Help with deciding next computer for production/mixing? Mac or PC?

DJ Life & Community General Discussion
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Help with deciding next computer for production/mixing? Mac or PC?

Hi guys, I have a small budget that I’m using to build/buy my next system for production and mixing. When I say small, I mean small. I can either go for a Windows PC with a core2quad CPU and around 6GB of RAM, or a Mac G5 with a Dual core CPU and 4GB of RAM.

The IT Technician in me sees the processing power difference and immediately tells me to build the PC, but I’v heard that MACs are generally a lot more stable for all things music (plus I’v never owned a mac and the thought excites me.) Il be upgrading the RAM on whichever machine I buy to 8GB.

In your opinion, would I be better off with the more powerful PC, or the Mac? I know that neither of these configurations are particularly powerful, but I’m currently using a Windows Laptop with a dual core Celeron CPU and 3GB of RAM…

I use an Axiom 25, A Korg PadKontrol and a (don’t hate me) Numark Mixtrack Pro 2, all of which need to be compatible with the mac should I go down that route. I need to be able to run Ableton live, FL Studio and Traktor Scratch Pro 2 Well.

What are your thoughts DJ’s?
Thanks in advance!

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the mac

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Thanks for the reply. May I ask why? Is it the operating system, the build quality, something else?

Cheers :slight_smile:

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Budget Production Computer. PC/Mac?

I have already asked this in the general discussion, didn’t realize there was a dedicated production thread, sorry.

Hi guys, I have a small budget that I’m using to build/buy my next system for production and mixing. When I say small, I mean small. I can either go for a Windows PC with a core2quad CPU and around 6GB of RAM, or a Mac G5 with a Dual core CPU and 4GB of RAM.

The IT Technician in me sees the processing power difference and immediately tells me to build the PC, but I’v heard that MACs are generally a lot more stable for all things music (plus I’v never owned a mac and the thought excites me.) Il be upgrading the RAM on whichever machine I buy to 8GB. (What are my upgrade options for mac in terms of HDD and RAM? Can I just buy standard PC2-6400 RAM? Can I install a secondary Harddrive?)

In your opinion, would I be better off with the more powerful PC, or the Mac and why? I know that neither of these configurations are particularly powerful, but I’m currently using a Windows Laptop with a dual core Celeron CPU and 3GB of RAM…

I currently use an Axiom 25, A Korg PadKontrol and a Numark Mixtrack Pro 2, all of which need to be compatible with the mac should I go down that route. I need to be able to run Ableton Live, FL Studio and Traktor Scratch Pro 2 Well.

What are your thoughts?
Thanks in advance!

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CoreAudio, Build Quality, Efficiency, Integration between applications & close to almost zero maintenance thoughout the lifetime of the machine (except for OS updates which take 30 minutes or so).

And no, you will NOT be buying a Mac G5 (Power PC) , they are unsupported for any new software or OS updates - you will need at least an “i” series intel mac 2010 or up.

By efficiency, I mean the OS is efficient when it comes to CPU utilization, even on a 6 year old 2009 Core2Duo Macbook , I can run 4 client Windows XP machines AND Windows Server simultaneously via Parallels while still running background applications on the mac.

IMHO itunes integration with Logic / Traktor / Serato is priceless.

On a budget, look for:

2010-2012 Imac’s (easy to upgrade processors, ram and hard disks, the 2013 models have soldered processors)
2012-2013 Mac Mini’s (easy to upgrade processors, ram and hard disks)

I’m currently running a 21’ 2010 Imac i3, 8gb ram, SSD - which can potentially be upgraded to a quad xeon or dual i5, while 27’ models can be upgraded to quad i7’s (bigger PSU). I picked it up for $320 and spent $120 on the SSD and 4gb extra ram.

Personally I like the imac as a production desktop. The screen is gorgeous and no need for additional cables everywhere - despite them being a little more difficult to perform upgrades (which are limited anyhow).

Typically a new Mac might cost more, but even after 4-5 years of use you can still expect to get back 40% - 50% of your initial cost when you put it up for sale, something that can not be said for the majority of PC’s on the market.

Or Go PC
Of course if you like tinkering and have the time to spend on optimization, upgrades etc, by all means build a PC - I just had enough of getting client machines working optimally, to want to get home and do it all over again.

A PC will be cheaper in the short term and will do what you need it to - really depends what you value more.

