Real switch stories?

[Dr Teeth]

Do you have any REAL switch story?(mac to pc/pc to mac) why do you switch? for personal use or for music? how much did it cost you? (money and effort)

[EXAGON]

This is my real story: I had to record a TV advertising score and i had to buy a little DAW. As i did not have much to spend i purchased a PC with Session 8 After 1 year i hated my DAW, the files were always corrupted, i had always problems with installations and HD and software, and i missed.... just everything. One day i decided to trash everything and go for a Mac. Today i have 4 Mac, (a Dual G4 tower, an iMac, a PPC 7100 an da PPC 6100. I use them daily and every day i feel better. I love Mac. During the workday i have to use PC too, it's a nightmare, there is a Windowze server and 20 PC, files are disappearing, some files are not backuped, there are continuous crashes, and last but not least i miss all the features fo Mac. In 6 months 5 of my fellows, who were PC nerds, did the same, now they make more money and have more fun. And c'mon! OSX is a free BSD UNIX system, the most sofisticated, advanced and powerful system in the world, used by military, government, big enterprises, Mac is used by 80% of the paper industry and of the pro audio industry, a it's the top of computing.

[ManInTheBox]

Very interesting tron. What daw did you get when you switched to Mac? I know you asked for people who had made the switch, but I hadn't. I have been using PCs at home, since '93. Never had any problems like tron over there. Never really had anycrashes that I can blaqme on the computer of any kind. The only crashes I have experienced were when the kids would play around on it. Always hearing that Macs were better for audio(this came about because in the early days Macs came standard with sound cards and PCs had to have one added) I bought my daughters an iMac, to kinda get the Apple learning curve going. Lemme tell you, it's a different world. We got rid of it aong time ago, so I can't really be specific. I like the way windows does things, it makes more sense to me. As long as windows does the things I want, I ain't switching. I am on XP now, and I can't think of any area that Macs beat it. The file system is ultra stable, it is plug/play friendly, it was easy to install, internet access was easy to set up, you can even start web designing without buying any extra programs. I didn't even have to install my drivers for my CD-RW. XP recgnized it and had drivers for it already. I was able to use Windows media player from day one to burn/rip cds. I didn't have to set anything up. I have never been too big on Apple, so I really don't know how easy and stable they are, but I don't see how things can get much better than XP.

[Charlie-brm]

This is more of a tried it, can live without it, story. There's no need to switch if you can have both. In graphics you're always bombarded by the prevelance of Apple PCs and a little voice in your head says, your pretending until you have a Mac. One large job got dropped on me that was started on a Mac with Quark Xpress. Cool, I finally get behind the wheel of a real Mac. I had to get and learn both immediately - no problem when you have a mission. (I don't learn when I don't HAVE to learn.) I had that IIci for years. The problem wasn't the box, it was the undesirable element it brought into the office - [b]Advertising agency art directors and designers.[/b] Are there flakier, less prepared, more self absorbed prima donnas on the planet? They were 100% Mac and they were total headaches. Projects never prepared properly. The mantra is you make more profits with a Mac. Yeah, they do. Everyone else involved needs a sedative. There was some kind of disconnect between whatever they designed and what they thought was going to happen after they put it on a disk and left their office. I've got five years of stories. The IIci got less and less use until it became obsolete. It wasn't the platform that soured me, it was the people involved. Meanwhile I have a friend who is an authorized Mac dealer. We get along great after ten years because in reality he is a gear head. The back half of his unit even has a hydraulic lift to aid work on his cars, snowmobiles, carts and whatever other motorized toy he gets into. He takes my PC files, I get back his Mac files and everything's cool. I think it's because we're both comfortable with detail and the mechanics of things. I'm very interested in OS X. A test review doing heavy video editing makes it sound extremely stable. I just don't need it right now and I would exhaust Intel solutions before switching, but I would switch if it came to that.

[EXAGON]

tundrkys, you did not mention what you do with your XP (=NT 5.1) machine. Do you render Cinema 4D or other animation while navigating and downloading movies while coping hundreds of files while forgetting stopping a game while creating a Flash webpage while listening to music? And working with Pro Tools using the best plugins and software sampler (not available for PC)? And putting away every Microsoft applications, replacing them with your favorite and discovering they work better, smarter, faster? And having the UNIX world at your hand, that means using thousands of FREE professional software? And having 128*128 icons, transparency and TOTAL compatibility with documents from other platform? And purchasing a computer with 2 firewire ports, USB ports, DVD-RW, and free multimedia software which beat any other? "I am on XP now, and I can't think of any area that Macs beat it" hahahhahahahahahahha Sorry but you're wrong. Just think at a very little thing: if after some month you are bored by this XP blue interface, what do you do??? I used for 1 year the Apple Aqua interface, then, bored i used for a month an exact clone of the XP interface, now i'm using a Drawboard interface, and there are so much in the web to download.

