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Post by Ward on Feb 20, 2018 12:09:48 GMT -6
It’s all about the verb man! Pass the bricasti bro! I love Biscotti with my coffee!! |
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Post by guitfiddler on Feb 20, 2018 12:42:30 GMT -6
It’s all about the verb man! Pass the bricasti bro! I love Biscotti with my coffee!! A magnificent correlation, and combination! |
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Post by avgatzeblouz on Feb 20, 2018 13:41:06 GMT -6
I'm on windows since day one, and I think it just got better and better, especially since win7. I think Protools runs much better on Mac OS, but all Acustica products seem to run better on windows. Mac seems to be on a bad pass since a few years. I hear from video guys who used to swear by Apple it's getting worse and worse. Adobe Premiere has tons of issues just getting OMFs done on Mac OS, when they have no issues at all on windows. The old reality of mac is better written and windows crashes all the time has disappeared with win7 and up. Even though it was true. Now they both crash from time to time, but very rarely.
To summarize, I think Mac is overpriced, but if you run Protools or Logic, then stay on mac, and they are fine computers and beautiful cosmetic designs. If you run Samplitude, Cubase, etc... anyone should give Windows a go, just to save around 1500$. You can hate it, be indifferent, love it, but it will be an educated decision.
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Post by Bender on Feb 20, 2018 14:00:27 GMT -6
Windows all day all night decade plus... OS version XP to Windows 10 from everything in between... from 32bit to 64bit... upgrading computers over the years and cross installing & upgrading plugins....ZERO ISSUES Ever. Just goes to show you YMMV
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ericn
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Post by ericn on Feb 20, 2018 14:18:55 GMT -6
John just buy a used one generation old Mac let somebody else eat that the cost of that new Mac smell!
If you know what your doing you probably can save a bit by building your own PC, but you have to know what you are doing otherwise the savings are minimal.
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Post by mrholmes on Feb 20, 2018 15:38:32 GMT -6
John just buy a used one generation old Mac let somebody else eat that the cost of that new Mac smell! If you know what your doing you probably can save a bit by building your own PC, but you have to know what you are doing otherwise the savings are minimal. I had that decision to do a few weeks ago and I decided to go with refurbished Mac Pros 5.1 @ 3.4 GHZ 12 Cores....they are 1.7 k used and very high in the Logic Benchmark. |
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Post by mcirish on Feb 20, 2018 16:26:11 GMT -6
Does anyone here run a windows laptop with thunderbolt? I have an HP laptop that has Thunderbolt. I connect my Lynx Aurora 16 TB to it for remote recordings. Has been stable. In the studio, I use the Lynx with my main PC that has a Gigabyte motherboard with TB. That has been flawless running Windows 10. |
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Post by svart on Feb 21, 2018 20:13:53 GMT -6
Yall are just killing me talking about I7 macs being "old" and needing to be upgraded and stuff.
I just upgraded my recording computer to an I5, after running an I3 for a few years, after running a Gen ONE pentium 4 for 15+ years.. Two power supplies and a HDD with a single win 7 reinstall is what that computer needed in 15 years to keep it running.
I run Reaper, and I regularly have 30-40 tracks playing back at 24/88 with a lot of 44.1 and 96 tracks that people bring me being samplerate converted on the fly in Reaper. I run plugs in reaper, as well as running the SSL mixer software that also has VST wrappers running on CPU.
It barely gets warm. It cost me around 600$ to build. My tippy-top of the line gaming/video editing machine cost me around 1500$ to build and 500$ of that is the video card. I could probably run 200 tracks in reaper on that I7-7700K CPU without it sweating.
The stability trick is, once you get it set up and running good, you disconnect it from the internet. I don't mean just unplug it, I mean turn off networking completely. Buy a cheap laptop with the money you saved, for surfing and downloading crap and so you can virus scan stuff people bring in on USB drives.
