Support
Looper's Delight
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Support |
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First off, as a person who not only has to purchase but support the hardware and software, much of it bought by the studio execs I work for who don't often know what they're buying, I have to finally toss in my experience regarding this stuff. Having worked with the PC since 1980, and the Mac since '85, I have to always make the decision based upon the questions of longevity, support, available parts, and maintenance before I start listening to the kind of religious fervor that this common (and tiresome) argument contains. In short, I have to select the best hardware/software combination for the job-at-hand; not because some salesman told me to, nor because the item-in-question is the only thing I know. I generally walk away from Mac vs. PC arguments since they're some of the most repetitive crap-throwing parties around. In this case, I have to put in an opinion before this turns into an unnecessary fire fight. First and foremost, a select group of companies - just like in the synth and instrument businesses - have held a singular hold at times on software/hardware solutions for audio/video. For some years it WAS the Mac in terms of a desktop solution on this level, but dem days has been gone for a bit. The Mac is very similar to its cousins on the SGI side in their ability to handle multimedia deftly early on in the 'game'; but also with respect to how one has to pay with blood and too much money to both get and keep it all running. The structure for support for the Mac is too proprietary to allow "just anyone" to learn about its maintenance; this began with the strict guidelines to require users to use only Apple Certified Technicians. After all, if anyone other than Apple started horning in on their game, they'd sue them out of existence, in the early days. PC users who've been working on networks only need look at Novell to see this same kind of tactic: $7000 for a four-day course, just to say you're 'certified', combined with a program structure that most folks couldn't figure out without purchasing yet more documentation from Novell. In the first place, proprietary structure is not only infeasible on a platform that's supposed to be accessible, it's marketing chicanery. As Xerox, alas, taught all too many MBAs in the 70s and 80s, they didn't sell the copier, they sold the service that copier was often engineered to need. Then the PC started emerging as The Business Machine (with the exceptions of semi-creative arenae like 'desktop publishing', audio recording, educational markets, and at the time graphics). The platform is not overpriced at the behest of its makers, parts are always available, and noone is restricted from learning more about it. It was an eventuality to grow that was unfortunately lost on those so embroiled in defending 'the computer for the rest of us' (hah!) that they lost their market share. PCs have gotten much faster and capable in the past 10 years. Macs no longer compete except on one level, and that's the "soft and fuzzy" image sold by millions of Mac Adherents world wide; this, alas, is also fluff, based more upon religious opinion than actual fact. As far as no 'professional' (what DOES that mean anymore?) audio production being done on a PC, most of the major vendors who pay attention to the market-at-hand have already introduced PC migrations some time ago. Given the inability with which Mac-borne programmers have demonstrated in writing ports of Mac software (remember QuickMail, anyone?), the majority of ports have been less-than-useable, only prompting the Mac users again to shout with glee, "See?? Shouda got a Mac!", which is just more sniping with the flavor of sour grapes, as they watch their platform lose its dominance. >ProTools for the Mac is still the standard as far as I can tell. >It's very pricey, but it is professional hardware/software, and that stuff >is always pricey. Which is another reason why people have been moving to the PC for some years now; PC software-hardware solutions are less- and less-pricey all the time, by design of the platform. Since everyone has access to the specifications for about as close to 'free' as you can get, there is an aspect of non-qualification that makes it possible for anyone to create software or hardware for the PC. This has led to more innovation and lower prices as a function of continuing innovation. The same has never been true on the Mac/SGI side. >Now for the fun part...Guess what? WINDOWS SUCKS! (every version of it) Ah, the animal reveals itself. Need I say more to this eloquent emission? >We use both at my current job, and it's unanimous: Macintosh operating >system version is far, far more stable and easy to use than Windows 95. Yes, after several years of troubleshooting the ill-borne System 7 it was actually able to load without locking your machine (though sometimes this wasn't evident, since a 'frowning face' can mean just about anything in addition to 'call a Mac technician'). >Another thing is that most better Macs come with very good 16bit sound >cards that let you record directly to your hard disk AS YOU ARE LISTENING >TO YOUR PREVIOUS SOUND TRACKS. To do this on a PC you need extra audio >cards which drive the price of that cheep maching up. Wrong, buffalo breath! There have been 32-bit duplex cards out for the PC for a few years now, and nowadays there are also multitracking packages for sale far under the inflated prices that the finite and unfortunately over-controlled Mac market sports. >When I bought my >Mac 2 years ago, I did a a/b price compair of Mac and name brand PC clones >(not crap) and came up with only a $300 difference, and that was when Macs >were much more expencive than they are now. Well worth is for the ease of >use and reliability. Stuff and nonsense. $300 is nothing compared to being able to share data with more people than just use your kind of computer. >Pretty soon there will be a version of the Mac OS that will blow >everything away on the consumer market (Steve Jobs NextOS for the Mac) >When that hits I think things may change a lot, as they already have a >version that will run on intel pc machines. We were hearing this about 4 years ago, and again, 8 years ago. And if the Mac was so superior, why did they have to work on a version (still enshrouded in smoke and marketing bs, and perhaps non-existent at this time) to work on the non-68000 platform? Think about it. People who don't want to be trapped into a support dependency cycle and know what they're buying don't buy Macs anymore. The folks at the studio I support have been replacing their formerly adored Macs for several years now, since there are much more reliable and cost-efficient solutions on the PC platform. And eventually, the law of diminishing returns will kick in even more than it has. And, finally, if you buy a PC you won't find yourself feeling like you need to embroil yourself in arguments defending, at this point, the indefensible, which, in this case, is a platform that made its contribution in its own time, but eventually will be seen to have fallen from an over-insulated perch. You'll just be using your PC, since, after all, you bought it to Use it, period. Some Tips: 1. Go to Windows NT for audio-video production. It appears that more applications of this kind are emerging for NT in particular. Windows as such is after all designed for a single-user machine/workstation. 2. Seriously consider the Cyrix 6x86 as opposed to Intel Pentium or the rest. The 6x86 chip they're making has far more ports through it than the Pentium or the Pentium II, and as such is less subject to any bottlenecks that may occur. And finally, I won't engage in any firefights on the above since it's a waste of time. It's like me saying "the sky is blue", and having to argue with shrill individuals who insist that, because it's not ALWAYS blue, my argument is invalid. I'm sure there are still uses for Macs out there, but it's not by any stretch of the imagination a standardized, dominant platform, as much as it's becoming a positive signpost of development of the home computer. History, that is. Stephen Goodman * Download The Loop Of The Week and more! 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