I guess I should have known better

[ashevillecabbie]

Be forwarned I am re opening the Mac vs PC debate.

 

Last year I bought a nice asus tablet with pretty good specs. I don't have it handy right now because I have never really warmed to it.

 

I also invested in Microsoft Office 16 because I wasn't interested in embracing "the cloud".

 

Anyway I had it in mind to use it as a daw and I bought a used xwp1 to be the keyboard.

 

So now it just sits in my closet. Right off the bat even though I had bought it new one of the shortcuts to msoffice wasn't working. So that ticked me off right out of the gate. I am a writer as much as a musician and I need something I can write stories on.

 

The DAWs I was interested in were mixcraft 8 and maybe Reaper.

 

But looking at their support forums I just see problems. Driver issues, things not working, Just the whole nine yards.

 

I remember reading in the early 90s about this sort of stuff. I would have thought by now Windows would have acheived reliability equal to Mac but after all these years that is still not the case.

 

So I will be looking at Mac books.

 

Anubody wanna buy a nice little powerful asus notebook?

[marczellm]

If you look at the support forums of Macbooks and Mac DAWs do you not see a load of problems? Support forums are the places where people go to talk about problems.

 

In my opinion Windows is perfectly suitable for this kind of work, only the quirks are different than the Mac quirks. If you're used to one, it's difficult to get started on the other but it goes both ways.

[mcgoo]

If a broken shortcut is enough to make you conclude there's something wrong with your computer, you might want to rethink whether you're ready for using a computer for making music.

[BbAltered]

I find it interesting that you - a writer - got a tablet for writing. I myself, I think I would hate using a tablet for writing tasks: for extended writing, I would want a regular typing keyboard.

 

I use a Win PC to run Cakewalk Sonar and Reaper (and Sound Forge and Kontact and a bunch of soft synths). I never experiences crashes or hang-ups or stuttering or crackling or other problems - and I have recorded some huge sessions going hours on end without issues. It took some work on my part to get things working this smoothly. I do from time to time get confused about how the software works, or what things I can do to make my computer run better. At those times, I ask questions in user forums: by being clear and concise about what my problem is and including a few please and thank yous, I almost always get my questions answered in productive fashion.

 

Using computers for musical tasks is not everyone's cup of tea. You the owner/operator will need to be pro-active: YOU have to figure out how the software works; YOU have to figure how to make the software work on your device, with YOUR music keyboard and equipment.

 

And I think that is true whether you are using Win or Mac. Using a computer to do musical tasks will complicate your life and your music. There are no two ways (Win or Mac) around it.

 

So maybe before you drop more money on a Mac tablet, you might want to ask yourself if you are willing to spend more money to have those complications, and if you have the patience to learn the new skills required for this new project.

 

Don't forget to have fun.

 

 

[Stokely]

I had a lot of issues years back with windows xp, but my impression is that newer windows have been a lot better. Certainly for normal use (at work) I don't have near the issues that I used to.

 

I do prefer Macs, partly because of Logic Pro, but they are not immune to issues. Lots of people experience broken software due to osx upgrades etc. I have my own axe to grind on the Mac jihad to make their laptops so razor thin that they cut people (which IMO means their keyboards and trackpads suck now...not the biggest deal as I use usb keyboard/mouse but I still question Apple's mindset about it). They are not nearly as upgradeable.

 

End of the day once you "stabilize" your system, especially if it isn't moving around and connecting to new devices constantly, you shouldn't have ongoing issues with either. Make sure the machine isn't prone to DPC latency if that is still a thing. There seem to be tons of people on KVR on windows so it must be working ok...and my impression is these days that Windows is the "native" environment for many plugins (meaning they are most stable on and come out first for Windows, and some don't make it to OSX at all, or at least not as AUs....)

[Polychrest]

You wont be able to use Mixcraft as your DAW if you switch to a Mac. Its Windows-only.

[The Real MC]

If you're used to one, it's difficult to get started on the other but it goes both ways.

 

As a former Windows user, I found the migration to Mac/OSX easier than anticipated.

[analogika]

I have my own axe to grind on the Mac jihad to make their laptops so razor thin that they cut people (which IMO means their keyboards and trackpads suck now...not the biggest deal as I use usb keyboard/mouse but I still question Apple's mindset about it).

Just as a counterweight:

 

I'm on a 2016 MacBook Pro, and the keyboard is probably the nicest keyboard I've ever worked on in thirty years (including the ADB Extended Keyboard I never much cared for the II). It's very firm, not at all spongy, and has an extremely well-defined bottom point.

 

I've had no more issues with individual keys in the past two years than with any prior keyboard occasionally, a key will resist a bit, but a firm puff into the gap has always dislodged whatever crumb was stuck in there (as has happened with pretty much every keyboard in my personal Mac history).

 

I occasionally read complaints about the trackpad and cannot for the life of me figure out what people are talking about. It is utterly devoid of any obtrusive behaviour or annoyance it literally never, ever bothers me or gets in the way and it functions exactly as expected whenever I need it.

 

I've bought two Magic Trackpads for studio (where I'm forced to use external keyboard and trackpad) and the home iMac simply because I love how well they work and became increasingly annoyed by the lack of useful multi-touch on the mouse.

[J. Dan]

When you have problems with the Mac, buy a Linux machine. That way you can have THREE computers sitting in the closet that you don't use.

[Ken Beaumont]

Actually I use Linux a lot. Whenever a Windows or Mac laptop gets long in the tooth I put Linux on it and find useful tasks for it.

 

My nieces HP laptop became extremely slow. So I put a bare bones linux distro on it and installed a video editor (pitivi), Reaper, audacity, gimp for graphics and a few other odds and ends. It now edits band videos and event videos I record from my drone. It also has the Behringer X Air Edit software for a mixer I have. Beyond the $60 for Reaper, I didn't pay for anything. Even the laptop since it was going to be thrown away. It went from being so slow it was unusable to having decent speed and doing something I needed without paying for expensive video editing software.