay over a grand to only get a shitty Intel HD graphics card you find in high end Macs. It's all subjective personal preference. A Mac wouldn't do what I need it to do, and would cost too much, that is genuinely my only reason

My MacPro is using a Xeon processor and running two PC Titan cards. Quadro cards work just as well. Had two before i got the Titans.

 

[ghosty999]

I find the Mac/PC argument is usually started when someone buys a $500 PC and says "this isn't that great" then go out buy a $1400 Mac and go "WOW macs are amazing..."

When I say I prefer PC, I don't mean in general, I mean high end professional PCs equivalently priced to the "high end" macs

Here is my work Pro-Tools and rendering machine:

I need a Xeon processor and a Quadro... Mac doesn't do these features and I refuse to pay over a grand to only get a shitty Intel HD graphics card you find in high end Macs. It's all subjective personal preference. A Mac wouldn't do what I need it to do, and would cost too much, that is genuinely my only reason

My MacPro is using a Xeon processor and running two PC Titan cards. Quadro cards work just as well. Had two before i got the Titans.

I need dual socket Xeons and a Quadro K52000. Apple don't offer these features and if they do, it would be at a price.

Apple computers are just computers, with Samsung drives, Intel Processors, Foxxconn parts... even the OS is build on open source Unix. The main difference is you pay a premium. With tight budgets I need the same specs but without the premium hence why we went this route. Plus the MacPros in the office crash constantly on playouts, there are just too many cons to buy new ones.

 

[atrox]

I find the Mac/PC argument is usually started when someone buys a $500 PC and says "this isn't that great" then go out buy a $1400 Mac and go "WOW macs are amazing..."

When I say I prefer PC, I don't mean in general, I mean high end professional PCs equivalently priced to the "high end" macs

Here is my work Pro-Tools and rendering machine:

I need a Xeon processor and a Quadro... Mac doesn't do these features and I refuse to pay over a grand to only get a shitty Intel HD graphics card you find in high end Macs. It's all subjective personal preference. A Mac wouldn't do what I need it to do, and would cost too much, that is genuinely my only reason

My MacPro is using a Xeon processor and running two PC Titan cards. Quadro cards work just as well. Had two before i got the Titans.

I need dual socket Xeons and a Quadro K52000. Apple don't offer these features and if they do, it would be at a price.

Apple computers are just computers, with Samsung drives, Intel Processors, Foxxconn parts... even the OS is build on open source Unix. The main difference is you pay a premium. With tight budgets I need the same specs but without the premium hence why we went this route. Plus the MacPros in the office crash constantly on playouts, there are just too many cons to buy new ones.

I wasn't suggesting you switch in the slightest, i was just pointing out the not so specific inaccuracies. You got me on the Xeon i suppose, but the old towers, before the shitty trash can's (which could still do it with a Thunderbolt extension), do accept any Nvidia made card. They have the drivers built right into the OS. I needed an external power supply to power my Titan's (which are made for PC), but they worked right out of the box. Nvidia does make Mac specific cards, but i'm still not sure why. Maybe to squeeze more money out from people who think you can just throw any Nvidia card in a Mac.

The Trash can MacPro's are beasts (we have 6 in the studio), but they don't offer CUDA based cards which I need for my GPU rendering. My software is slowly getting away from exclusive CUDA processing though and will support AMD cards soon though either Metal or OpenCL. A trash can MacPro would make an excellent (yet pricey) recording setup though.

 

[ghosty999]

I find the Mac/PC argument is usually started when someone buys a $500 PC and says "this isn't that great" then go out buy a $1400 Mac and go "WOW macs are amazing..."

When I say I prefer PC, I don't mean in general, I mean high end professional PCs equivalently priced to the "high end" macs

Here is my work Pro-Tools and rendering machine:

I need a Xeon processor and a Quadro... Mac doesn't do these features and I refuse to pay over a grand to only get a shitty Intel HD graphics card you find in high end Macs. It's all subjective personal preference. A Mac wouldn't do what I need it to do, and would cost too much, that is genuinely my only reason

My MacPro is using a Xeon processor and running two PC Titan cards. Quadro cards work just as well. Had two before i got the Titans.

I need dual socket Xeons and a Quadro K52000. Apple don't offer these features and if they do, it would be at a price.

Apple computers are just computers, with Samsung drives, Intel Processors, Foxxconn parts... even the OS is build on open source Unix. The main difference is you pay a premium. With tight budgets I need the same specs but without the premium hence why we went this route. Plus the MacPros in the office crash constantly on playouts, there are just too many cons to buy new ones.

I wasn't suggesting you switch in the slightest, i was just pointing out the not so specific inaccuracies. You got me on the Xeon i suppose, but the old towers, before the shitty trash can's (which could still do it with a Thunderbolt extension), do accept any Nvidia made card. They have the drivers built right into the OS. I needed an external power supply to power my Titan's (which are made for PC), but they worked right out of the box. Nvidia does make Mac specific cards, but i'm still not sure why. Maybe to squeeze more money out from people who think you can just throw any Nvidia card in a Mac.