The other trick is to use Intel motherboards. They are the most stable motherboards that I've used. Buy the best power supply you can. Platinum or gold rated, 50% higher wattage than you think you need so it doesn't stress much.
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Post by johneppstein on Feb 21, 2018 21:34:05 GMT -6
Microsoft has moved to monthly security updates and semi-annual feature updates. I'm running Windows 10 Home and have only had a single Microsoft update problem which was fixed by re-installing a plug-in. The only "tweaks" I do is to disable the power/battery saving features. I suspect people get into a lot of the trouble I never see by tweaking windows. Macs don't have as much access under the hood which leads to fewer problems. I've always run a "dumb" system because I assume that's what developers expect most of their customers to be using. I've always run a backup system disk and continued that practice when I moved from Mac to windows in 2002. In addition to a safe backup to previous versions, it allows me to directly compare OS versions using the very same hardware. I found Windows 8 both more reliable and faster than Windows 7 so I switched in spite of absolutely hating the interface. Windows 10 gives me the performance advantages of Windows 8 along with a much better interface. Coming from Macs, I've never had any interest in making it look like Windows NT which I suspect is why a lot of Windows fans seem to prefer Windows 7. I highly recommend the Pro Tools PC folks. Their hardware is all tested to be compatible with Mac OS if you want to go that route and is rock-solid running Pro Tools on Windows. www.pro-tools-pc.comYou can opt to install updates automatically, to be asked if you want to install an update, or to not install updates. Also MS's security updates are uisually just that - security updates - they don't go changing other things around just for the halibut (and to make you buy updates for all your other software.) (Does Apple get a kickback for that?) I generally keep updates turned off on general principle. Very occasionally when a serious new exploit is discovered my antivirus warns me that I need to install update number so-and-so and I do. This in on the general purpose box. The studio box only goes on the internet to update drivers. |
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Post by kilroyrock on Feb 21, 2018 22:09:12 GMT -6
I run win 10, 6 core 12 thread with 16 gig ram. Still cost me 500-700. Runs solid. Tb2 as well. Running a clarrett pre8x with it. Be comfortable with it, hell, dual boot to windows and see if you can deal with it before replacing with a pic?
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Post by rocinante on Feb 22, 2018 10:15:53 GMT -6
I'm running an HP z800 dual hex processor (That's 12 cores) Windows 7 pc with 24 gigs of ram (upgradable to a ridiculous 192). I also have 3 ssd's and a 1 terrabyte hd. I built it for about $600. I can record and play back 24 tracks at 96k with plug ins on about 10-12 tracks without a hiccup. I love this computer. It's never given me a problem. It even has pcie slots and is avid/digidesign approved (whatever that means). At one point I had avid hd cards in it and Rme pcie cards in it. I currently use 2 x bla modded hd192s and a bla modded 2408 mk3 for monitoring through my modded Ghost. I track bands and my judge of pc's is if they have ever failed during a session. This one has not. If it broke I'd buy another.
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Post by matt on Feb 22, 2018 15:49:32 GMT -6
No one's mentioned it, and it might not be a general problem, but a friend of mine built a machine around a 10-core i7 extreme and the stock cpu and system fans just roared - it was server loud. Sounded like it was about to take off. And it was also a miniature furnace. He went to liquid cooling to suppress the heat/noise and it wasn't even built with recording in mind, but high-end gaming. If you build a PC, it might be good to keep this in mind if you spec a monster and the thing is gonna sit right next to you.
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Post by svart on Feb 22, 2018 17:20:25 GMT -6
Another thing I mentioned in another thread that isn't mentioned here is that a lot of programs these days still don't properly support multiple cores beyond quad cores. Especially in video editing CPU speed still yields much more processing power than having more cores at slower clock rates. I would bet that this holds true with audio editing as well. I would choose a much higher speed CPU with fewer cores then a slow CPU with a lot of course. This will also likely mean a cooler running computer.
