Apple mac laptop

Hootsmon

you wanna tell me how brilliant these are and what I can expect, performance wise, that is over and above the Windows gear?

don't know nothing about Apple macs...or why they are so respected, particularly  for music progs.....

any reason tae have a wee Mac laptop kickin' about the house to augment my Windows 7 set up?

do tell guys  

Gassage

They don't like Tartan bitter or being deep-fried so fucking useless for you.

Hope this helps.

Hootsmon

have not seen tartan beer or deep fried shit since the 70s,we have moved on since then man.....

Buckfast and curries now

capo4th

Once you have moved to Mac you never go back

Axe_meister

OK for the money you can get a far more powerful, windows laptop, but it won't be quite so shiny.

I have a love hate relationship with OSX.

In some ways I find it a bit bitty compared to IOS. There are so many ways of doing things, but on Mac 

hardware it is very stable.

The other problem is there is not nearly enough quality free software, then again you don't get much Malware with
all the free stuff you get on windows.

Will be interesting to see what the next release of OSX is going to be like, I'll have to wait until the hackintosh gurus have figured it out though. My wife won't let me touch her mac

richardhomer

I should imagine you are the MacTaggert audience for these things....

xmrchi

I bought a mac for the first time last year after being a die hard windows fan, I will never have another windows laptop again, the speed and power is amazing plus 12 hour battery life is the icing on the cake. The build quality is honestly unrivalled, and Mac os is truly intuitive.

Don't get me wrong I'm not apple fan boy I would never own an iPhone or ipad, and still have a windows Base unit for real computing, (gaming, music, porn etc ;-)
But as a laptop nothing beats them in my opinion

Also the little things like the magnetic charging point, best track pad with multi gesture,high dpi screen and the thinness of the macbook air makes it a no brained if you have the cash.... Plus they will out life a rival windows laptop for relevant longevity by a good 3 years,

Down sides:
Not upgradable at all... Not even the ram,
Repairing one is expensive,
The big initial outlay
Everyone thinks your a apple fan boy chump when you use it in public or a work

xSkarloey

I haven't got a Mac laptop, but we've had a Mac desktop (well two in fact) since 2005. 

I'd say the pros are that they are easy to use (then again Windows might be as well these days, not that I'd know). It's hard to get lost or completely muck anything up. 

Their gear in my experience is pretty reliable too. 

Downsides are I think Apple products are essentially overpriced, and once you've gone over it's not that easy to go back. 

Also, don't believe the old chestnut about Macs being less prone to getting viruses. That's a common misconception that I think is dying out, but there are still Mac users who don't bother with anti-virus thinking that all crooks are targeting Windows machines. Not true. 

Karlos

Before anyone can tell you whether you 'need' a Mac you need to tell us what you intend to do with it.

Hootsmon

KarlosSantos said:

Before anyone can tell you whether you 'need' a Mac you need to tell us what you intend to do with it.

they say the Macs are great for DAW/music prog type work....might be nice tae explore this path

Jalapeno

Garageband is easy-peasy, ProTools or Logic come with a (steep) learning curve. Are you willing to invest what's needed ? If not, stick with what you know on a PC

wibble

I'm waiting for the usual haters to wade in...

xmrchi

I think the Mac being good for daw and cad etc is pretty out of date these days, I use windows for music, and really modern hardware is so powerful even a mid range pc can handle Cubase with numerous vsts and plugins running at once, , granted apple natively runs audio better than Windows but a decent asio and sound card will sort out any probs, their both as good as each other, and they can also compliment each other :-)

Hootsmon

mrchi said:

I think the Mac being good for daw and cad etc is pretty out of date these days, I use windows for music, and really modern hardware is so powerful even a mid range pc can handle Cubase with numerous vsts and plugins running at once, , granted apple natively runs audio better than Windows but a decent asio and sound card will sort out any probs, their both as good as each other, and they can also compliment each other :-)

I downloaded REAPER some time back...64 bit for my 64 bit Windows....where can I get these VSTs you speak of so I can start makin' sounds in Reaper?

xmrchi

Their are quite a few free vsts about, literally thousands, Google free vsts and you will find an abundance, of course you can always buy absynth /massive etc which have more sounds than you will ever need, but really without spending a fortune or dabbling in illegal downloading ahem, then the free ones will do everything you need!,

Hootsmon

could you recommend a absynth /massive prog that would give me drums..keyboards and bass sounds Bro for my 64 bit PC and Reaper?

Axe_meister

There are not quite so many free vsts for the mac

xmrchi

Well for my tracks I use wav for drums as I prefer to manipulate real drums , but for everything you want you can't beat reason, it's industry standard :-) and really great to use :-)

strumjoughlamps

mrchi said:

I think the Mac being good for daw and cad etc is pretty out of date these days, I use windows for music, and really modern hardware is so powerful even a mid range pc can handle Cubase with numerous vsts and plugins running at once, , granted apple natively runs audio better than Windows but a decent asio and sound card will sort out any probs, their both as good as each other, and they can also compliment each other :-)

I agree with this, the gap has really closed over the past few years, same applies with photo editing 4-5 years ago I would have sat at a Mac without question, nowadays either or is fine..

I do love Garageband tho, and iMovie knocks socks off of Windows Movie Maker, also I have never had latency issues with instruments on a mac wheras on Windows I have had to tweak or sort drivers out etc...

I have both systems I cannot say I favour any like I used to..

I am now remembering the good ol days on my Bondi iMac G3, dial up and good ol Netscape Nav, awesome

littlegreenman

hootsmon said:

I downloaded REAPER some time back...64 bit for my 64 bit Windows....where can I get these VSTs you speak of so I can start makin' sounds in Reaper?

http://www.kvraudio.com/

xmrchi

strumjoughlamps;376348" said:

mrchi said:

I think the Mac being good for daw and cad etc is pretty out of date these days, I use windows for music, and really modern hardware is so powerful even a mid range pc can handle Cubase with numerous vsts and plugins running at once, , granted apple natively runs audio better than Windows but a decent asio and sound card will sort out any probs, their both as good as each other, and they can also compliment each other :-)





I agree with this, the gap has really closed over the past few years, same applies with photo editing 4-5 years ago I would have sat at a Mac without question, nowadays either or is fine..I do love Garageband tho, and iMovie knocks socks off of Windows Movie Maker, also I have never had latency issues with instruments on a mac wheras on Windows I have had to tweak or sort drivers out etc...I have both systems I cannot say I favour any like I used to..I am now remembering the good ol days on my Bondi iMac G3, dial up and good ol Netscape Nav, awesome

God I remember those days! My first proper pc was a 300mhz celeron, 32mb memory, 6 gig hard drive, and of course lovely dial up, net scape was amazing so was icq,

I never did manage to fill that 6 gig hard drive!