Why do most electronic producers have macbook pros?

[KovalainenFanBoy]

it just werks!!

[luke viia]

 

man, all you guys saying "it just feels right" blows my mind, every time I sit behind a mac laptop I have to squint, the damn mousepad doodad never works right or well, the keys are all smushed together, the OS is a nuisance, the screen just looks bad, and most of the time the ones my friends own have screens too small to open up all the in/out tabs in ableton so it becomes a hassle to route everything i'm setting up for them, and of course, none of my friends with macs have any idea what they're doing. BAH!

Alas, we didn't even make it one page.

 

 

this thread didn't even make it one post, don't blame me, buddy. besides, I use a mac desktop at work, I'm not exlusive. Full of love over here.

[sweepstakes]

I felt like OP was asking an honest question rather than typical Mac/PC trolling, though I see your point.

[Polytrix]

It was an honest question! oh dear.

[luke viia]

hey, I wasn't trolling. I commented on shit said in this very thread! "it just feels right" is the first response to the OP!

 

*leaves the thread in tired and trolled tatters*

 

[Polytrix]

Haha it's all good man. Lively discussion. I think I've just never used mac stuff so wonder why it commands such a high price tag.

My ex bloody loves it though. At the end of the day, I can have really exciting moments just hitting things with spoons in my kitchen so it's all good really!! haha. You don't get latency with cutlery perc either.

[Brisbot]

woah some people have over-reacted. :P

My decision stems from the OPs question, I chose the windows over the mac OS due to the specs. It can simply handle more, which is what I need for my music. Most music producers don't go as overboard as I do though so maybe MAC OS is a good decision for them. But if you know ahead of time your projects can get convoluted, then FOCUS ON SPECS. If you don't have the money to shell out for an amazing MAC lappy, then get a windows one.

I have a windows custom desktop about 8 months old, spent 1.2k on it, and I STILL have have a few projects using crazy amounts of CPU, screwing up. I would be annoyed to bits now if I had to downgrade to a mac with these projects (for the same price). Having this computer has felt wonderful since I rarely feel bogged down by specs.

There's no way I'd pay the same amount for a lesser mac desktop or laptop that would only be able to handle 60-80% of that. I like never slowing down, with lots things happening, and I like playing video games at max. I do browse a lot which I'm sure a MAC is better/funner for, but like.. my windows does the job just fine, so I could care less when I'm getting major pluses with audio and games.

aesthetic and ease of browsing is important yes, but before you say that you need to look at how you work and make a decision from there. If you're not willing to shell out the requisite cash for a MAC, then get a windows.

This is just anecdotal, but I will say I have another friend with a mac, who's a music producer, and who make house music. So there's not nearly as much stuff going as as in my tracks. He complains sometimes about how often his mac slows down on him. I've made a few house tracks for fun, no such issues. Not even close. We're talking 10% of cpu used after I'm done. I just checked. That said his mac is almost 3 years old so. It might be 3 by now. So that might be the main issue. I also have no clue how much he spent on it.

[sweepstakes]

There are too many variables to really make a definitive statement besides that, yes, Macs are definitely more expensive for the same spec.

 

Other than that, all I'm sure of is, ASIO is a piece of shit, or at least it was last I used it - is there a good replacement now? And I really hate dealing with JACK too. I spent like a week wrestling with it about a year and a half ago and it convinced me once and for all that I lack the patience for Linux audio. That said I still want to get a Raspberry Pi to use with PD & Node.js as a dedicated MIDI processor / controller hub.

[sweepstakes]

Also, I'm curious what % of PC users also play video games on them. I'll bet this is a factor.

[Brisbot]

@sweepstakes

A good replacement for ASIO? I got a dedicated audio card (100 bucks or so) that I plug my headphones and monitors into. ASIO only effected latency though, not much in the way of CPU strength.

I have a very minimal setup. the audio card, midi keyboard (small one at that), nanokontrol2 which has like 16 movable parameters which is enough for me, monitors, headphones.

Anymore and I feel like that begins to detract from my workflow. It becomes combobulated in my head.

I wouldn't say there are too many variables at all. The only thing I've gotten in addition to the setup WAS the card for like 10 ms less latency and a slight increase in CPU.

ASIO = 15 ms latency, card = 5 ms. I just checked it, with it using the same cpu. So ASIO might be better than it was when you used it.

What I'm trying to say is that I don't see a compelling reason to downgrade my experience if I were to trade in for what is equal to what i've spent. The headache of bouncing all of the crap I do out to audio isn't worth the Mac for any reason I can think of. I RARELY have to bounce out to audio. Only when I know I won't be changing stuff anytime soon.

