Advice on Mac/PC

The Lounge General Discussion
#41

Thing is, I don’t want to have to keep a well maintained PC and all the headaches that come with that. I want a machine that just works with little to no maintenence. This doesn’t mean I don’t know what I’m doing with a computer (I do) I just think there’s a better use of my time.

Why? You can get a pretty decent multi adapter for $50 that has USB and HDMI. Thunderbolt 3 means better peripherals with faster rates / better latency etc etc. I’m all for it.

My current laptop is a Macbook Pro from 2010 so I’m on the verge of upgrading (though to be fair it keeps on going - except for video which grinds it to a halt). Personally I like the new range and think the Touch Bar is a great solution to the often redundant function keys.

#42

cfor the studio, if you wanna use Windows, get yoursel a da-x workstation with windows 7, from da-x.de. they are nearly noiseless, well configurated and with the fastest cpu youre twice as fast as the fastest imac.

if youre going for a mac, beware that ob doesnt work yet with macos sierra and that new mac come with sierra preinstalled. next ob release will support sierra.

macos is nice, you dont run into trouble with drivers. when apple releases its yearly os update, wait for three months until you update, and youll be fine.

for the studio Id recvomend a imac 27 inch with a core i7. the larger screen is really nice and it has much more power than a macbook. the macbook really gets expensive when you need at least one tb of ssd. on the imac you can get a 3tb superdrive. retina screen is not needed, so maby you can get a used one with a core i7.

oh and i forgot, thunderbolt is only common on macos. its nice, but with an rme audio interface you can get as short latencies over usb as with thunderbolt.

#43

but ibm switched completely to mac, because in the end they need less maintanance and so the are cheaper. ibm did this move to save a lot of money.

#44

whatever helps you sleep at night, fellas

go for it

#45

Thanks everyone for your replies. It seems in can be a contentious issue as to what platform will be better suited for purpose :slight_smile:
I think im going away from the idea of a laptop after reading peoples experience. I wont be taking my setup put of the studio enviroment ( much as id love to play live as the hands on and computer free nature of the Elektron boxes was what attracted me in the first place - watched Dataline videos loved them to bits and bewilderingly convinced myself ‘i can do that, no worries’!!) so portability is not an issue.
Ive set my stuff up in the config i was aiming for, provisionally, which is to have my Ak, AR, TR8 and TR3 go into the PC/Ableton using Midi and audio via Overhub and my P6 and OT going in via a mixer and into my interface ( Saffire ).
Ive yet to have a clue how to work out how to actually get audio to sound out of any of the usb boxes - ive just bought Ableton to enable me to use my setup in this way so i have some learning to do!!!
Once i actually figure it out ( by then windows 24 will probably be out!! ) then the computer upgrade can come.
Keep the replies coming people :slight_smile:

#46

In fact after doing a little more reaearch i realise that i wont be able to get the TR8 and TB3 in via usb without mucking around with soundcard settings thus rendering them pretty much useless in this config. So ill be going back to old school Din midi leads to sync em all up and just taking the audio outs as a pair. Making it impossible to process individual outputs.
What a load of shit.
Now, im new to all this lark but it seems some pretty obvious/essential/ useful features are implemented poorly if at all on what is billed as proffessional audio gear. Yes im learning but simple things like ease of routing shouldnt be the bane of my fucking life.
I should go back to playing the guitar and stop whingeing eh… i know im ranting but since i took up using electronic devices its just been one stumbling block after another. Its like a fucking rabbit hole - ‘oh you want do that simple thing on that box? ,you need XYZ boxes that cost another 200 quid just to get a fucking sound coming out.’ Im just doing it as a hobby for fun and to be frank its become a fucking great pain in the bollocks. Nothing seems logical to me - though im no mastermind to be fair.
Nothing it seems, is simple. So respect to you guys for being clever/patient enough to do it.
Rant over.

#47

Just do takes of individual sounds soloed, people have been doing it for decades!

#48

Yep could do that.
Though i have to say that setting up electonic gear, especially via computers and software pretty much robs the creativity from my soul. I have spent 2 days trying to get my gear to play nice and all ive done is encounter problem after problem. And ive ended up in a 1000 times worse position.
Yes this is the nature of the beast i understand that.
Doesnt change the reality of the fact something i should gain pleasure from actually makes me want to kill people.
Reckon im too stoopid to deal with it all ill - im a hobby musician not an IT tech.

#49

Pm me, see if I can help!

#50

Haha spoken like a true guitarist.
You seen Analog Drive?

