Which Mac!! HELP

[BigRedX]

On 04/11/2018 at 07:58, Leonard Smalls said:

I'm afraid I was having a senior moment - instead of typing "Ardour" my ancient fingers wrote "Logic"... 

However, Ardour is a decent DAW , and it's open source.

And what about pro-quality 3rd party plugins under linux?

[Leonard Smalls]

14 hours ago, BigRedX said:

pro-quality 3rd party plugins under linux?

If you're starting from scratch there's quite a few that'll work on Linux... Many Windows ones will also work if you use WINE (windows emulator), though this can be glitchy and/or crashey for certain plug-ins.

But this is a good source of quality paid-for and free open source VSTs, all of which were developed for Ardour/Tracktion/QTractor etc for use without WINE:

http://www.airwindows.com/

And here's a list of suppliers:

http://linux-sound.org/linux-vst-plugins.html

[BigRedX]

12 minutes ago, Leonard Smalls said:

If you're starting from scratch there's quite a few that'll work on Linux... Many Windows ones will also work if you use WINE (windows emulator), though this can be glitchy and/or crashey for certain plug-ins.

But this is a good source of quality paid-for and free open source VSTs, all of which were developed for Ardour/Tracktion/QTractor etc for use without WINE:

http://www.airwindows.com/

And here's a list of suppliers:

http://linux-sound.org/linux-vst-plugins.html

IMO it completely defeats the object of not using Windows or Mac OS if you then have to run your plugins under emulation.

You must require a special linux mindset to understand the Airwindows site. No matter how hard I looked i couldn't find any download links for the plugins. They certainly weren't on the products page, where I would expect them to be.

And the list of plug in suppliers for linux in that last link is pitiful compared with what is available for Windows or Mac OS.

If all I was going to do is surf the net and send some emails, or if I wanted to run a web or file server linux seems to be fine. However for actually doing anything creative linux just doesn't cut it.

[Leonard Smalls]

3 hours ago, BigRedX said:

a special linux mindset to understand the Airwindows site. No matter how hard I looked i couldn't find any download links for the plugins.

It's a bit unhelpful!

You have to click on the date, which gives you a link to the .zip file.

And you're right, there's nowhere near as much as for mac and Windows - which is why I use Windows...

But if I was just starting up, and being a bit techy anyway, I'd go for a Linux OS with Ardour - there's options for just about every type of effect and virtual instrument, just not the ones you or I may be using already.

[Dad3353]

5 hours ago, BigRedX said:

IMO it completely defeats the object of not using Windows or Mac OS if you then have to run your plugins under emulation.

You must require a special linux mindset to understand the Airwindows site. No matter how hard I looked i couldn't find any download links for the plugins. They certainly weren't on the products page, where I would expect them to be.

And the list of plug in suppliers for linux in that last link is pitiful compared with what is available for Windows or Mac OS.

If all I was going to do is surf the net and send some emails, or if I wanted to run a web or file server linux seems to be fine. However for actually doing anything creative linux just doesn't cut it.

Hmm...

I'm not a Linux user. I did, however, manage to download stuff from the Airwindows site, simply by clicking on the link helpfully provided beneath each video. Seemed simple enough to me.
As to the other list, of 'native' plug-ins, it may not rival other platforms, but there's still a fair few to get one's feet wet, no..? Disingenuous post ^^, I'd say; not your usual helpful quality. A bit 'snobbish', even. 

[discreet]

Which Mac?? Gary Mac!! 

[BigRedX]

16 minutes ago, Dad3353 said:

I'm not a Linux user. I did, however, manage to download stuff from the Airwindows site, simply by clicking on the link helpfully provided beneath each video. Seemed simple enough to me.
As to the other list, of 'native' plug-ins, it may not rival other platforms, but there's still a fair few to get one's feet wet, no..? Disingenuous post ^^, I'd say; not your usual helpful quality. A bit 'snobbish', even. 

I get it now, but so much scrolling on smaller screens to get to the useful bits. It would have been far better to simply list all the plugins with a 1-2 line description of what they do and then clicking that takes you the relevant page for more detailed information, a video explanation and a download link.