My recording computer with the I5 runs much larger fans at slower speeds to keep the flow rate the same as smaller fans running faster would. I can barely hear it in the room sitting three feet away.
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Post by ericn on Feb 22, 2018 18:26:45 GMT -6
No one's mentioned it, and it might not be a general problem, but a friend of mine built a machine around a 10-core i7 extreme and the stock cpu and system fans just roared - it was server loud. Sounded like it was about to take off. And it was also a miniature furnace. He went to liquid cooling to suppress the heat/noise and it wasn't even built with recording in mind, but high-end gaming. If you build a PC, it might be good to keep this in mind if you spec a monster and the thing is gonna sit right next to you. That’s some of the details you have to understand when building a PC! I know a guy who built PC’s for a living who built a rack mount video editing machine, used a chassis from a company he had used for 1 u rackmount servers for years, well the bigger chassis was built with paper thin metal and vibrated with any fan or even spinner drives! |
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Post by popmann on Feb 22, 2018 18:58:58 GMT -6
I've had more studio related noise issues with Macs and windows machines I've built. But, as I point out every time this comes up...this is not about the operating system-it's about the hardware. No one makes quieter, more power efficient, and more elegant SMALL computers than Apple. IMO....as much as that can be "opinion"--I guess "elegant" maybe....anyway--but, if you need to do what John does, which is virtual instrument based music creation, buying a retail Windows machine is simply a crapshoot that I'd bet against.
...and I'm on the side of the studio tower for both performance and TOC. Apple doesn't make them. They leave that up to you now. I also appreciate that for a HOME studio, there is nothing more elegant than an iMac. I mean....a pimped iMac, which means one with enough internal nvme to hold all the sample based VIs and itunes and project files....can literally be wireless keyboard and the best mouse ever made....and a single sleek 27" screen....few USB dongles in the back....thunderbolt to an interface in a rack elsewhere. As soon as you make that a Mini or dock a laptop or one of those ashtray looking things, that's mostly over.
This time, I'm thinking about building into the studio desk...hits both goals--non proprietary hardware build for that TOC and long term repair....and there's no tower sitting somewhere with a bunch of wires running to/fro....I can keep that near silent at load--even if I can't imagine finding load on a modern machine....doing music production? Maybe I'll switch to all Mixbus at 192khz just because I can.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 22, 2018 19:47:21 GMT -6
I have win 8.1 on several machines and win7 on the one that i track with in the rehearsal room.
They just work. For the "teletubby" interface of Win 8: There is a small very reliable and free software named "Classic Shell" that gives me the Windows surface that i prefer, i can choose several older Windows flavours and can use the OS surface of my choice, which is some mix of Win7 and XP, because i hate the Ribbon Control concept.
Works fabulous. My machine at home runs 24/7, i told the machine to not make automatic updates, so nothing interferes with anything. Going thru a list of simple optimizations to accomodate the OS for audio tasks is doable even for beginners. Let's say, all in all, i would need half an hour maximum to bring the system to my personal very preferred comfort zone.
I had 2 issues with the much hated "blue screen" that many associate with Windows. 1x faulty external hardware, 1x faulty 3rd party driver. That's it. In how many years? Since Win8 came out. 24/7. IMHO, Windows 8 does things better that Windows 7 invented, and 8.1 is more than stable to me, and i have absolutely no performance problem. My older i7 machines have huge very high quality PSU, high quality case and huge air cooling systems. Quiet as it gets, i can sleep with the ear next to them and am very, very picky about computer noise. All in all, my flagship machine costed less than 1300 Euros in parts and was an afternoon of building. OK, i was an IT pro, so you better get someone who knows what he is doing...