#51

If you like the apple way of doing things and OSX as operating system and you really need some firepower but want to avoid the mac pro pricetag there is always the hackintosh route to go.
https://www.tonymacx86.com/
You don´t need to be super tech savvy to make this work. If you can assemble a pc and install some software on it you are good to go.
There is excellent documentation on the topic and the community is really helpful.
I build a Hack Pro around 2 years ago and have never regret it. It is insanely powerful and although you might not need all that at the moment it gives you a machine you can always upgrade and will still be decently fast in a couple of years.
You can run multiple operating systems on in and put another dirt cheap harddrive in there to mirror and have a bootable backup. So should you run into any trouble just boot from the backup and your good to go.
After initially setting mine up i never had any problems with it. Took me around half a day to get done and i got a machine with mac pro specs for a fraction of the price. For more info just check out toynmac´s site and get some inspiration. There are an incredible amounts of possible configurations and builds over there…

#52

Nice to offer advice mate but did you see this guys last post?
He’s about to kill people already, and you mention hackintosh?
Jeez, hope he hasn’t done anything impetuous.
It’s honestly hard to give solid advice here though as it is hard to know where to start?
You are going to have to try and grasp some fundamentals first before people can really help.
We’re living on the information highway now and all the answers to every question ever asked are just a few mouse clicks away. Google is your best friend, YouTube has the answers to the meaning of life. There’s porn like you wouldn’t believe yeah baby
Heck I reckon if I wanted to be a brain surgeon I’d just YouTube it
Have you read the instruction manuals for a start?
Can’t understand how it can be so hard, it’s really just a case of isolating one thing at a time, plug A into B, load software. Repeat if necessary.
Try and break it down like this and things shouldn’t be so overwhelming.
Good luck, and if all else fails grab your guitar and rock on (don’t kill anyone with it)
Elektron have a killer drive pedal you can check out

#53

Yeah you are right, the hackintosh idea might not have been the best advice in this situation. But i also like to encourage people not to be put off by stuff that like that. Most of times things only seem complicated until you get into them. I was referencing to the fact that he wanted to get a desktop and is not so sure about which platform to choose. From this perspective it wasn´t such a bad Idea.
Making complex ITB / OTB setups work nicely can be a bit tricky at times.
What i found is at times its tempting to think that electronic music production setups are meant to do whatever we want them to do, but that might just be a misconception. After all the the relationship human/machine goes both ways. So my advice is to see how you can setup your machines in a reliable way and see that as given. Let that influence how you work with your machines and do not try to force them do something they can not. There is great potential for creativity in this approach.

#54

Interesting thread! Especially after Apple killed off my Macbook Pro hopes with THAT price… haha

I’ve narrowed my own situation down to either a Dell XPS 15 or a Razer Blade Stealth. I need something that covers basically everything - music production, a bit of gaming, Office work, etc. Bloody hard to decide though! Quad vs Dual, internal GPU vs Razer’s Core, 4k vs HD, etc etc. I’m sure I’ll get there eventually…

#55

Let’s focus on your TR8. So you want to see 14 outputs from your TR8 in Ableton Live? Sounds like this isn’t happening for you. What’s happening instead?

I doubt Hackintosh vs. the most basic iMac model would help you here.

#56

I was pretty much convinced I’d build a hackintosh soon, but a few days ago I saw a series of tweets by a developer guy who really knows his shit especially with graphics. He had built one, and then it totally came apart. It deleted an entire partition on his SSD, and then there were some pics of critical applications freaking out in silly ways - so uhh no thanks, I’m not into this. A lot of people who build these say “they work 100%”, have you had any problems?

edit: just saw you mentioned you had no problems whatsoever…

well here’s these tweets:

^ this is the kind of computer shit I don’t want to deal with…

2 Likes
#57

man fuck that, OSX is not that good … especially not the new iterations… maybe back in the 10.6 era… maybe - certainly not nowadays

its not like win10 is super good, but OSX isnt that much better … both have their ups and downs

too bad linux world never got its shit together enough to be a workable platform with robust audio hardware/software support - from what i understand it handles real-time processing far better than mac or windows, and could theoretically provide audio buffers in the sub-millisecond range… at least thats what the linux nerds tell me

#58

Just a quick question.
If I have all vsts I shouldn’t have any issues making the switch from apple to windows? Vst is a standard on both platforms?
Cheers

#59

As much as everyone is having a whinge about the new MBP’s, Macs are incredibly robust and secure systems, and offer little obfuscation for the user when it comes to getting what you want done. While the update cycle is probably a headache for devs, in many ways it pushes developers to stay current and updated, and often you’ll see things sorted on Mac while Windows users suffer. I agree the new Macs are expensive, they always have been, but Macs, like Elektron gear, have good resale value, so it’s an investment in some ways if you choose to trade up at some point. I agree with Void a new 13" MBP would be a rocking audio machine, but, if OB is important to you then get a previous gen retina 13" on El Capitan as Sierra is not currently supported, and I’m not sure the newer Macs could roll back to older OS’s. That said Elektron have said they are on it, so if you do go for a newer model an update should not be far away as they also have AH users to consider. There is also the Overhub available for purchase, and a Belkin USB-c to Micro USB-B cable can get you sorted for up to 7 USB ports as dongle-less solution. Good luck with your choice.

#60

Well the Mac PC debate is like fighting in Gaza
There will never be a winner and will keep going on and on.
Personally I have gone full circle.
Started producing electronic music about 20 years ago on PC.
Kept hearing that once you try Mac you’ll never go back so switched about 7 years ago to Mac.
It was good, nice and stable, no BSOD but came the time last year to update and could not justify the extra expense for a new Mac. Prices seemed to have jumped considerably.
Anyway fully pimped and customised a new PC and have been lovin it ever since.
Windows 10 is really good, as apposed to that debacle that was Windows 8.
Had Windows 8 on my shitty laptop and was like chewing razor blades.
What an absolute dog.
Anyway new PC rock solid, not one crash and reckon it could power the starship enterprise.
Absolute beast, and about half price of equivalent spec Mac