[Brian T]

[quote]Originally posted by tron: [b]tundrkys, you did not mention what you do with your XP (=NT 5.1) machine. Do you render Cinema 4D or other animation while navigating and downloading movies while coping hundreds of files while forgetting stopping a game while creating a Flash webpage while listening to music? [/b][/quote]...............and a large amount of other stuff about how brilliant tron and his Macs are and how ignorant anyone who thinks differently must be. This is the type of poster I don't really understand. What is it that makes tron so adamant that his own personal preferences should be the personal preferences of all other people? Dude, use your G4 and have a great life. Whatever turns you on. But can you give it a rest on ramming it down everybody else's throat? Not everyone in life is going to agree with you. A bit of graciousness helps that to be less painful. Regards, Brian T

[Alndln]

Sorry Tron but any properly configured NT sytem handles especially multitasking much better,if that's what you want to saddle your DAW with,my PC's dedicated for ProAudio,not multimedea.It's also no secret that Apples losing the proccessor war big time these day's along with still usin Pc 133 sdram(yikes)and being way over priced and not customizable hardware-wize.Plus OS9 is much more prone to crashing than NT,any counter claim to that is bullshit period.All the best plugins are availible to both platforms whith the exception of Altiverb.Waves/Bomb Factory/UAD ect. are availible to both.I had a Mac Performa way back and it was such a nightmare that that I was litterally chased to the PC platform.These days Pro's are using a variety of stuff,Radar/Nuendo/PT/Cubase/DP/Sonar ect. ect. ect.,and the Pro studios that I know that aren't specifically Mac based will gladly dust off the Power Mac stuffed away in the closet and fire up PT if you insist. ;)

[fantasticsound]

[quote]Originally posted by Brian T: [b] [quote]Originally posted by tron: [b]tundrkys, you did not mention what you do with your XP (=NT 5.1) machine. Do you render Cinema 4D or other animation while navigating and downloading movies while coping hundreds of files while forgetting stopping a game while creating a Flash webpage while listening to music? [/b][/quote]...............and a large amount of other stuff about how brilliant tron and his Macs are and how ignorant anyone who thinks differently must be. This is the type of poster I don't really understand. What is it that makes tron so adamant that his own personal preferences should be the personal preferences of all other people? Dude, use your G4 and have a great life. Whatever turns you on. But can you give it a rest on ramming it down everybody else's throat? Not everyone in life is going to agree with you. A bit of graciousness helps that to be less painful. Regards, Brian T[/b][/quote]Amen! :thu: Somehow, despite the obviously superior tools from Apple, most of the world continues to run on PC's. Even in audio, as has been mentioned, other pro DAW hardware is competing successfully against Pro Tools. One of the most successful commercial post houses in Chicago, while entrenched in Macs for video (AVID) included only a PC with Pro Tools LE for importing Pro Tools files to a Euphonix R1 system. If Apple's so forward thinking then why, as soon as they purchased Emagic, did they announce all PC based products would be killed by early fall? By Apple/Emagic estimates 2/3 of Emagic sales were Mac products. That still means [i]1 in 3[/i] sales were to PC users! What a great way to take care of your customers and influence people, Apple. What a forward thinking idea to focus on one platform. I know of many companies whose aspiration is to NOT diversify their products :rolleyes: Someday Apple may yet join the rest of the world without diluting their product. THEN watch out, as they may have a chance of a real share of the personal computer market. To the point - Either platform is now robust enough with enough products for audio to create a first class, no compromise DAW that can easily compete with Pro Tools.

[hesdeadjim]

tron misses the point i can outfits my pc with all the items he states firewire ports, usb ports, (usb 2.0 for pc is faster than firwire by the way), dvd-rw, etc. and still have a faster, just as stable machine for cheaper. 6 months later replace the motherboard, ram, and cpu sell of the old components and have basically a new mahcine for a few hundred dollars. or i can take this old parts and build a midi sequencing machine only. (which i did) and a interent only computer (which i did) and still have all 3 for less than the cost of a new g4. maybe a few more plugs are available, but i don't care i use outboard. stable fast software storage for cheaper. nt, 2000 and xp are all stable enough. plus i get to benefit from so many competing companies. the amd/intel wars keep cpus on a constant fast upgrade path and prices down, same with ram, motherboards, etc. just takes a little more research and intelligence to peice these items together. ps. i like macs just fine too.

