Quote Exalted Wombat:

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Quote johnny h:

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Quote Exalted Wombat:

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Obviously it will have to equal or better the new MacBooks, at a better price. They'll do it.

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Why obviously? Irrational mac-hatred?

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No, more to have a chance against irrational Mac-worship :-)

But shall we stick to tracking down PC notebooks that match MacBook specs for now?

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Exactly, PCs are only about specs. But they only tell you a small part of the story. How well are the features implemented, what chipsets are they using .. blah blah

Or you could get a mac. A MBP is pretty much guaranteed to work. No viruses, no need for support, no special chipsets, no crapware, no virus checkers / firewalls to set up. You can buy one, plug it in and it will work. Some people would rather that than trawling forums / spec sheets. I know you find that incredibly difficult to comprehend, but its true :-)

Also look at them. They look great! Do you not know anything about aesthetics and style whatsoever?!

Quote johnny h:

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Exactly, PCs are only about specs. But they only tell you a small part of the story. How well are the features implemented, what chipsets are they using .. blah blah

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This isn't really fair but regardless specs are important, the OP has stated a need for low latency and live recording of vst etc, for this a certain spec is required and also a platform that has great low latency ability, ie windows.

Quote johnny h:

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Or you could get a mac. A MBP is pretty much guaranteed to work. No viruses, no need for support, no special chipsets, no crapware, no virus checkers / firewalls to set up. You can buy one, plug it in and it will work. Some people would rather that than trawling forums / spec sheets. I know you find that incredibly difficult to comprehend, but its true :-)

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Again, the links provided by myself and others were to audio specific laptops that negate the need to trawl forums or look up in depth specs etc. They even test your hardware and software together with the new system so you just plug it in and go, surely this at least equal to the mac experience, if not a marked improvement? You also get audio specific support and not just for 90 days.

Quote johnny h:

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Also look at them. They look great! Do you not know anything about aesthetics and style whatsoever?!

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They do look nice and at the end of the day this seems to be a big factor, especially amongst artists, who wouldn't like to be seen on stage with a dell say. If you really want the look though there are loads of manufacturers who have some shiny lookalikes.

http://www.samsung.com/uk/consumer/pc-peripherals/notebook-computers/thin- and-light/NP900X3A-A01UK/index.idx?pagetype=prd_detail

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http://www.williammorrismusic.com

I spent most of yesterday evening trying to fix/reinstall and de-virus a mate's Vista laptop.

Seriously, the state of everything Windows is so shockingly appallingly bad I'm amazed *anything* ever works at all. And the sad thing is, people think this is just how computers are, because they know no better.

I will never, *ever* use a Windows PC for general computing use ever again.

Quote Will_m:

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They do look nice and at the end of the day this seems to be a big factor, especially amongst artists, who wouldn't like to be seen on stage with a dell say. If you really want the look though there are loads of manufacturers who have some shiny lookalikes.

http://www.samsung.com/uk/consumer/pc-peripherals/notebook-computers/thin- and-light/NP900X3A-A01UK/index.idx?pagetype=prd_detail

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This 'shiny lookalike' doesn't even have a firewire port, let alone an audio soundcard compatible one! It costs £1300 - £300 more than the MBP, it doesn't look as good and it won't have the resale value in a few years either. I don't understand how you can point to this machine as a serious option for a musician?

In the pic it also looks like it's been melted.

Well I tried keeping this on topic but obviously its not going to happen. I actually turned to windows after 3 years of bad experiences using macs in college. Since then I've either had purpose built audio machines or self builds, my latest machine is the most stable and powerful machine I've owned, its never let me down. Anyone will be able to recount bad experiences with both platforms

I understand you might have taken issue with a friends vista laptop Desmond but the truth is there are many completely satisfied users of windows, if there weren't the DAW builders would be out of business.

In this thread I've only tried to offer a solution to the OP who has stated he wanted great low latency performance. From looking at benchmarks windows is the clear winner so therefore I suggested a laptop from one of the daw builders. I'm not sure rants on windows are helpful, especially if you don't state a problem just that you're never using the platform again.

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http://www.williammorrismusic.com

Quote johnny h:

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Quote Will_m:

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They do look nice and at the end of the day this seems to be a big factor, especially amongst artists, who wouldn't like to be seen on stage with a dell say. If you really want the look though there are loads of manufacturers who have some shiny lookalikes.

http://www.samsung.com/uk/consumer/pc-peripherals/notebook-computers/thin- and-light/NP900X3A-A01UK/index.idx?pagetype=prd_detail

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This 'shiny lookalike' doesn't even have a firewire port, let alone an audio soundcard compatible one! It costs £1300 - £300 more than the MBP, it doesn't look as good and it won't have the resale value in a few years either. I don't understand how you can point to this machine as a serious option for a musician?

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It was merely an example of similar design aesthetic. As you so laboriously point out over and over that you think PC laptops are ugly. It seems quite telling that you like to focus on this rather than any of the DAW builds that have been pointed out.

