Mac or PC?

  Awepittance said:

  acid1 said:

Dang not lots of Mac love in this thread...

 

Mac has quite a few unmentioned tricks up it sleeve, Core audio/midi is really quite brilliant.

 

I can't really live without IAC drivers atm. I love being able to instantly network midi with my buddies (I have 3 friends who all have apple laptops), and I typically run Numerology, Renoise, and Ableton side-by-side just fine. I like not having to worry about which one I open first and just roll with whatever whenever creativity strikes.

 

I think you can do that on a PC its just not really built into the OS or as intuitive and I think there are a lot of surprises to be found built right in (DLS Synth anyone?)

 

ive been trying to find out some coreaudio tricks and one of the ones im having a problem with right now is how would you go about recording what you are hearing through the main audio bus?

In a lot of creative labs soundcards for PC they have a 'record what you hear' function in the mixer. On the mac i can't figure out how to record from anything besides the live input and the built in microphone. I know its possible because ive seen friends do it before. Numerology and Radial are two of my favorite things to play with since i got my macintosh, GIraffe is right we need a list of free mac osx plugins. I've found a site that has tons of AU and vst OSX plugins and they say free designated by a 'F' next to it, there are a lot of them here - http://www.macmusic.org/software/cat.php/lang/en/id/7037/

You have multiple options for this due to core audio:

$$: Use Ambrosia’s WireTap Pro

$$: Use Rogue Amoeba’s Audio Hijack

FREE: Route audio from app to app with Jack (also possible on Linux)

FREE: Route audio from app to app with Cycling 74’s Soundflower

Personally I use Soundflower. Since all audio shares the same core audio bus, you don't have to route anything. This is what I also use to record Renoise into Ableton.

primarily mac... but i'm going to start using both now that i have a pc!

  Awepittance said:

  Velazquez said:

why on earth would you put windows on a mac ? It's like putting a ford engine in a Ferrari . Shut up.

 

because an intel mac or 'ferarri' as you call it is now just a 'ford engine' in a really fancy chassy.

and the hardware on macs these days is only really great if you have an applecare warranty, quite a few people i know have had hardware failures on macs within 3 years of purchasing them including myself. Actually my motherboard was physically messed up out of the box (mac book pro 17 inch) they are prone to a lot of the same problems as a high end PC laptop because they use almost all 3rd party parts now. For aesthetics alone and pleasurable use the MAc book pro 17 inch is probably the best laptop money can buy, but if you want something thats going to last 5 + years with no problems imo a mac is no better than the high end Dells or a Vaios

 

and i'm with Braintree, i feel awfully sorry for people raised on Peak. They don't know what they are missing with Cool edit pro (The holy grail of wave editing software)

i have a G4 Powerbook, that's been bullettproof ( I spilled a full beer on it once), it's a shame to hear the newer macs are less stable. I'm going on 6 + years with it... when i do get a new computer I will probably go with a Mac but not neccessarily a laptop. I just like OSX but probably because all the pc's in my life ( work computers ) are shitty to begin with.

edit: cool pro edit

lol i use final cut as a wav editor.

  Jonas said:

for me...pc definitely,

 

but if you have poor discipline maintaining a stable system, maybe the mac os is better then windows. You can also run hackintosh on a pc.

this is very true, and sometimes i do have poor discipline. Like its really hard for me to separate my PC studio machine from the internet, and as a result its picked up some bothersome spyware and other shit that i cannot remove ( i have some really annoying trojan that plays a selection fo the limp bizkit song 'i did it all for the nookie' at totally random intervals, i have to mute my computer before i go to bed because of this)

My 87 year old grandma still has a very stable Emac from 2003, it runs just as fast as it did the day she bought it.

Any person who can afford to buy a mac who has absolutely no idea how to use a computer is a dumbass for buying a PC with windows. The new computer they bought will be unusable from spyware viruses and trojans at the 2nd month of owning it guaranteed, and the owner being computer illiterate will probably pay a local shop $150 to remove the spyware for them. It makes me sad to think of how many 45 year old + people using computers are being totally fucked in the ass by spyware stuff

re: Velazquez, MAc OSX is by far my preferred operating system, and i'd be willing to bet in 5-6 years OSX will be sold for PC intel systems and run pretty smooth, probably as good as it does on mac hardware.

My Powerbook G4 is still kicking it, but I feel it might be going soon.

Peak is kind of shit, except for the convolve vst that comes with it. And I like the delay, too. The interface just isn't as smooth as cool edit.

  Braintree said:

My Powerbook G4 is still kicking it, but I feel it might be going soon.

 

Peak is kind of shit, except for the convolve vst that comes with it. And I like the delay, too. The interface just isn't as smooth as cool edit.

i think as far as the older Motorola cpus macs go (g3,g4,g5) they seem to be more stable and have more life in them than the new intel based macs.

  acid1 said:

FREE: Route audio from app to app with Cycling 74's Soundflower

Personally I use Soundflower. Since all audio shares the same core audio bus, you don't have to route anything. This is what I also use to record Renoise into Ableton.

Nice one! I downloaded this last night and recorded youtube directly into Ableton Live. It works!

  glasse said:

  acid1 said:

FREE: Route audio from app to app with Cycling 74's Soundflower

Personally I use Soundflower. Since all audio shares the same core audio bus, you don't have to route anything. This is what I also use to record Renoise into Ableton.

 

Nice one! I downloaded this last night and recorded youtube directly into Ableton Live. It works!

yes it works rather well, thanks for the recommendation acid

  Awepittance said:

and i'm with Braintree, i feel awfully sorry for people raised on Peak. They don't know what they are missing with Cool edit pro (The holy grail of wave editing software)

truth

Difinitely, absolutly mac.

If you got an intel mac, you can :

A - install windows on a partition, then boot directly from it.

A/B - install vmware/parallels in OSX, then boot from your windows partition directly in OSX.

You can also install OSX on a PC with EFiX.