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[ConcertinaChap]

Moving on, the next OS after Mojave looks to kill 32-bit support, so no old 32-bit apps will directly run on that (unless they include an emulation layer, or something.)

Indeed. It was very noticeable how many applications as I installed or ran them got the "Not optimised for High Sierra" message, which is Apple's way of saying they're 32 bit. Fortunately most of the messages were generated by installers rather than the apps themselves so the fix for the makers should be easy and now the apps are in place they shouldn't hit trouble when I (eventually) move onto a 64 bit only OS.

The only significant software I couldn't get to run was M$ Office 2011. So, now I'm happily using Libre Office.

I regularly have to Google things or watch YouTube tutorials while I have my DAW open! :oops:

Hmph! Likewise :(

CC

[Jadoube]

Moving on, the next OS after Mojave looks to kill 32-bit support, so no old 32-bit apps will directly run on that (unless they include an emulation layer, or something.)

Legacy support is one space where Windows truly shines. You can get almost any ancient thing to work on Windows 10 so long as you have the required hardware to support it and the will to fiddle around with it. ( I don't! :thumbup: Life is too short! )

I think I will be on High Sierra for quite some time; no 32b will just be a pain in the a** for quite awhile. Who knows what might need to be abandoned... sigh

[ManFromGlass]

Only Sierra for me. Some fave plugs will be gone with an upgrade. Same with iOS - staying at 10 as there are some seriously weird and cool 32 bit apps I will lose. And yet some some sneaky bastards at Apple have managed to upload iOS 11 to my devices without even asking. They only ask if I want to install it. My response might get me banned from the Forums if I type it.

[Jadoube]

Only Sierra for me.

One thing that happens with a Mac is you are stuck to a minimum OS version when you purchase a new computer... thus I am using High Sierra for example. It's definitely something to be aware of if you buy a new Mac. Some of your preferred software might not be compatible if the OS release is relatively "green". The lack of 32b support might make a new mac particularly risky for audio users when that OS is released.

A checkbox for the Windows column...

[desmond]

One thing that happens with a Mac is you are stuck to a minimum OS version when you purchase a new computer...

They prevent you from installing older versions of OSX? Or booting from another disk or partition?

[Jadoube]

One thing that happens with a Mac is you are stuck to a minimum OS version when you purchase a new computer...

They prevent you from installing older versions of OSX? Or booting from another disk or partition?

I think they prevent you from installing an older version of macOS/OSX... but I haven't tried in years and years. Should be no problem to boot a different partition... never had trouble with that. But again... not sure how well one would do with a version of the OS older than the version your machine shipped with. Perhaps a super OSX nerd can chime in...?

For sure you could have problems with missing hardware support...

[James Perrett]

Can you use OSX in a virtual machine in order to run an older version of the operating system?

I've just set up a Windows XP virtual machine on my Windows 10 computer using Virtual Box as some of my old software was behaving strangely in Windows 10.

[Jadoube]

Can you use OSX in a virtual machine in order to run an older version of the operating system?

I've just set up a Windows XP virtual machine on my Windows 10 computer using Virtual Box as some of my old software was behaving strangely in Windows 10.

I believe you can only run a virtual OSX machine on another Mac using VMWare Fusion or Parallels. I have never needed to do it but it appears to be supported.

A quick google says you can do it on a PC but you need to apply a 3rd party patch (hack)... so not officially supported and you are into naughty-ware. Basically another flavour of hackintosh.

[CS70]

I guess you can do the same with Hackintosh but I have no direct experience of that.

Its great if you have a huge amount of time on your hands that you don't want to put to good use instead!

Well, of course is money is no issue or you don't pay for the kit you just buy what you want, nothing wrong with that.

To each their own, but for me, to save in the order of hundreds of pounds means more money available for marketing, ads, mics, studio time or stuff that makes far more difference than having a shiny stylized apple on the top of my laptop's lid..

[desmond]

Can you use OSX in a virtual machine in order to run an older version of the operating system?

Yep - I have a 10.6 Install in a VM for some older PPC apps...

[varunbkk]

There's really no other way to put this:
If you're even remotely serious about music production, then get a Mac.

Complete and utter nonsense!

By all means choose a mac if you want to, but windows-based systems also work perfectly well and are used daily in all manner of music production roles by a huge number of high-end professionals around the world.

I'm all for the freedom of personal platform preferences, but I don't support and won't leave unchallenged baseless didactic pronouncements like this!

H

Sorry, I respectfully disagree.

Although my comment is somewhat sensationalist and based on my anecdotal experiences, I stand by my conviction(s).

I will hazard a guess and say that out of the world's top 20-30 odd studios, a majority would probably be on the MAC platform.

Similarly, I would also hazard a guess and say that the majority of the world's top-tier mixers, producers (and performers i.e. those who do live sets and/or DJ'ing) are probably on the MAC platform too.

The point being that every producer aspires and dreams to achieve a level of technical expertise, production values, personal fulfillment and ultimately, financial success.

Invariably, he/she will look up to what (if I may quote you) "high-end professionals" are using as part of their production arsenal.