[EXAGON]

Mhz is important but CPU is important, G4 uses less instructions, has altivec, has only 7 pipelines compared to 20 of pc's, I know you can make a great pc if you choice the right hardware, but the problem is (apart compatibility) the operating system. Windows XP is a bug itself, read the serious and not paid reviews, it's a nightmare. XP IS NT! You miss the best plugins for Pro Tools, you miss tons of great software like Final Cut Pro (i use Avid on PC too, and it's a dinosaur compared to FCP) I work 4 hours on PC an 4 hours on Mac everyday, and believe me: Mac is a Porche, PC is a good Wolkswagen. USE WHAT YOU NEED, BUT DON'T SAY LIES ABOUT THE SUPPOSED SUPERIORITY OF WINTEL

[rafter]

i can't believe nobody has mentioned that pcs just SOUND better than macs. :rolleyes:

[EXAGON]

This is the endless Mac vs pc war. No problem, i'm happy since i use Mac Hope you are happy with your pc

[Brian T]

[quote]Originally posted by tron: [b]This is the endless Mac vs pc war. No problem, i'm happy since i use Mac Hope you are happy with your pc[/b][/quote]Now that's the spirit, tron! Regards, Brian T

[Alndln]

[quote]Originally posted by tron: [b]Mhz is important but CPU is important, G4 uses less instructions, has altivec, has only 7 pipelines compared to 20 of pc's[/b][/quote]If you think that MHZ is the only advantage to an Athlon XP your'e seriously misinformed.I case you don't know AMD and Motorola have been working together and sharing technology for over 3 years now.An Athlon XP and Motorola G4 are almost identical.The Athlon XP sports it's own version of RISC and SSE and soon SSE 2(implemented in the P4 though) with the forthcoming Barton's and Hammer's.The thing I would be concerned with if I was you would be the the rumour of Motorola giving up their Apple contract to AMD,which to me seems more than likley since it's obvious that Motorola seems disinterested in Apple these day's.

[Alndln]

[quote]Originally posted by tron: [b]Windows XP is a bug itself , BUT DON'T SAY LIES ABOUT THE SUPPOSED SUPERIORITY OF WINTEL[/b][/quote]XP and NT work flawlessly for a properly configured DAW and suffers no "OS" crashes while OS9 still does,and that's "fact"!!I'll reserve my judgement for OSX when it's "ready".

[gtrmac]

Well since I have always been one that has tried to think different I am a Mac user that has switched to PC. Since I have been working in recording studios and mastering facilities for quite a long time I have always been familiar and comfortable with Apple computers. First with Sound Designer then Protools and finally Sonic Solutions. As a maintenance technician at Sony Music Studios' Mastering Dept. I was trained to maintain the Sonic workstations which were used by the Pop and Classical departments. There were 16 workstations and 16 mastering suites to use them in. The bottom line is that these were very reliable systems and were a joy to work with. I also used an Apple at home for years to run Performer and it was also very reliable. One thing that always bugged me though was that the cost of upgrading an Apple system was very high. You can't just go out and buy a new motherboard for your Mac nor can you build a custom Mac from scratch. So about three years ago I decided to build a PC and use it for a Cubase DAW. I admit that I did a lot of research into the compatability issues of the hardware and also the tricks of optimising Windows for DAW use. It worked out quite well and since I built a state of the art PC for less than half the price of a comparable Macintosh I have never considered going back to Macs. I have since upgraded my PC to a newer motherboard and CPU and my Cubase system kicks butt. The company I work for has become a dealer for Steinberg products and I have been building custom PC's for professional studios that want to get off the Macintosh merry go round and save some money. I have installed over a dozen PC's which are running Windows 2000 Professional and XP and I have not had a call to service a single machine in the three years that we have been selling them except to update software or upgrade the hardware. So my experience has shown me that PC's are certainly viable platforms for DAW use but with a caveat. You must know what you're doing. I certainly don't think that this is too much to ask of anyone that chooses to call himself an engineer. By the way I also work in a studio which has several Macintosh systems and I have experienced more problems with the G-4 than I do with my PC at home. Go figure.