I should also note that I got a custom desktop w/ windows. Which is notably cheaper than getting one from the store, which is notably cheaper than getting a mac laptop from the store. Unless you can custom build mac laptops for cheap. I have no clue if you can.

[sweepstakes]

The big thing that annoyed me about ASIO was only being able to get low latency audio from one application at a time, even on a device that had a lot of audio I/O. Most of the time it wasn't a big deal for me, and I'm sure it's not for people who just use one host application all the time. If you try to use, say, Renoise alongside Max, though, it can get pretty annoying. I know you can use Rewire to get around this to some degree but that has its own awkwardness & limitations.

[Brisbot]

Also, I'm curious what % of PC users also play video games on them. I'll bet this is a factor.

It won't let me edit my post?!

 

Anyway actually this is a factor in another way. :3

 

I originally bought my computer to play the oculus rift. So for 1.3k, I got two graphics cards and a pretty good cpu. Looking back, I would have instead gotten a top of the line cpu, and one graphics card. Maybe save up and get the dual in 2016 sometime. My own cpu performs at about 80% of what the "best" ones can do that are also affordable and not 500+. I think in a few years I'll be regretting that decision, but right now I really don't have problems with my setup at all.

[Brisbot]

The big thing that annoyed me about ASIO was only being able to get low latency audio from one application at a time, even on a device that had a lot of audio I/O. Most of the time it wasn't a big deal for me, and I'm sure it's not for people who just use one host application all the time. If you try to use, say, Renoise alongside Max, though, it can get pretty annoying. I know you can use Rewire to get around this to some degree but that has its own awkwardness & limitations.

again, my edit is gone...w/e.

 

Anyway you're right about that. I got the audio card before I started using rewire for anything, which I use for max sometimes. I found out about that afterward.

 

I actually like Rewire. It's not intuitive, but I'm happy it works the way it does. It's simple to get working when you know how to make it work and the fact that you have control over it with midi from the host application is the tits.

[sweepstakes]

Yeah, it wasn't horrible really. But it adds an extra step, and iirc there were some annoying limitations, like the audio being one directional - for example I don't think I could pipe a virtual output from Renoise into Reaktor for processing, and then feed it back into Renoise.

 

The MIDI situation was similar when I was using WIndows for audio too. To pipe a MIDI input into a MIDI output, you had to get some kind of virtual patchbay. Which is fine I guess, but a lot of them were buggy and I'm sure they add latency as well. OSX has this kind of MIDI routing baked right in and it's really easy to work with.

[Brisbot]

 

 

OSX has this kind of MIDI routing baked right in and it's really easy to work with.

Fair enough, but that's now taken care of on my end. I originally bought the audio card for my monitors by the way, not for the boost in latency. ASIO was good enough really. 15 ms isn't too noticeable, especially with my crappy playing.

 

The argument I'm trying to make is that windows for the same price is better for music production than a mac. Especially if you have lots of stuff going on at once. Which I do. I'm one of those guys that make lead and bass sounds out of three different vsts each using 1 osc and having independent mixer channels each with several more FX plugins stacked on them independently. My computer can handle this so I don't see why I shouldn't. If I had much less I'd be more hesitant to.

 

Now if you'd never do this, then maybe MAC is for you. But I like as much customization as I can. I don't believe in limiting myself. Heh.

 

The only time when I have issues is when I'm using too many sample libraries in kontakt. I think it's a RAM issue even then since I start getting weird/major spikes in "CPU", when they randomly, and I mean randomly, jump from 40% to 99%. That's only if I'm using too many.

[sweepstakes]

The argument I'm trying to make is that windows for the same price is better for music production than a mac. Especially if you have lots of stuff going on at once. Which I do. I'm one of those guys that make lead and bass sounds out of three different vsts each using 1 osc and having independent mixer channels each with several more FX plugins stacked on them independently. My computer can handle this so I don't see why I shouldn't. If I had much less I'd be more hesitant to.

Now if you'd never do this, then maybe MAC is for you. But I like as much customization as I can. I don't believe in limiting myself. Heh.

I think I understand your argument but what I'm hearing is that it's better for your personal style of music production, with the tools you personally use. That said, your approach does seem to be much closer to the norm (sounds like Ableton or similar?) than mine, so your subjective opinion here is probably more relevant than mine to this discussion about general trends of computer choices in music production.

[Brisbot]

what's your production style? I heavily use software. I've used hardware before but it's all sampled.

I would say in simpler terms. If whatever you do isn't pushing your computer to its max, then get whatever you want.