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http://www.williammorrismusic.com

Quote Will_m:

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As you so laboriously point out over and over that you think PC laptops are ugly. It seems quite telling that you like to focus on this rather than any of the DAW builds that have been pointed out.

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Did anyone catch the "Sex and the City" episode where Carrie had computer troubles (and, of course, no backup). Guess what brand computer Carrie owned. Could she possibly have owned anything else? :-)

Style that doesn't follow function is ridiculous. I've seen a (PC) laptop that is SO slim there's no room inside for a battery, it has to hang off the back. And, of course, being THAT slim is asking for overheating. Not to mention those dinky little audio interfaces that are too small for the necessary sockets. They don't look quite as stylish as the advert picture when you attach the rat's nest of adapter cables that lets it actually work!

Well, I had a HP "workstation" dual core with XP running cubase at our studio at work. The only ggod thing it gave me was a better understanding of how to set up a PC for music recording, how to optimize and to check compatibility issues etc etc... I am really not a fan of having to do these computer engineering things, although it gives a small amount of satisfaction and a slight ego boost when you finally get it to work. I imagine it being slightly more so though if you manage to get it to work well the first time you try to use it for serious audio work. Then came the mac book pros. I was very hesitant to buy one for my self as I had gained quite a bit of hard earned understanding of all the PCs in my life... I bought a (of course newr, but a laptop) 17" MBP with same specs as the Workstation at work (Cost me quite much money, but we are talking performance right?) and it has not failed me with music recording duties ever. And the only performance related setup I did was in Cubase. It is true that the PCs have slightly higher performance for given hardware, but the simplicity, the stability (latest cubase 5.5.3 and Cubase 6.0.2) of Mac computers far outweighs the imo quite small difference in performance. But then again, I mainly use computers for recording audio and mixing (12 hours a day 5 days a week) and not so much for huge track counts of VSTi:s. And when I do i like to render them as audio as soon as I like what I'm hearing from them and continue with my recording and mixing.

I moved to Africa last fall and helped a studio here with a completely new computer based recording system (moving from a Yamaha O2R and mackie HDR:s) and we went for a Mac Pro running cubase with RME UFX interface. Rock solid. We have recorded, mixed and mastered 20+ albums and never had a single computer related problem! And the installation was quick and easy, even for me. Wish my ego could take credit for making it work first time we tried, but I am quite sure that it's a Mac thing... Again, I can live without getting the absolute max from my hardware (although I'd be happy if Apple would optimize their os further (if that's the problem...?) as long as it is stable and do what I ask for. And yes, I regularily use 32 samples, but I prefer 64 for some performance head room.

Hope my post help.
//Benja

Just got a MBP. All I can say is that I've now got roughly 70% headroom CPU on my projects while mixing when before I had 10% or near zero.

Of course, this is using Logic 9

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www.exaviormusic.com
www.manninmusic.com Music Teacher, Isle of Man

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Just got a MBP. All I can say is that I've now got roughly 70% headroom CPU on my projects while mixing when before I had 10% or near zero.

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Compared to?

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I spent most of yesterday evening trying to fix/reinstall and de-virus a mate's Vista laptop.

Seriously, the state of everything Windows is so shockingly appallingly bad I'm amazed *anything* ever works at all. And the sad thing is, people think this is just how computers are, because they know no better.

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Yes Vista is crap. I thought everyone knew that. Hence the reason Windows 7 was roled out so fast.

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Or you could get a mac. A MBP is pretty much guaranteed to work. No viruses, no need for support, no special chipsets, no crapware, no virus checkers / firewalls to set up.

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Guaranteed as much as any computer you buy and the more people big up Macs the more people will try to hack in to them. No special chipsets? Whaaaa.....t does that even mean!?

Mac vs PC (Windows) is stupid. I say to the original poster, get which ever floats your boat. Look at the latest Mac specs and find a comparetive Windows laptop. Both Apple and Microsoft have got people under their thumb anyway so I don't think it matters which you go for unless you want to run Logic of course in which case you are forced in to buying in to Apple.

PS. My older £400 PC laptop out performed my newer £900 Macbook when using Ableton and Cubase. Go figure.

Quote smash4686:

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Yes Vista is crap. I thought everyone knew that. Hence the reason Windows 7 was roled out so fast.

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I've always defended Vista for how it actually PERFORMS. But recently I've had a few infected Vista machines on the bench. XP, I can generally clean up. Windows 7, you've got to be quite silly to catch anything - but if you manage to it responds to ESET, Maywarebytes etc. Vista seems a lot less resilient.

Quote smash4686:

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Just got a MBP. All I can say is that I've now got roughly 70% headroom CPU on my projects while mixing when before I had 10% or near zero.

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Compared to?

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I spent most of yesterday evening trying to fix/reinstall and de-virus a mate's Vista laptop.