Here's a list of some A-list/top-tier mixers that are on the MAC:

Chris-Lord Alge
Dave Pensado
Tony Maserati
Andrew Scheps
Manny Marroquin

Here's some more still:

Warren Huart
Fab Dupont
Yoad Nevo

Apart from the above, here's some top-tier dance music producers who are on the MAC platform - furthermore, some of them utilize MAC's not only for music production, but for live-sets and DJ'ing as well:

Paul Van Dyk
Armin Van Buuren
Ferry Corsten
Above and Beyond
Steve Aoki
Sasha
Laidback Luke

I could probably rattle off 20-30 more odd names, the list goes on and on.

Perhaps you could indulge me and provide some names of some of these high-end professionals who purportedly use Windows as their OS of choice for their production needs?

[job]

It wouldn't matter if you could rattle of a million names it still doesn't say why one should only conisder a Mac if they're serious about music production. Those people are successful because they do themselves and a lot of people like what they do. They're not successful because they use a particular brand of computer.

I think a large reason why many see Windows as unstable is because Windows allows you to tweak the system pretty extensively to your particular needs. People know this and so they go hunting for tweaks. They then read and copy a bunch of websites with no real clue and then hur dur i tweak stuff i is leet. Fast forward 50 website tips later and meh, Windows is so bad and terrible i think i'll get a Mac...

If you want stability and don't really know what you're doing then instal it on quality hardware and leave it alone. Just like you have to do with Macs.

Cheap and underpowered Windows machines are also ubiquitous so we're forever hearing 'Windows is crap. It's so slow!'. They then drop 2k on a posh box and then it's 'ah, Apple is so much better!'. Well, err, yeah.

[Rich Hanson]

I will hazard a guess and say that out of the world's top 20-30 odd studios, a majority would probably be on the MAC platform.

To which I would counter "so what?"

The so-called top tier are a tiny percentage of the professional world, and are most likely there not because of the computer that they use but the skills that they possess.

PCs are used a lot in broadcast, for instance. Not as glamorous as the "top-tier" dance producers, but just a professional. I recall that a few years a back, for instance, in Nashville a good deal of the studios there were PCs running Nuendo (this has probably changed).

And then there's a certain little known band called Kraftwerk...

Certainly there are issues with Windows particularly if you use one of the home editions, but it's not as if a Mac OS upgrade has never broken anything!

So, you can disagree all you like, but the fact remains there are many many professional users successfully using PCs rather than Macs.

(Just to note that I am myself a Mac user)

[Hugh Robjohns]

Sorry, I respectfully disagree.

I think that's implicit -- but I appreciate and reflect the respect! :-)

I will hazard a guess and say that out of the world's top 20-30 odd studios, a majority would probably be on the MAC platform.

Hmmm... but where you're hazarding a guess, I've been in most of them and seen for myself just how many PCs are used in preference to, or alongside, Macs. I'm not suggesting the Mac/PC split is 50/50... but your sphere of interest of the pro-audio world appears narrow and are thus unaware of just how many mastering studios, music composers, film studios, radio and TV broadcasters, live-sound systems, theatres, post-production studios, games producers, project studios, and countless other wings of the audio industry really are using PC platforms.

It's not hard to find a specific market where a specific platform dominates -- largely for the copy-cat reasons you state -- but the pro audio world is rather larger than that.

Perhaps you could indulge me and provide some names of some of these high-end professionals who purportedly use Windows as their OS of choice for their production needs?

:smirk: This is going to be a silly game, but one of the most famous film music composer, Hans Zimmer, is famously PC-based (but uses Macs too for some post-production aspects of his work), and the same is true of a remarkably large number of his peers.

Most of my own hands-on personal experience is in high-end mastering, broadcast and post-production facilities, and there the PC does really dominate.

And it's not just the audio-production side of things either. Most people are very surprised to learn that the high-end Studer Vista digital mixing consoles installed in countless broadcast studios, concert halls and major theatres actually run on a Windows platform -- and it's not the only digital console brand to do that! Some highly regarded high-end hardware multitrack recorders are PC/windows-based too.

It's important to remember that the pro-audio industry is quite a lot wider than the DJ and re-mixer fraternity... important contributors though they are.

The point is that the Mac really isn't the ONLY professional solution, and it's grossly misleading to suggest otherwise. Yes, of course the Mac is very popular in many quarters -- and for very good reasons -- but the PC platform really is employed very widely too for equally good reasons.

It's just not as black and white as you'd like to think.

H

[OneWorld]

Sorry, I respectfully disagree.

I think that's implicit -- but I appreciate and reflect the respect! :-)

I will hazard a guess and say that out of the world's top 20-30 odd studios, a majority would probably be on the MAC platform.

Hmmm... but where you're hazarding a guess, I've been in most of them and seen for myself just how many PCs are used in preference to, or alongside, Macs. I'm not suggesting the Mac/PC split is 50/50... but your sphere of interest of the pro-audio world appears narrow and are thus unaware of just how many mastering studios, music composers, film studios, radio and TV broadcasters, live-sound systems, theatres, post-production studios, games producers, project studios, and countless other wings of the audio industry really are using PC platforms.