I don't think that's subjective to say, since if I tried to do what I do with a 1.3k mac lappy, I would be forced to approach it differently since I simply, in literal terms (not subjective) DO NOT have the power I have now with my desktop. I'd have to be bouncing everything out to audio, which is a major kill to the flow I get into when I'm inspired. I just hate having to decide "when I'm done for now" and end up having like 10 different sections bounced out to audio. It's annoying and a buzzkill to keep track of on my HD and in the project. Thankfully I don't have to with my computer.

I use FL Studio. I do take a common approach, but I go way overboard with it. I have on track right now where most of my 100 mixer channels are being used. I have 110 different sections open in its sequencer. Now if I HAD to, with a lesser computer, ANY lesser compy, MAC or PC, I could bounce tons of crap out to audio so I used up less space in the mixer. But since my CPU and RAM enables a higher level of freedom, then I take it.

I love the freedom my setup gives me. I just rarely have to work within certain confines, and out of that comes lots of ideas.

[Polytrix]

Haha holy shit, I just checked my latency - using an external focusrite 6i6 set which is an ASIO driver at 8.0ms buffer size I get an overall latency of 60.7ms. I usually mix at a buffer size of 20ms which leads to an overall latency of 119ms! Oh dear.

 

Am i doing something wrong to be getting this much latency then??? I do have a dual core craptop with 4gb ram and a pretty small HD. Rest is on externals.

[Brisbot]

I was curious about how good Mac laptops are now vs my computer, so I'll use this $2,500 MAC BOOK as an example:

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/pro-audio/apple-macbook-pro-15-2.5ghz-quad-core-16gb-512gb-hd-mgxc2ll-a?cntry=us&source=3WWRWXGP&gclid=COCQ_6fF6sUCFY0kgQod2FUA0w&kwid=productads-plaid^80556015387-sku^J13556000000000@ADL4MF-adType^PLA-device^c-adid^51870555867

AROUND TWICE as much as I paid for. A little less but still.

We both have 16 gigs of RAM. The lappy may be a bit better since I'm not sure about the speed or type. My RAM might not even be a problem though.

I have an intel i7, 3.7 ghz, can be overclocked to like 5.0 GHz supposedly ( don't wanna test that). This laptop has and i7, 2.5 ghz. Both great for music production, but mine can simply push more out. And I've used that extra GHZ plenty of times the past 8 months.

512 GB Flash Storage. I have 2 hard drives, one 2 TB for storage, and another 200 GB one for my OS. I would have already burnt through this HD a long time ago.

There are a number of more minor variables that could potentially sway someone to get the MAC book pro assuming they don't care about the cash. They could easily get a badass 2.5k windows PC and NEVER have issues... for like 5 years or something. BUT NOTHING should be nearly as important as RAM or CPU.

[Brisbot]

MY EDIT BUTTON KEEPS APPEARING AND DISAPPEARING. JOYREX...

 

Haha holy shit, I just checked my latency - using an external focusrite 6i6 set which is an ASIO driver at 8.0ms buffer size I get an overall latency of 60.7ms. I usually mix at a buffer size of 20ms which leads to an overall latency of 119ms! Oh dear.

 

Am i doing something wrong to be getting this much latency then??? I do have a dual core craptop with 4gb ram and a pretty small HD. Rest is on externals.

WOAH. I get 30-40 ms of latency if I forgo even ASIO and use the integrated Audio Card. That's the worst of it. No externals though.

I imagine it all comes down to CPU for you. As I said above I get a sub 10 ms. with my external focusrite... I think it was a 2i2 or 4i4.....or something. If my project is somewhat small I can even push that down to like.. sub 5 ms of latency, before hearing any audio issues.

[sweepstakes]

what's your production style? I heavily use software. I've used hardware before but it's all sampled.

 

I would say in simpler terms. If whatever you do isn't pushing your computer to its max, then get whatever you want.

 

I don't think that's subjective to say, since if I tried to do what I do with a 1.3k mac lappy, I would be forced to approach it differently since I simply, in literal terms (not subjective) DO NOT have the power I have now with my desktop. I'd have to be bouncing everything out to audio, which is a major kill to the flow I get into when I'm inspired. I just hate having to decide "when I'm done for now" and end up having like 10 different sections bounced out to audio. It's annoying and a buzzkill to keep track of on my HD and in the project. Thankfully I don't have to with my computer.

 

I use FL Studio. I do take a common approach, but I go way overboard with it. I have on track right now where most of my 100 mixer channels are being used. I have 110 different sections open in its sequencer. Now if I HAD to, with a lesser computer, ANY lesser compy, MAC or PC, I could bounce tons of crap out to audio so I used up less space in the mixer. But since my CPU and RAM enables a higher level of freedom, then I take it.