Seriously, the state of everything Windows is so shockingly appallingly bad I'm amazed *anything* ever works at all. And the sad thing is, people think this is just how computers are, because they know no better.

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Yes Vista is crap. I thought everyone knew that. Hence the reason Windows 7 was roled out so fast.

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Which is just a facelift with some bloat cut out / optimisation. Still doesn't come close to OSX in terms of style and sophistication.

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Or you could get a mac. A MBP is pretty much guaranteed to work. No viruses, no need for support, no special chipsets, no crapware, no virus checkers / firewalls to set up.

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Guaranteed as much as any computer you buy and the more people big up Macs the more people will try to hack in to them.

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Yes they can try. Compared to windows, OSX has an absolutely tiny amount of viruses, and the ones it does have are almost all 'proof of concept' and never released to the general public.

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No special chipsets? Whaaaa.....t does that even mean!?

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Texas Instruments Firewire chipsets are recommended for audio on PC laptops. Often firewire is shoddily implemented, leading to glitching and poor performance. This is not an issue with macs.

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Mac vs PC (Windows) is stupid. I say to the original poster, get which ever floats your boat. Look at the latest Mac specs and find a comparetive Windows laptop. Both Apple and Microsoft have got people under their thumb anyway so I don't think it matters which you go for unless you want to run Logic of course in which case you are forced in to buying in to Apple.

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Under the thumb? What are you talking about?

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PS. My older £400 PC laptop out performed my newer £900 Macbook when using Ableton and Cubase. Go figure.

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Really? Perhaps you could elaborate.

Quote smash4686:

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Compared to?

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The 5 year old, 2.16GHz Core Duo, 2GB RAM, Macbook pro that I mentioned earlier in the thread. So I loaded up the project that barely ran on my old machine and fired it up on the new one. From near 100% CPU usage it dropped to around 30%. So, the new MBP on that particular song, is roughly 3-4 times faster, which is roughly a doubling over 2 2year periods. That's about right.

Just did a quick test with logic in 32 bit mode. 2.2Ghz i7 Quad Macbook Pro, 4GB RAM Here's the results.
64 samples using the built-in audio. 4.4ms latency
22 audio channels with 2 or more third party plugs on, mainly stillwellaudio plugs.
8 instances of EXS24, each doing one line of a string ensemble.
4 instances of space desginer
2 instances of delay designer.

Now, that's a normal project for me, and the new mac is hardly ticking over. Using 10% of CPU. So I thought I'd better up the ante.

Added 24 instances of sculpture on default sound playing the cello line. 25 instances and I got a system overload. sounded awful, but no glitching or break ups.

That's pretty good I thought. Got rid of the sculptures, next up the EXS24 sampler.

I managed 60 instances of the EXS24 sampler playing the cello line which I made into 10 note chords by copying and pasting the line on the piano roll to different start notes. Got bored after that as I hadn't maxed out the CPU or harddrive. Again, sounded awful, but no glitching or break ups.

This is all with the wireless turned on, chrome running in the background to type this all in, and activity monitor to get a more accurate read on what CPU is being used.

Now, this is with Logic, using Apple VSTi, plugs, and a few third party plugs. I've no idea what cubase will do, because I personally don't get on with cubase. However, that is so much more power than I'm ever likely to use, and seeing as I just can't get on with windows these days I'm more than happy with my purchase.

However, I'm sure the original poster has decided to go PC by this point

Edited by Exavior Music (19/06/11 02:01 PM)

Quote Domenico:

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I am thinking of buying a new laptop and this time I am considering a turn to Mac and MacBook Pro.
Since there are specific models, how well does the new MBP perform for music production purposes? What about the USB and FireWire controllers?
Also, do you believe that the 17" model is necessary for musicians or will the 15" model suffice as well?

Any comments are more than welcome,

Thank you

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I've switched entirely to a fully spec'd up MBP 15" from a Mac Pro.

8GB Ram
500 SSD
a Fast external FW800 for sound banks

So far so frikkin good, it leaves my older desktop machine standing. I have projects and work studios in UK & Europe - which is why I chose to be mobile - and I felt with this gen' of MBP the time of a truly mobile work station had come.

I switched from PC's about 6 years ago - basically when Carillon turned crap - and I'd had enough of unreliable PCs (not being a techy - just needing the machines to work)

I have never looked back.

If you want a sturdy reliable machine for creativity - AND are able to pay the premium - in my experience, Apple is the only way to go.

Not only is the hardware superior - but the integration with software - and over all vision is there.

Apple are not perfect, and there's plenny reason to hate on them - but if u can pay the premium, in my experience, it's the best option.

Ah having re read some of the OP's posts - it seems he actually wants a PC ..

If ur switching to Apple - I wld personally recommend - switching to Apple visiona and apple software - ie Logic & AU .. for the smoothest ride.

If ur determined to stick with Shteinberger - save urself a grand and stick with PC.