I don't think my PoV regarding linux is snobbish. It is IME simply realistic. I would love to give linux a go, but while it seems to be ideal for hard-core geeks, for anyone wanting to actually do something creative, the applications simply aren't of a suitable standard or variety. A couple of my friends have tried to dabble with linux and encountered more than fair bit of snobbery from the linux forums when just trying to get started because they didn't seem to have sufficient geek credentials and the questions they were asking made that clear. One didn't even manage to get their copy of linux installed on the PC let alone get to experiment with the applications available.

Edited November 6, 2018 by BigRedX

[Dad3353]

3 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

I get it now, but so much scrolling on smaller screens to get to the useful bits. It would have been far better to simply list all the plugins with a 1-2 line description of what they do and then clicking that takes you the relevant page for more detailed information, a video explanation and a download link.

I don't think my PoV regarding linux is snobbish. It is IME simply realistic. I would love to give linux a go, but while it seems to be ideal for hard-core geeks, for anyone wanting to actually do something creative, the applications simply aren't of a suitable standard or variety. A couple of my friends have tried to dabble with linux and encountered more than fair bit of snobbery from the linux forums when just trying to get started because they didn't seem to have sufficient geek credentials and the questions they were asking made that clear. One didn't even manage to get their copy of linux installed on the PC let alone get to experiment with the applications available.

I certainly agree that Linux is not for everyone (but, then again, Apple is out of financial reach of many, myself included, despite its qualities...). Depends, too, on one's usage. My humble PC is a fine platform for the modest stuff I 'produce', but would not suffice in a professional recording studio, or even a top-drawer home studio. Linux can work, however, for those with limited hardware, provided that the effort required for passing the learning curve is accepted.
There are snobs available at every corner of t'web, it would seem..! Luckily, there are many sources, so one may choose the most convivial, depending on one's temperament.

[BigRedX]

17 minutes ago, Dad3353 said:

I certainly agree that Linux is not for everyone (but, then again, Apple is out of financial reach of many, myself included, despite its qualities...). Depends, too, on one's usage. My humble PC is a fine platform for the modest stuff I 'produce', but would not suffice in a professional recording studio, or even a top-drawer home studio. Linux can work, however, for those with limited hardware, provided that the effort required for passing the learning curve is accepted.
There are snobs available at every corner of t'web, it would seem..! Luckily, there are many sources, so one may choose the most convivial, depending on one's temperament.

If you are prepared to shop around and buy second hand, Macs turn out to be very good value for money.

The Mac Pro which I currently use to earn my living cost me £350 when I bought it 3 years ago. The model is actually 10 years old and for most purposes is plenty fast enough for my needs. I have added a better graphics card, but that's only because my work flow requires multiple monitors (I currently run 3 x 23"). It will be replaced soon, simply because the latest version of Adobe CC requires a newer OS than my machine is capable of supporting and I will need to share files with users on the latest version. If I didn't need to do this I could see my current Mac lasting me until it suffered some catastrophic hardware failure. However, when I do replace it I expect to pay less than £500 including any memory upgrades the new Mac might require.

Edited November 6, 2018 by BigRedX

[Leonard Smalls]

23 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

However, when I do replace it I expect to pay less than £500 including any memory upgrades the new Mac might require.

As I said in my first post on the subject, best value in Macs, and PC for that matter, is to buy a 10 year old one with Xeon octacore (or more!) and 96Gb RAM - the Mac towers for editing/graphic use are very similar machines to, say, an HP Windows high end server of the same era... 

You are, however, buying a 10 year old machine, with all the potential problems (or not!) that may entail.

I've just specced a decent PC, including monitor, mouse and key board from PC Specialist - this is what you get for £1153 all in:

Case
PCS 6003B BLACK CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i7 Eight Core Processor i7-9700K (3.6GHz) 12MB Cache