I get virtual hyperthreading cores with 3.6 GHz of processing power, and if i make a very simple overclocking thing (upping multi) i can bring it to 4.1 GHz rock stable, although i barely need it. I can even do this while a session is running, in software. One of the better quality ASRock mainboards - it rocks while beeing very reasonably priced... It has an SSD, where the system is on, i have a second one, that is an exact image and is powered but disconnected, so i am on the safe side, when the first SSD might get faulty. I have absolutely no fear of power problems, the PSUs i buy nowadays have a good part on the budget, and are absolutely worth it. Silent, barely muves some air, CPU runs with less than 50 degree celsius, it get's barely warm and most of the time the computer barely moves air, i have to look at the LED to be sure it is running. It's fabulous. My internal data drive is a WD red, that is made for 24/7 operation, and it works smooth, quiet and flawlessly.
This rig runs flawlessly for years, internet and all. No problem, except maybe if you do something really stupid ... like opening a document in a virus email or so. In this case, nothing is going to help you, no matter what OS...
I am no Apple hater. I just can't afford them. I started serious work with computers on an Apple II and later worked with the Performas etc. in my daytime job. But damn, no matter how people tell my they are worth the money, each time i calculate and read reviews and talk to friends about it ... i always come back to Win world. And each time i read about "does it still work on <insert actual animal or landscape name>?" i am pretty happy with this choice, just saying. I am just not going Windows 10 because of the update and phoning home etc. attitude M$ does show with this one. I know my systems, they work flawlessly and perform well, so hopefully i can stay with the 7/8 era win for a few years more, thanks to USB audio class compliance in so many pieces of hardware, there is no need to switch to anything. Although I already heard good things about Win 10 from someone i trust deepheartedly, so, in case there is no alternative, i would still go with the next Windows. Actually, Apples online, update etc. politics is no doubt not even a pinch better than the one of MS. I really hope to do more in Linux in future, there is only few things that hold me back, and actually one of them is the audio hardware manufacturers with their moronic anti-ALSA attitude. But it gets better, see USB audio class compliance...
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Post by Bob Olhsson on Feb 22, 2018 20:01:21 GMT -6
I asked somebody who knows a lot about DSP what is an optimal computer. He told me the key is floating point calculations per second. He said six cores are ideal and the latest generation Intel will be the fastest even if the clock speed is lower than an older generation. In other words, six cores of the fastest version of the very latest generation Intel cpu will perform the best.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 22, 2018 20:09:13 GMT -6
And yes, since Cakewalk is dumped by Gibson, i try to do everything i do with Mixbus. And i love it more and more the longer i use it. It has some shortcomings still, but the advantages especially at mixing time outweigh these by far, and Harrison constantly pushes the development of Ardour, the underlying open source DAW. I love that. Proprietary technology only, where it is necessary, the sound and console like workflow plugins. Couldn't be happier. And if i ever decide for another OS - Mixbus is multi-platform. Love that.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 22, 2018 20:15:45 GMT -6
I asked somebody who knows a lot about DSP what is an optimal computer. He told me the key is floating point calculations per second. He said six cores are ideal and the latest generation Intel will be the fastest even if the clock speed is lower than an older generation. In other words, six cores of the fastest version of the very latest generation Intel cpu will perform the best. The new intel 6x cores or their follow-ups will definitely be the choice for my next computer build, although it will take a while til then i guess. They are incredibly fast CPU power. I already saw extensive test results in comparison to what i now use, oh boy, these are really great performers, especially in real world applications with lots of FP calculations, this remark of Bob is SO true.... |
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Post by matt on Feb 22, 2018 20:30:29 GMT -6
No one makes quieter, more power efficient, and more elegant SMALL computers than Apple This is the argument that took me to an 8-core trashcan. It is whisper-quiet. The fan exhaust is warm but there's no defeating physics. It's kind of nice in the winter to have a hand warmer nearby. Expensive as hell- yes. Badass- yes. Last year, my little 2012 mini was not cutting it anymore, and I was dead in the water. No sessions would reliably run. And as an Apogee Symphony MK1 user, I am married to mac. So there it is. It was painful to open my wallet to the tune of $4K, but I don't regret it. And I'm using all six thunderbolt ports, it's beautiful. $666 per port. Chew on that for a sec. |
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Post by forgotteng on Feb 23, 2018 8:20:09 GMT -6
I have been building my own PC's for the last 10 years. My system has been rock solid for a while. With processing being what it is now a days things are way smoother than it was. The ticket for me is the ugradability. I usually upgrade processors or motherboards etc. every 2 or 3 years but at a cost of a couple hundred dollars instead of the couple thousand Apple expects to keep up with the Jones'. I don't care what anyone says Apple is not the same as it was back in the day. The money I have saved on being uncool has went into outboard hardware.