[EXAGON]

Apart pro audio apps, i use OSX since 1 year an i had NO system crash! Since i trashed all Microsoft apps and use other stuff i have NO app crash at all, never never never. End august Apple will release the new big update of OSX called Jaguar, and the majors will port most of the audio software to OSX which is native 32 bit floating point, 24/96 multichannel (!!!).

[Talcott]

Had a pc four years ago. Got a Mac two years ago. Was given a Pc two weeks ago. Windows is a bloated unelegant OS. Nuff said. Talcott

[vintagevibe]

[quote]Originally posted by tron: [b] ...XP (=NT 5.1)... [/b][/quote]What world do you live in??? Apparently you've never tried WinXP. The simple fact is that there is no reason whatsoever to change to the MAC platform over WinXP. If you read Craig's threads you'll find that the most powerful DAW in the world is currently a dual processor WinXP system. These MAC/PC wars are really boring but when the Steve Jobs Cult members (and that's exactly what you're acting like) come out of the woodwork it's just too easy to put them in their place. The world runs on PCs. Get used to it. This is partly because Steve Jobs tries to keep everything in house which drives up prices and eliminates competition in the MAC world. His latest move to buy Emagic and screw many thousands of Windows users is just painting himself more and more into the corner. But I digress. Whatever platform works for you is the one you should use but your attitude that MAC is God and all else sucks shows you to be ...shall we say... less than brilliant.

[Dylan]

I actually started out on Mac (Mac Classic, baby!) early on using programs like Encore, Band in a Box, Vision, etc. Once I moved up to a Power Mac I started looking into better audio options than what came built-in, as even my shitty 4-track had better sound than it. The only 3rd-party options at the time were Digidesign's AudioMedia II and III. My 6100 only had NuBus, which even at that time was old-skool technology, so my only option was the AMII. My brother had just bought a PC with a SoundBlaster AWE32 soundcard at the time, and needless to say I was floored at how good his setup sounded and worked. After using his PC for a few weeks I sold my power mac and started researching PC components. A few weeks later I took a deep breath and built a computer from scratch. The amazing thing is it all worked the first time with no tweaking required. I haven't looked back since. Anyone who can't get an NT-based OS working well today should probably let someone else setup their system as it's all pretty rock-solid now. I'd consider using a Mac OS if I could have my own hardware, but until then I'll stick with the dark side :D .

[vintagevibe]

tron … first you say: “And putting away every Microsoft applications, replacing them with your favorite and discovering they work better, smarter, faster?” “And purchasing a computer with 2 firewire ports, USB ports, DVD-RW, and free multimedia software which beat any other?” And in response to: "I am on XP now, and I can't think of any area that Macs beat it" You say: "hahahhahahahahahahha Sorry but you're wrong. Just think at a very little thing: if after some month you are bored by this XP blue interface, what do you do???" I used for 1 year the Apple Aqua interface, then, bored i used for a month an exact clone of the XP interface, now i'm using a Drawboard interface, and there are so much in the web to download." And then you say: "USE WHAT YOU NEED, BUT DON'T SAY LIES ABOUT THE SUPPOSED SUPERIORITY OF WINTEL" And you wonder why no one is taking you seriously. Please tell us you’re not a technician!

[Gtoledo3]

Yeah that "xp=NT5.1" kinda tells you where this guy is at. What, is he studying up for clown college?

[jlahib.no]

http://www.apple.com/switch/ads/ellenfeiss.html that's all i have to say about apple.

[-_dup1]

I used to dig Macintoshes. Had a Mac IIcx. I encouraged other people to buy Macs. Apple had the great idea of licensing Mac clones, which would force Apple to have competitive prices/specs with current PCs. I bought a Power Computing Mac and really dug it. And then, almost as quickly as they had made the decision to give consumers more choice with their hardware, Apple killed the clone market. This wasn't the first time Apple had made what seemed like a rash decision (Anyone remember the Newton? Had they continued developing that product, we'd be talking about those instead of Palm Pilots...), but this was their first flaky decision that affected me as a consumer. I vowed never to buy Apple again and I haven't. The only condition under which I would consider buying from Apple is if they ever released OS X for Intel chips. But I won't buy any overpriced Apple hardware, and Apple continues to see themselves as a hardware company, so...

