Windows vs mac setup

[not2secure4u]

I got in a bit of a discussion a few days ago with a buddy.

I constantly get glitches in my sound when playing or recording through my Line 6 UX2 into Ableton 6. He says that macs are better for recording music in general because you have way less driver problems and everything runs really smooth. I have 8gb RAM with a I5 760 btw, so I think my computer is ok for that task. My latency is really good though (only 15 ms).

Opinions wether a mac would be better ?

 

[mgh]

I got in a bit of a discussion a few days ago with a buddy.

I constantly get glitches in my sound when playing or recording through my Line 6 UX2 into Ableton 6. He says that macs are better for recording music in general because you have way less driver problems and everything runs really smooth. I have 8gb RAM with a I5 760 btw, so I think my computer is ok for that task. My latency is really good though (only 15 ms).

Opinions wether a mac would be better ?

latency good at 15ms? is that roundtrip? you should be getting 2-3ms one way latency on a decent set-up...a well set-up PC is as good or better than a Mac, but Macs work out of the box better...

 

[not2secure4u]

latency good at 15ms? is that roundtrip? you should be getting 2-3ms one way latency on a decent set-up...a well set-up PC is as good or better than a Mac, but Macs work out of the box better...

Oh wow lol, I dont have a lot of experiences in recording yet. No, not roundtrip. If I put my monitor on in Ableton, that indicates I have 15-20 ms latency. It might be possible my pc isnt setup optimally then ?

 

[mgh]

USB interfaces can be a bit tricky to set up on windoze, there are a few tricks such as making sure USB sockets don't have power management on, not using other usb devices on the same hub, making sure Live has priority over drivers. one really common problem is network polling, where wireless or ethernet networks try to connect/secure connection, which can cause 'spikes'...you can download a small programme to check this DPC Latency Checker

DPC Latency checker - how to interpret results - Gearslutz.com is a thread about the results, also see Forum - Main Forums : PC Music

 

[KingAenarion]

If it's enabled, turn off Turboboost as it doesn't really help with interrupts at all.

Also have a look at this.

Website for optimizing computer performance for Audio - Gearslutz.com

 

[not2secure4u]

Ok cool, I am gonna read some of this stuff for sure

 

[ElRay]

USB interfaces can be a bit tricky to set up ...

... and that's one of the problems with USB. The protocol doesn't allow for any dedicated bandwidth, as FireWire/IEEE1394 does. Also, USB requires a lot more CPU interaction than FireWire/IEEE1394 does. So, if you've got a misbehaving process that is blocking the CPU, you'll get glitches in your data transfer.

Ray

 

[AxeHappy]

I record fine on an Old P4 running Pro Tools 8.0.5.

As said above, there really is no difference between PC and Mac. Except the PC is cheaper. That's about it.

I'd highly recommend going into your computer's services and shutting off everything you don't need. Which is a lot of stuff if you're going to dedicate your computer to Recording.

Edit:
This dude's guide is quite good:
http://www.blackviper.com/2008/05/1...32-bit-service-pack-3-service-configurations/

Find your OS and tweak away.

 

[need4speed]

Anyone recording/mixing on any Linux system? Is this doable, or a waste of time?

 

[Andromalia]

I reckon there was a Linux distribution coming with audio stuff but the name escapes me.

Anyway, today Mac/PC is more of a matter of personal choice and available software/hardware than pure specs. Both PC and Mac will do.
If you want to use Apogee interfaces or Logic, go mac. (Apogee doesn't make windows drivers)
The days are over when Mac was a platform of choice because of having SCSI drives.

 

[p0ke]

Anyone recording/mixing on any Linux system? Is this doable, or a waste of time?

I did for a while. Recording and mixing actually worked quite well, but I couldn't get VST's etc. to work. I'm used to tabbing my drums in guitar pro, then exporting the midi and importing it into my DAW where a VST plays it, but on Linux I just couldn't do this. Also, I never found a way to make nice sounding bass/keyboard/etc. tracks, so I would boot into Windows to make these audio tracks and import them into Ardour (a pretty decent DAW for Linux) ...
So then I just gave up and bought a Mac

I reckon there was a Linux distribution coming with audio stuff but the name escapes me.

http://linux-sound.org/distro.html <- a list of recording-optimized Linux distributions. I personally used Arch Linux (I still do, but for other purposes), and I'd say it's pretty much the best choice, if you're ready to build your system by hand from the ground up And it's not as difficult as it might sound!

 

[keshav]

As overpriced as Macs are, I have just switched over to them and working with audio is just so much smoother now.

 

[Konfyouzd]

I think ppl will naturally just say that what they're used to is "better." But since ppl have successfully made great recordings using both I would say that neither is better, per se but Macs do seem to be a tad easier to just pick up and go with. Windows always seems to require some tinkering to get it to do exactly what you want no matter what the case.

 

[p0ke]

... Macs do seem to be a tad easier to just pick up and go with. Windows always seems to require some tinkering to get it to do exactly what you want no matter what the case.

Yup, and with Linux you'll basically have to work your ass of to get it to work I don't know about Ubuntu Studio though, that might be easier to set up since the audio stuff is included with it.

But yeah, I was a PC user, and still am, but now that I've used Logic on my Mac for a while, there's no going back to recording on Windows Logic is just that awesome to work with.