Motherboard

ASUS® PRIME Z370-P II: ATX, LGA1151, USB 3.1, SATA 6GBs

Memory (RAM)
16GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 2666MHz (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
INTEGRATED GRAPHICS ACCELERATOR (GPU)
1^st Hard Disk
500GB WD Blue™ 3D NAND 2.5" SSD, (upto 560MB/sR | 530MB/sW)
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
16x BLU-RAY WRITER DRIVE, 16x DVD ±R/±RW & SOFTWARE
Power Supply
CORSAIR 450W VS SERIES™ VS-450 POWER SUPPLY
Processor Cooling
CoolerMaster Hyper 212X (120mm) Fan CPU Cooler
Thermal Paste
COOLER MASTER MASTERGEL MAKER THERMAL COMPOUND
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless/Wired Networking
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT (Wi-Fi NOT INCLUDED)
USB/Thunderbolt Options
2 PORT (1 x TYPE A, 1 x TYPE C) USB 3.1 PCI-E CARD + STANDARD USB PORTS
Operating System
Genuine Windows 10 Home 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence [KUK-00001]
Monitor
AOC 23.6" E2470SWH LED - 1920 x 1080,1MS, D-Sub, DVI-D, HDMI
Keyboard & Mouse
LOGITECH® MK270 WIRELESS KEYBOARD & MOUSE COMBO

[BigRedX]

@Leonard Smalls That seems quite expensive for the spec.

For £500 my second hand Mac will be 12 Xeon Cores and at least 32GB RAM. Plus I'll be able to transfer all my SSDs and HDDs from my previous Mac as well as the second DVD drive.

Mac Pros even though they are old are very reliable, because they spend most of their lives in a single place and are rarely moved. I'm currently on my third. My second currently does service as a file server and my first (a 2006 1.1 Mac Pro) was passed on to a professional photographer friend who still uses it as their main image editing machine.

[Gluca]

I used Mac for last 10 years, but i won't buy another one. First the hardware is not good for the price, seconds i hate to not have the ports i need; and i'm forced to buy expensive adapters for forget where i put them.

 

If you really want use OS X, build an Hackintosh.

 

 

 

[adamg67]

22 hours ago, Biggles said:

Windows still sucks.

Yes a Windows laptop is far cheaper than an Apple Macbook but plug anything MIDI related and it may or may not work, the soundcard is likely to need tweaking to be a able to get the controller to work, the list goes on.

Windows is not great, but the rest of that statement is just not true any more, in fact it's probably 10 years out of date. I run a windows + linux laptop, used to run a couple of windows + linux desktops before that. First one, it was a bit like you say, second one pretty good, new one everything is USB 3 & Thunderbolt 3 and just works. Got a Quantum interface, faderport 8, NI Komplete Kontrol keyboard, Kenton Killamix, have had other midi stuff as well. I only have windows for the music stuff really, #1 purpose of my machine is linux based software development (well, linux is the OS I choose for software development anyway, because it's easily the best).

I did look at a MacBook Pro when I got the laptop, because you can pretty much just run Linux in a VM now, but I would have had to pay more money for less than half the spec.

Maybe if all I was doing was music and I had to use it live I'd get a macbook pro.

I'm not inherently anti apple, I've got an iPad pro and an iRig for a portable setup and that's great.

[Leonard Smalls]

1 hour ago, BigRedX said:

That seems quite expensive for the spec.

Bear in mind it's brand new, with octacore i7 9700K processor, over-specced 450W power supply, 500Gb solid state drive, coolermaster cooler and a 23" monitor and wireless keyboard/mouse... 

You won't get much new for anything like that price; for example, this similar, but only quadcore i7, HP machine is £1500+

https://www.ebuyer.com/738034-hp-z240-tower-workstation-j9c07ea-abu

A similar spec new Mac would be at least 2.5x the price of that!

[Gottastopbuyinggear]

2 hours ago, BigRedX said:

For £500 my second hand Mac will be 12 Xeon Cores and at least 32GB RAM. Plus I'll be able to transfer all my SSDs and HDDs from my previous Mac as well as the second DVD drive.

 

Can I ask how you source your second hand stuff, i.e. privately or through apple or a third party that gives some form of warranty?  I tend to agree that Mac Pro’s are probably a pretty good second hand bet - as you say they’ve more than likely been pretty static all their life, and barring anything to do with transit you’re probably still in the middle of the failure “bathtub”.

[BigRedX]

23 minutes ago, Gottastopbuyinggear said:

Can I ask how you source your second hand stuff, i.e. privately or through apple or a third party that gives some form of warranty?  I tend to agree that Mac Pro’s are probably a pretty good second hand bet - as you say they’ve more than likely been pretty static all their life, and barring anything to do with transit you’re probably still in the middle of the failure “bathtub”.