[F7sound -]

Guess I switched back in the early '90s. What I find the most interesting about the Mac vs PC thing is that personally, I'd rather NOT use a computer at all than to use a PC. I'd close down my studio and go sell hot dogs or someting if I had to depend on a Windows machine for my computing needs. I remember a friend of mine (a Windows/PC guru) who in 1996 was saying that the PC (Windows) was at a point where it could be depended on to do reliable digital audio and that Apple would be out of business in a year. Hell I was doing reliable digital audio on my Mac in 1993 and Apple is still in business!!!! Michael Oster [url=http://www.F7sound.com]F7 Sound and Vision[/url]

[vintagevibe]

[quote]Originally posted by F7sound: [b]... personally, I'd rather NOT use a computer at all than to use a PC. I'd close down my studio and go sell hot dogs or someting if I had to depend on a Windows machine for my computing needs. [/b][/quote]If you can make this statement you don't have enough technical/computer skills to play solitaire much less do any real audio work. My PC DAW is rock solid and allows me to be ultra productive. Yeah, I guess I should ditch all that productivity and pay twice as much to be an Apple Zombie.

[GeorgeG3]

I am a Mac addict. I’ve used Macs since the beginning, and I have never owned a Windows machine. I use a Power Mac G4 for professional digital audio recording, and for all my internet and business applications. I know the Mac operating system very, very well, and I enjoy the interface. I like the tight integration of the hardware and software on Macs. That being said - I wish I had made the switch to Windows long ago. For cost vs. performance, there is no question that Windows XP based machines blow Macs out of the water. For everything that I do on a computer, it is objectively clear that a state-of-the-art dual processor WinXP machine would completely blow my Mac G4 out of the water. However, I’ve spent so many years becoming an expert in setting up, maintaining, and trouble shooting the Mac operating system, and investing so much money in software on the Mac platform, that I really can’t switch over to a Windows XP machine. Since I just want to be productive, and use the software that I’ve spent so many years investing in and learning, it doesn’t make sense for me to start over. The learning curve and financial investment to start over on a completely different platform is not worth it for me, right now. So, just to sum up - I use a Mac, I do feel it is an excellent platform, I acknowledge that a dual processor WinXP system would be a superior system for professional digital audio recording, but I won’t/can’t switch over any time soon because of the learning curve and my previous financial investment in the Mac software/hardware platform. If a young musician asked for my advice on getting into professional digital audio recording, I would strongly advise against getting a Mac (keep in mind my years of experience on the Mac platform). I would tell him to definitely get a state-of-the-art dual processor WinXP system, and to never look back. At this point, there is no practical advantage to investing in a Mac - in fact, it is probably a huge disadvantage financially and performance-wise. Don’t get me wrong - I love Macs, I love the simplicity of the operating system, and I love the tight integration of hardware and software. When I got into computers and professional digital audio recording a number of years ago, the Mac was the only practical solution - those days are gone forever. If there are any doubts about that, just review this thread, and it says it all: http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=006747;p=1 I just thought you guys might be interested to hear my different take on the situation.

[F7sound -]

[quote] If you can make this statement you don't have enough technical/computer skills to play solitaire much less do any real audio work. [/quote]Man, you hammered into me REAL hard. I don't think you read my whole statement, but I stand by what I said. I didn't say that NO ONE should use a PC. All I stated was what I would do. Before you fire your next shot, you may want to read my enitre post. I'll let my clients and credits decide if I have enough technical/computer skills to do any REAL audio work. Michael Oster [url=http://www.F7sound.com]F7 Sound and Vision[/url]

[bond1]

[quote] I remember a friend of mine (a Windows/PC guru) who in 1996 was saying that the PC (Windows) was at a point where it could be depended on to do reliable digital audio and that Apple would be out of business in a year. [/quote]Man back in 1996 most people were still using Windows 95!! I can't imagine using Win95 (or even Win98) for audio production. Windows has come a long way since then and XP is a FAR cry from windows 95 & 98. I'm using xp and its worked like an absolute dream for me, not a single crash or lockup.

[strat0124]

[quote]Originally posted by dino321: [b] [quote]Originally posted by F7sound: [b]... personally, I'd rather NOT use a computer at all than to use a PC. I'd close down my studio and go sell hot dogs or someting if I had to depend on a Windows machine for my computing needs. [/b][/quote]If you can make this statement you don't have enough technical/computer skills to play solitaire much less do any real audio work. My PC DAW is rock solid and allows me to be ultra productive. Yeah, I guess I should ditch all that productivity and pay twice as much to be an Apple Zombie.[/b][/quote]Yeah I built my own PC for under 500 bucks....beat that MAC! :)