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Post by ericn on Feb 23, 2018 9:03:48 GMT -6
I have been building my own PC's for the last 10 years. My system has been rock solid for a while. With processing being what it is now a days things are way smoother than it was. The ticket for me is the ugradability. I usually upgrade processors or motherboards etc. every 2 or 3 years but at a cost of a couple hundred dollars instead of the couple thousand Apple expects to keep up with the Jones'. I don't care what anyone says Apple is not the same as it was back in the day. The money I have saved on being uncool has went into outboard hardware. I miss chip swapping in Mac’s One of the saddest days was when they switched to solder mobile CPU’s in Minis ! And my first Gen MAC PRO that started life with 4 cores and grew up to be an 8 core still holds its own! |
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Post by guitfiddler on Feb 23, 2018 9:11:40 GMT -6
I have been building my own PC's for the last 10 years. My system has been rock solid for a while. With processing being what it is now a days things are way smoother than it was. The ticket for me is the ugradability. I usually upgrade processors or motherboards etc. every 2 or 3 years but at a cost of a couple hundred dollars instead of the couple thousand Apple expects to keep up with the Jones'. I don't care what anyone says Apple is not the same as it was back in the day. The money I have saved on being uncool has went into outboard hardware. I miss chip swapping in Mac’s One of the saddest days was when they switched to solder mobile CPU’s in Minis ! And my first Gen MAC PRO that started life with 4 cores and grew up to be an 8 core still holds its own! You have the 1,1 Mac Pro with the dual 2 core cpus? Changed them out for 4 core? I still have mine sitting and was right on the edge of upgrading my cpus, but ended up buying a new 64 bit machine. |
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Post by ericn on Feb 23, 2018 9:47:19 GMT -6
I miss chip swapping in Mac’s One of the saddest days was when they switched to solder mobile CPU’s in Minis ! And my first Gen MAC PRO that started life with 4 cores and grew up to be an 8 core still holds its own! You have the 1,1 Mac Pro with the dual 2 core cpus? Changed them out for 4 core? I still have mine sitting and was right on the edge of upgrading my cpus, but ended up buying a new 64 bit machine. Yeah It doesn’t see much use with the RADAR and I7 MBP in house but Its pretty worthless to sell, bought a 64 bit video card and did one of the firmware updates out there. I’m not a big plugin guy and never maxed it out! Biggest problem with the upgrade is you need to find some of the longest Allen Wrenches made to do the upgrade. At this point the chips are so stupid cheap your nuts not too! |
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Post by guitfiddler on Feb 23, 2018 10:01:42 GMT -6
You have the 1,1 Mac Pro with the dual 2 core cpus? Changed them out for 4 core? I still have mine sitting and was right on the edge of upgrading my cpus, but ended up buying a new 64 bit machine. Yeah It doesn’t see much use with the RADAR and I7 MBP in house but Its pretty worthless to sell, bought a 64 bit video card and did one of the firmware updates out there. I’m not a big plugin guy and never maxed it out! Biggest problem with the upgrade is you need to find some of the longest Allen Wrenches made to do the upgrade. At this point the chips are so stupid cheap your nuts not too! What CPU’s did you upgrade to? It’s been a while, but I know it can be upgraded to 2,1 with quad-cores. |
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