he he C-Lab Notator & Creator! ye olden dayse!
yeah, Logic was on pc up to version 5. Version 6 onwards mac only. V6 wasnt much different than pc v5, except if i recall the v6 on mac included the ability to archive songs which discarded any unused audio clips, and copied the entire song to whatever backup folder location you wanted, inc' all assets.
Once mac's went intel tho it all changed i think, the ppc versions at that time were still too pricey s/h compared to a pc, and at the time pc's had xp which was ok & pc hardware was very reliable with low fail-rates, then vista came and ruined it all and soon after everyone 'hardware-bits' went to china and fail-rates for pc parts skyrocketted, and then macs went intel, and it all changed i think at that point.
I was sick of windows, vista was pants, everything i bought for pc's seemed to break or have problems and glitches, so that was it for me.
yes they seem dear, but 2 things.
One; remember with mac, when you upgrade in 3 years (if u do) the mac returns 1/2 it's value at least. My mac pro 2.8 is 3 years old this christmas, and still fetches almost what i paid for it s/h! They are sought after.
Two; they are really really well made!
Like take my microsoft intellipoint keyboard & mouse set maybe?, wonderful! 50 quid for the set! at that price they should be quality made right? They lasted a year and broke ffs!
On the other hand i have a g3, g4 and g5, and all their mice and keyboards still work 100% after years of commercial work (they were ex pro-graphics-house machines used daily and handed down to me when retired)
mac's work cos they are well made, their price reflects the REAL price to build a quality machine out of quality parts nowadays imo, and they do work. Generaly speaking if there's a serious problem it's usualy hardware. You're also not likely to get chippset issues with f/wire or other pc-type issues. They handle memory better, but mainly the os is so much better.
like on pc, you have maybe a few tb of drives in total and need to search for an old file; you know what it's like, search and wait as windows trawls thru the files one by one, it takes bloody ages unless you have some clue where the file is to start with (like which disk it is on even).
on mac OSX search is nigh-on instant.
i like osx, it's very smooth, very efficient. Yes i get the odd niggle as an osx noob, sometimes ownership permission riase their head, which you dont get on windows boxes. Thta sometimes happens, and you have to change the file permissions to be able to write & alter them, but otherwise not much issues.
Also the dvd drive in my 2.8 pro died (they are actualy just cheap sony dvd burner drives) So i ripped a pioneer dvd burner out of a windows machine and bunged it into the mac, no worries - just had to remove the dvd tray front cover with a screwdriver.
the g5 had a dead cpu when i got it (hence it was a freebie), but that was replaced by a service center for 200 quid with a warranty, you can replace cpu's fine in mac pros and g5's but getting the cpu is not much less than having it done in a workshop, so i just coughed up - but before that i stripped and rebuilt the g5 about 10 times to learn it, and it's not so hard, you just need the manual (the official apple service manuals can be had online) and a long allen-key wrench to remove the cpu heatsinks.
It's more like stripping and rebuilding a motorbike when u do a mac, in that there is a prodedure to follow rather than how it is with a windows box: ripping off the side panel and just using cables strewn all over the shop.
anyways one cpu replacement on the g5 in it's 6 or whatever years of life is not bad. 200 quid outlay in 6 years isnt much. This current windows pc i'm typing on is 3 years od and has had already a new mboard, ram and cpu set.
so yeah, Mac's seem dear, but retain value, and you can get some good deals on refurbs from dealers or the apple store. For example, if i wasnt doing hd video and only dance tracks, then a mac mini server (with the faster internal drives & 4gb ram) would be fine for me at about 650 quid. I don't do tons of tracks see.
go up to a newer quad imac and you are blazing, but still the older quad 2.66 early mac pro machines (only available s/h now) are the ones... I've got one of those also, and they offer massive bang for buck, they are quieter than the other mac pro's, and do almost as many tracks on the logic test song as a 2.8 8-core. Awesome machines with full case and all the pro-series expandability.
tbh tho, the old g5 dual 2.0 runs Logic 9, and it runs one of the included logic demo songs by The Killers which is 70 tracks & a sync'd small video!
ok, it lags badly if you try and edit on-the-fly, with the 70 tracks & video running, but it's an old g5.. it'll do dance tracks and song demos fine tho even to this day.
You can get a dual 2.0 g5 now for 200 quid in Gumtree! people think they cant run the latest logic etc on a g5, so nobody wants non-intel now ;)
So sure, i'll keep my reliable OLDER windows machines which go on and on. They are good for specific jobs like taking on location for live multi-track recording, but the new pc hardware is crappy chinese tat & the win OS is cobblers compared to OSX
i dunno man, maybe see a mac more as a dedicated stand-alone recording machine?, like the older multitracks or disk-based all-in-one mixer/recorders?... looking at it like that, an imac or even a pro doesn't seem to so dear does it?
back in the day 2k was standard outlay for any basic multitrack basic setup. Try and see it like that maybe.. but also it'll do internet and the rest.
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