Pc User Thinking Of Switching Sides... Options

[japanarian]

I'm curious to know why you guys and gals prefer Mac over PC.

A little background on the guy asking:

my setup
Home: Intel Pentium 4/1.8Gig, Creative SB Audigy
Road: Intel Pentium M(Centrino)
WinXP Home
Cubase VST/(VST and DirectX plug-ins)
WaveLab 3.0

Pretty lean right now, but I'm slowly building my setup. Most of what I do is sequenced, but I would like to someday build a home studio and have guests either sing or play on my tracks. I sometimes spend a lot of time on the road for work(the day-job) and I like being able to work on my music in the hotel room(can I get away with a PowerBook in a home studio setup too?)

Any suggestions are appreciated.

The J.

[Podfather]

Japanarian - Ive just done exactly that.

Ive been using a PC for about 5 years with Cubase then Cubase SX. A bout 6 weeks ago I decided to take the plunge and go Mac with with Logic Pro 7.1.



Differences Ive noticed so far.

Pros of Mac

1. When I go back to my PC (on the desk next to my Mac at home) it looks very cartoony.

2. On the Mac - everything just works first time. I installed Logic Pro 7.1 and it worked. The I installed my RME fireface 800 and that worked. Then I installed my Mackie Control and that worked. Guess what - when I installed my Emagic Unitor 8 midi interface that worked as well.

3. Compare this with my PC. Currently the EMU 1212 card in my PC works sometimes and doesnt work other times becasue the DSP patch mix keeps coming up with an error.

4. When I ask a question on a mac forum I seem to avoid the sort of daft answers I used to get on PC based music forums.

5. My friend uses Logic Pr0 7.1 with his new powerbook and it works just fine.



Pros of PC

1. Cheaper by a mile. And you can upgrade them yourself.

2. Apple support is bad - I mean real bad. However, Logic Pro support is some of the best Ive ever come accross.

3. Software is cheap becasue anyone can write a program for the PC. They dont have to have it certified by Apple.

4. More choice of software for the PC and its cheaper.

5. You can integrate with fellow users more easily. I recently wanted a mix for a band I did in Logic Pr0 7 to be mastered by a couple fo friends of mine. Unfortuantley everyon I know with good mastering software uses Cubase on the PC.


Summary - I asked the same question about 3 months ago and am glad I switched. There is something almost ethereal and certainly professional about my Mac that makes music production more of a journey and less of a task.