The Trash can MacPro's are beasts (we have 6 in the studio), but they don't offer CUDA based cards which I need for my GPU rendering. My software is slowly getting away from exclusive CUDA processing though and will support AMD cards soon though either Metal or OpenCL. A trash can MacPro would make an excellent (yet pricey) recording setup though.

Totally agree with that, if I met a rich dude asking about a recording set up I'd say go full Trashcan Mac or over the top baller water cooled PC haha. We have one trashcan we use at our ingest station (we call it the big buttplug), doesn't see much use these days since the HP Z machines got moved in.

Credit due though, one of our 2007 big steel tower macs still runs a charm, it's hot, loud, bulky, USB2.0 but still a beast. The trashcan sadly crashes on alot of transcoding jobs

 

[atrox]

Totally agree with that, if I met a rich dude asking about a recording set up I'd say go full Trashcan Mac or over the top baller water cooled PC haha. We have one trashcan we use at our ingest station (we call it the big buttplug), doesn't see much use these days since the HP Z machines got moved in.

Credit due though, one of our 2007 big steel tower macs still runs a charm, it's hot, loud, bulky, USB2.0 but still a beast. The trashcan sadly crashes on alot of transcoding jobs

Oddly, our production department uses a Mac from 2009 to convert files to DCP format. We ain't fixing what ain't broken. *knocks on wood*

The trashcans are used for our artists mainly using AfterEffects, PhotoShop and Premier. They seem to work flawlessly, but the idea of the Trashcan with only Thunderbolt expandability is just dumb to me. Meanwhile, I'm running a 2010 tower with the Titans and it's still a powerhouse for 3D work.

 

[ghosty999]

Totally agree with that, if I met a rich dude asking about a recording set up I'd say go full Trashcan Mac or over the top baller water cooled PC haha. We have one trashcan we use at our ingest station (we call it the big buttplug), doesn't see much use these days since the HP Z machines got moved in.

Credit due though, one of our 2007 big steel tower macs still runs a charm, it's hot, loud, bulky, USB2.0 but still a beast. The trashcan sadly crashes on alot of transcoding jobs

Oddly, our production department uses a Mac from 2009 to convert files to DCP format. We ain't fixing what ain't broken. *knocks on wood*

The trashcans are used for our artists mainly using AfterEffects, PhotoShop and Premier. They seem to work flawlessly, but the idea of the Trashcan with only Thunderbolt expandability is just dumb to me. Meanwhile, I'm running a 2010 tower with the Titans and it's still a powerhouse for 3D work.

Sounds as if we work in similar industries with similar needs! Been creating AS11 DCP files all day! For our 4k multi cam edits the wee trashcan sadly couldn't cope so we had to build a few HP Z monsters to cope. 6 cams of 100mb/s 4k

 

[atrox]

Totally agree with that, if I met a rich dude asking about a recording set up I'd say go full Trashcan Mac or over the top baller water cooled PC haha. We have one trashcan we use at our ingest station (we call it the big buttplug), doesn't see much use these days since the HP Z machines got moved in.

Credit due though, one of our 2007 big steel tower macs still runs a charm, it's hot, loud, bulky, USB2.0 but still a beast. The trashcan sadly crashes on alot of transcoding jobs

Oddly, our production department uses a Mac from 2009 to convert files to DCP format. We ain't fixing what ain't broken. *knocks on wood*

The trashcans are used for our artists mainly using AfterEffects, PhotoShop and Premier. They seem to work flawlessly, but the idea of the Trashcan with only Thunderbolt expandability is just dumb to me. Meanwhile, I'm running a 2010 tower with the Titans and it's still a powerhouse for 3D work.

Sounds as if we work in similar industries with similar needs! Been creating AS11 DCP files all day! For our 4k multi cam edits the wee trashcan sadly couldn't cope so we had to build a few HP Z monsters to cope. 6 cams of 100mb/s 4k

Nice! Yeah. I work in the cinema industry. I personally do mostly high end 3D work and motion graphics and am an art director.

We have two blades all decked out with the fastest shit, ridiculous amounts of memory and 4 Tesla GPU's (over 5k a piece) in the server room. So far i'm the only one using the blades for GPU rendering. The CPU side is supposed to go to transcoding, CPU rendering and all of that, but so far, they have not migrated from the Mac in production or found decent batching software to take care of all the After effects rendering and such. That isn't my department, so i'll just use the blades by myself for now.

I digress. I know this was about recording hardware and apologize for the thread hijacking. For audio, i still say you'll get amazing results with either platform. Its the person using it that makes the difference.

 

[ghosty999]

Totally agree with that, if I met a rich dude asking about a recording set up I'd say go full Trashcan Mac or over the top baller water cooled PC haha. We have one trashcan we use at our ingest station (we call it the big buttplug), doesn't see much use these days since the HP Z machines got moved in.