It's not hard to find a specific market where a specific platform dominates -- largely for the copy-cat reasons you state -- but the pro audio world is rather larger than that.

Perhaps you could indulge me and provide some names of some of these high-end professionals who purportedly use Windows as their OS of choice for their production needs?

:smirk: This is going to be a silly game, but one of the most famous film music composer, Hans Zimmer, is famously PC-based (but uses Macs too for some post-production aspects of his work), and the same is true of a remarkably large number of his peers.

Most of my own hands-on personal experience is in high-end mastering, broadcast and post-production facilities, and there the PC does really dominate.

And it's not just the audio-production side of things either. Most people are very surprised to learn that the high-end Studer Vista digital mixing consoles installed in countless broadcast studios, concert halls and major theatres actually run on a Windows platform -- and it's not the only digital console brand to do that! Some highly regarded high-end hardware multitrack recorders are PC/windows-based too.

It's important to remember that the pro-audio industry is quite a lot wider than the DJ and re-mixer fraternity... important contributors though they are.

The point is that the Mac really isn't the ONLY professional solution, and it's grossly misleading to suggest otherwise. Yes, of course the Mac is very popular in many quarters -- and for very good reasons -- but the PC platform really is employed very widely too for equally good reasons.

It's just not as black and white as you'd like to think.

H

I guess my heading Mac vs PC was a little ambivalent, I suppose I was really asking MacOS vs Win10

It isn't so much the PC I am unhappy with but Win10. I hardly had any problems at all with XP (except the 4gig ram restriction) and that was resolved with Win7/64 - a beautiful OS if ever there were one, in all the years I was using it I don't remember having a single problem with it.

If I did, it was so trivial that it was easily fixed and so insignificant I can't remember what it was. Win10 was equally reliable, but I was irked by all the flotsom and jetsom bundled with it, then the major updates came and my problems started

[ConcertinaChap]

t isn't so much the PC I am unhappy with but Win10. I hardly had any problems at all with XP (except the 4gig ram restriction) and that was resolved with Win7/64 - a beautiful OS if ever there were one, in all the years I was using it I don't remember having a single problem with it.

Ahhhh, yes. I still use W7 a bit in virtual machines. It's a great shame Microsoft felt the need to go beyond W7. Mind you, I likewise think it a shame that Apple went beyond Snow Leopard, which also did all that I wanted an OS to do and did it elegantly.

Can't we have a moratorium on new OS versions and just have bug and security fixes on the ones we've got? It would make life so much easier.

CC

[Hugh Robjohns]

My main music computer is a Scan-built Win7/64 machine and it has always been and remains entirely problem-free (and I have no plans to 'upgrade' it anytime soon).

Personal experience of Win 10 to date is rather more limited (wife and daughter's laptops and my own MS Surface) but none have given any problems so far. I regularly use the Surface with a variety of different audio interfaces and DAW software -- often in lengthy recording sessions -- and I've not had any problems at all with it -- not even after any of the win10 updates. The only minor frustration I've had has been having to reduce the screen resolution occasionally to make some GUIs properly readable (SADiE's LRX being one!).

All of these machines have been running Win 10 from the outset though, not upgrades from 7, and that seems to be a significant factor in many Win 10 complaints I've heard. I agree about the included bloatware, but it seems fairly easy to ignore... Certainly hasn't got in the way with anything I want to do with the machine.

H

[Jadoube]

The modern OS has become as much a portal to an ecosystem of products and services (internet) as much as anything else. This is often contrary to building a stable platform to host near real-time software solutions... i.e. DAWs etc. I couldn't help but notice that a good part of the tangential discussion in this thread was around how to "freeze" BOTH Windows and macOS. Both operating systems suffer from the same issue; upgrades that destabilize a DAW. The question is really your best-preferred strategy for freezing your software music tools in time.

I wish there was an Open Source OS platform (probably a Linux) that could attract all the music developers similar to the way Steinberg's VSTs become a relatively stable defacto standard. Now that would be a great OS for music.... but who would be motivated to build it? No idea! An OS is a much more challenging project than a plugin framework. And all those different bits of hardware,,, :headbang:

[Hugh Robjohns]

At the begingings of the first DAWs, back in the early 90s, there was an operating system called BeOS, developed specifically for audio/video media platforms, and it had quite a lot going for it... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BeOS

It seems few have heard of it, though, and while it still underpins some high-end audio products from Tascam, Roland, (and the earlier RADAR audio recorders), it seems to have fizzled out... I guess the weight of the corporate monsters from MS and Apple have drowned it...

[desmond]

Apple were very interested in buying BeOS as the next Mac operating system, but Jean-Louis Gassée basically thought they had no other viable choice and expected them to buy it so demanded too high a price...

They went with NextStep in the end, which became OSX. They paid more for it than JLG wanted for BeOS, but of course, that came with Steve Jobs and, well, he proved to be worth the money... ;)

JLG is an interesting figure in Apple history...