Simply off eBay. You have be patient, so I started looking about a month ago when I knew the next version of Adobe CC was going to require a newer version of Mac OS than my current machine supports. I'll buy one when the price is right.

A lot of Mac Pros will be collection only so that reduces the audience and the price. 

[JapanAxe]

4 hours ago, Gluca said:

I used Mac for last 10 years, but i won't buy another one. First the hardware is not good for the price, seconds i hate to not have the ports i need; and i'm forced to buy expensive adapters for forget where i put them.

 

If you really want use OS X, build an Hackintosh.

 

 

 

I’m planning a Hackintosh build, probably for next year. Going to take my time and work out what I need and where to source it all for a ‘golden’ build.

[Owen]

Can someone expand on the Hackintosh theme? My iMac is getting mature and I have no desire to drop 4 figures on a replacement when the time comes. Do Hackintoshes actually work?

[Owen]

As in could I install all my apple software on it and upgrade and stuff or is the app store going to be sniffy about it?

[Gluca]

2 hours ago, owen said:

As in could I install all my apple software on it and upgrade and stuff or is the app store going to be sniffy about it?

Hackintosh need maintenance, and it can have issue after an update. I suggest it ONLY if someone want make music with Logic; build a machine, intall OS X, make all work and not update it. Anyway Reddit have pages of information.

For daily/standard use Windows and Linux work great. Some Linux distro, with an SSD, are fast, easy and secure (and cheaper).

[Marvin]

I’ve looked into making a Hackintosh and from what I’ve read it’s far from straightforward. It’s not like building your own PC. If you have the time, it’s not going to be your main computer and you’re not overly fussed about upgrading the OS and software...then maybe it’s a goer, otherwise it’s simpler to buy a second hand Mac of some description if you’re trying to keep cost down.

[Barking Spiders]

'n' cheese

[JapanAxe]

13 hours ago, Gluca said:

Hackintosh need maintenance, and it can have issue after an update. I suggest it ONLY if someone want make music with Logic; build a machine, intall OS X, make all work and not update it. Anyway Reddit have pages of information.

For daily/standard use Windows and Linux work great. Some Linux distro, with an SSD, are fast, easy and secure (and cheaper).

 

39 minutes ago, Marvin said:

I’ve looked into making a Hackintosh and from what I’ve read it’s far from straightforward. It’s not like building your own PC. If you have the time, it’s not going to be your main computer and you’re not overly fussed about upgrading the OS and software...then maybe it’s a goer, otherwise it’s simpler to buy a second hand Mac of some description if you’re trying to keep cost down.

We currently have two entry-level iMacs. One lives downstairs and is our 'family' computer for emails and general browsing - that one is brand new.

The other is about 4 years old and lives in my music room, and is my daily learning/practice and recording resource. It is connected to a Roland Quad Capture interface and a MOTU MIDI interface, and runs Reaper, Capo, and Sibelius First. My plan would be to build the Hackintosh and restore this iMac to it. I can then run it for a while to make sure it is all working before retiring the iMac as a spare against the time the family iMac dies.

I realise we are a bit OT from the OP now!

[BigRedX]

IMO a Hackintosh completely defeats the object of having a Mac in the first place. One of the reasons why Macs tend to "just work" is that the OS only has to support a minuscule set of hardware options compared with what Windows or Linux have to contend with. The moment you try and force Mac OS to run on something other than Apple hardware you start getting all the sorts of problems and incompatibilities that other OS users have to contend with - and more because none of it is officially supported by Apple so you are very much on your own when it comes to voting out exactly why your chosen set of components won't work.

The Hacktintosh is fine is a proof of concept and for people who really want to just geek about with computers, but for those of us who have chosen the Mac platform because it lets us get on with our work they are IMO a complete waste of time.

[ped]

I've used OSX since the beginning so for me it just feels more natural. Sometimes at work I have to use Windows 8 and I can't even find programmes or log off!

I'd like to upgrade the hard drive in my iMac (2014) to an SSD but think it involves dismantling the screen.. it's OK once it's up and running but my Macbook Air just flies... 

I think most of the snootiness associated with Mac users is due to the fact that the cheapest Mac and the cheapest PC are worlds apart and often people are comparing a cheap PC to a much higher spec Mac. I'm sure spending the same money on a Windows machine is just as well spent, if you like the OS.