 

I love the freedom my setup gives me. I just rarely have to work within certain confines, and out of that comes lots of ideas.

I'm not a serious producer so that docks my opinion even more, but I mostly use hardware. I like software like Max because I can build whatever I want in it. I like simple, fixed architectures that are easy to jam with, whether they're created by someone else or something I cooked up in a modular environment like Max or Reaktor. The standard DAW approach of being able to add as many instruments as you want weirds me out, so I don't roll that way.

 

It seems like that's your jam (using the computer as much like a high-powered sound module as a composition / arrangement / editing / etc. tool) so it makes sense that you'd want a lot of power. I'm using mine mostly as a MIDI/sample/data swiss army knife so I don't need raw CPU power, I just want flexibility and a minimum of roadblocks. When I start making patches with hundreds of parallel delay lines and granular samplers I'm sure I'll see things from your perspective :)

[Polytrix]

Oh I don't get audible drop outs at that latency ( unless I'm pushing it hard, it just lags like hell.

 

That's using the focusrite yeah...I had hoped for better to be fair. I wonder if I can improve it. Isn't the new version of Ableton supposed to improve on latency?

 

I might contact Focusrite to see if I can better it.

[Polytrix]

I'd love a massive powerful desktop...I always have tonnes of vsts and love piling up effects on each track...I don't think a macbook pro would hack it for me 5 years down the line.

[modey]

I've used windows machines for years, ever since 3.1. I still have my vista laptop and two XP netbooks.

 

I switched to a 2009 macbook pro a couple of years ago and was utterly amazed when I didn't have to fuck around with asio4all just to get low latency audio (or even an external sound device), and that I could pause a reaper session and check a youtube video without having to completely disable the audio in reaper.

 

Also I'm not sure if I was doing something wrong all these years but external sound devices actually never affected latency or cpu usage for me in windows. I could never get the manufacturer's asio drivers to work so used asio4all, maybe that was the problem.

 

 

Oh, also, this one is fairly small but a pain, on my windows laptops I get horrible ground loop noise when recording (unless I break the earth pin on the plug) but my mbp doesn't get that at all.

 

 

edit: also my 6 year old mbp seems to be able to take anything I throw at it; I regularly record elaborate synth tracks with 50+ tracks of recorded vocals, synths and Reaktor instruments, each with multiple EQs, compressors, reverbs, etc (I'm talking each channel individually effected, then grouped and effected with a different set of plugins). I'm not sure why cpu power is an issue. It's been well known for years that macs seem underpowered compared to windows machines, but are just more efficient at using cpu power, at least that's what I've been led to believe, even when I was a 100% windows user.

[Brisbot]

 

 

I'd love a massive powerful desktop...I always have tonnes of vsts and love piling up effects on each track...I don't think a macbook pro would hack it for me 5 years down the line.

A $1,300 macbook pro doesn't hack it for me now. Heh. And a $2,500 would barely do the job. Thing is I don't pile on FX so much as like to use multiple VSTS for one part.

 

 

 

 

It seems like that's your jam (using the computer as much like a high-powered sound module as a composition / arrangement / editing / etc. tool) so it makes sense that you'd want a lot of power.

You're right, I've already conceded that. I'm somewhat atypical. Most people stick to one plugin per bass, for example. Most people like it simple, and that's not a problem against them, I personally just don't.

 

I wasn't making that argument, I was saying that PCs are cheaper and better for your money, as with the example I gave with the $2,500 MacBook. If I compared it to a $1,300 mac book then my point would be even more ground in. I shouldn't have to buy a... $2500-$3000 macbook for the power output I have currently.

 

 

 

 

I switched to a 2009 macbook pro a couple of years ago and was utterly amazed when I didn't have to fuck around with asio4all just to get low latency audio (or even an external sound device), and that I could pause a reaper session and check a youtube video without having to completely disable the audio in reaper.

After a got a cheapish dedicated Audio Card, that problem was fixed forever. Part of the reason I had to do this was because I custom built my computer, cheaply and to my specifications. So I had to buy EVERYTHING I needed. The only reason I had ASIO to begin with is because it was integrated into.. I guess my motherboard. Sometime 10 years ago or so, my parents got me a custom build computer for like 600 bucks that had no audio. I had no clue why at the time. Heh. Shoulda got Soundblaster :)

 

Even if ASIO was a problem, it's not worth an extra $1000+ (and I stress the plus) bucks to fix that with a Mac Book to me. The setup I have now is VERY smooth. I rarely crash, even with these projects with 8 GB plus ram from multiple sample libraries and tons of VSTs.