Credit due though, one of our 2007 big steel tower macs still runs a charm, it's hot, loud, bulky, USB2.0 but still a beast. The trashcan sadly crashes on alot of transcoding jobs

Oddly, our production department uses a Mac from 2009 to convert files to DCP format. We ain't fixing what ain't broken. *knocks on wood*

The trashcans are used for our artists mainly using AfterEffects, PhotoShop and Premier. They seem to work flawlessly, but the idea of the Trashcan with only Thunderbolt expandability is just dumb to me. Meanwhile, I'm running a 2010 tower with the Titans and it's still a powerhouse for 3D work.

Sounds as if we work in similar industries with similar needs! Been creating AS11 DCP files all day! For our 4k multi cam edits the wee trashcan sadly couldn't cope so we had to build a few HP Z monsters to cope. 6 cams of 100mb/s 4k

Nice! Yeah. I work in the cinema industry. I personally do mostly high end 3D work and motion graphics and am an art director.

We have two blades all decked out with the fastest shit, ridiculous amounts of memory and 4 Tesla GPU's (over 5k a piece) in the server room. So far i'm the only one using the blades for GPU rendering. The CPU side is supposed to go to transcoding, CPU rendering and all of that, but so far, they have not migrated from the Mac in production or found decent batching software to take care of all the After effects rendering and such. That isn't my department, so i'll just use the blades by myself for now.

I digress. I know this was about recording hardware and apologize for the thread hijacking. For audio, i still say you'll get amazing results with either platform. Its the person using it that makes the difference.

Nice one dude, I work in Scotland producing TV content for our Gaelic and Scottish TV channels. Mainly live traditional music and festivals around the UK! So it's 4k multicam fast turn around edits. We run the HP Z machines, one each, all connected to an ISIS Raid Server. The blades look cool, I like the idea of them!

Yeah sorry hijacked thread, I also stand by the advice:

"For audio, i still say you'll get amazing results with either platform. Its the person using it that makes the difference."

 

[JamesPeters]

None of you guys using PC are "pro" enough studios, have years of complete happiness, or work in IT.

 

[HerbieBoogie]

THIS

I have over 36 years total (22 years professional) in IT experience.

In 1980, our middle school was using Apple IIs and we had to learn to program in BASIC.

I bought my first PC (with my own $$$) in 1988 - an IBM PS/2 Model 50z.

Needless to say, I've seen it all.

Anyways - here's the deal:

If you need to be spoon-fed technology and want the least responsibility for owning a computer, get a Mac. Keep in mind, however, that your options will be limited; especially with what software packages are available. Anything that comes out on PC, you'll more than likely have to wait for the Mac version (if it ever comes).

If you have a good idea of what you're doing and don't mind a bit of responsibility owning a computer, get (or build) a PC. You will enjoy the biggest pool of resources available, including software. When companies write software, 99 times out of 100 they write it for the PC first. You will also have a lot of options to pick from for DAW interfaces, etc...

Of course there's also Linux, but I'd recommend that only to advanced users and you would be very limited once again. But if they did have something software-wise, chances are it would be free.

What do I use? Well I actually use all of these operating systems but on the same computer (using VMWare Workstation). I have my OS X Yosemite (screw El Capitan), my Windows 7, 8 , 10 - my Ubuntu Linux server, my Windows 2012 R2 Server, yadda yadda... but my main system is Windows 7 Professional x64 with an EMU 1820m interface using either Reaper, Pro Tools or Adobe Audition.

 

[errrrrl]

Go talk to guys that run IT departments for major companies and ask why they are all still using Internet Explorer..LOL

That would be me. Most financial institutions require IE or now Edge due to the level of security options available and the ability to customize software/plugins such JP Morgan, HSBC, Mitsubishi UFJ, Citigroup etc etc. At work we deal with the Japanese government and their requirements just to login to their portals are JP Windows 7 Pro, IE 128-bit encryption etc. Even some managed switches only have software available for Windows that require IE as well. I'm not a fan of this mentality but it is how the world works. Not sure how that is funny though?

 

[BadCat]

Hello guys,
thanks a lot for alle the very informative knowledgable responses.
Have now a Mac and a PC. Have not had enough time with the MAC to make any conclusion but the screen is phenomenal and the sound is without a doubt better as in the PC. Both are around the same price(Mas is costs about 400 USD more MAC: IMac with Intel 7, PC: MSI, Intel 7. Specs about the same.
Thanks again to all of you for responding!!!

 

[Valtyr]

I switched to Mac a couple years ago. I was doing fine with PCs, I just wanted to try something else because I had been a PC user since Windows 3.0. I'm not a gamer, and I don't really feel like building a custom machine so I didn't have any compelling reason to stick with PCs.

3 years in and I'm still happy with my iMac. Garageband has been cool. I do a little bit of home recording and so far it has been able to handle whatever I have thrown at it. If it ever comes up short then I'll upgrade to Logic.

Not sure what I'll get next time I purchase a computer.