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hi, i ve a macbook core 2 duo late 2008 ,i buy it in 2010 (700&#8364:wink: ,i ve made 8Gb ram + a caddy case for a second DD ,i work with live +traktor +maschine + 6 midi controler on it , everything work well not like a PC .. hope that help :wink:

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On a tight budget you should definitly not go for a mac. It’s not that big of a difference anyways. Maybe let us know your budget so we get an idea of what you are looking at. Many unexperienced people put emphesis on things they don’t need when building a PC.

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Cheers for the reply. My budget is less than £150, I can get a mac G5 for that, a cheap monitor, and hopefully upgrade the RAM.

The PC is going to be a lot cheaper simply because I’m just upgrading an old system I have in the studio. I just needs a CPU upgrade from the Celeron dual core it has, to a core 2 quad, and a ram upgrade from the 512mb (haha) it has, to 6GB or 8GB, and a couple of other marginal upgrades such as the power supply and network card. I’v cross checked the motherboard model and it will support these upgrades. It has an ATI graphics card already installed which will handle everything I intend to use it for. I’d much rather go the PC route because A.more power B.much cheaper and C. I know windows like the back of my hand, but if a mac was going to be much better at handling Ableton, FL Studio, Traktor etc I would go down that route.

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Thanks for the reply, if I had the money I would take an i series mac anyday, but I don’t currently have the money for an i series desktop let alone a mac :laughing:
I had no idea the G5 wouldn’t support new software, deal breaker for me ofcourse.
I’l build the PC, luckily enough I’m an IT technician and I can optimize the s**t out of it to no end :laughing:

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Mac is definitely a route I will go down when I can afford, but in the mean time it’s PC for me due to a shoestring budget and rent to pay haha. Hopefully windows will handle 6 midi controllers with a little tweaking :wink:

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PC it is, apparently a G5 wont even support the latest versions of Traktor, ableton etc. Makes sense!
I’l build the PC and do some optimization, should do exactly what I need it to in the end :slight_smile:

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Honestly though, I had no idea Mac’s were so well optimized, I thought it was all heresay!

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[QUOTE]I’l build the PC, luckily enough I’m an IT technician and I can optimize the s**t out of it to no end
[/QUOTE]

So am I and its one of the main reasons I switched :stuck_out_tongue:, Optimizing as a job is one thing, spending time optimizing when I should be doing something creative and constructive is another.

I’ve found that no matter how fast your PC is, you’ll always want a little “more” and end up tinkering around for “just” for another 20 hours only to end up with one millisecond less latency in traktor.

The above is doubley true if you know anything about computers in the first place

[QUOTE]Mac is definitely a route I will go down when I can afford, but in the mean time it’s PC for me due to a shoestring budget and rent to pay haha. Hopefully windows will handle 6 midi controllers with a little tweaking
[/QUOTE]

A 2011/12 Mac Mini I5 / 8 or 16gb ram / 500 gb hdd will set you back under $400 on ebay ready to rock n’ roll out of the box - really not that much more than decent spec case/hdd/ram/motherboard/processor these days.

But you might have spare parts lying around that will save you enough $ to make a big difference.

Don’t forget, you’ll need to use Intel Processors on your DIY PC for Audio Purposes - AMD doesn’t play nice with alot of audio applications.

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Get an Intel based PC with two hard drives, install windows on one hard drive and Niresh Mavericks on the other.

Easy to install and about half the price of an equivalent mac desktop.

These days you could even save more money and go AMD. I just finished building an AMD based Hackintosh for a friend of mine to produce music on. Thing works great and only cost about $500.

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(on mac you have parallèle desktop.app for working with all os you need .. )

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Wow I’m thinking about upgrading my 2014 Xeon to something better. How can you work with an celeron dual core or core2quad? What do you usually run on it? Or do you just use it for home-recording a singer and a guitar? I mean how would it handly any new-ish synth with some unison?

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Yup, I’m the kind of guy who “just spend five minutes speeding this up” only to be sat there 13 hours later still tinkering! My PC is going to be incredibly cheap thanks to having a system already going to spare, it will support all the upgrades I’m planning on and really won’t cost much at all, my budget is teeny weeny at the moment as I keep blowing it on controllers & speakers :laughing:

You’re very, very right about needing intel, I was using an AMD laptop before I started with Traktor, it was fine for production, but I moved onto traktor and It just would not handle my Sound card, I spent hours fiddling with sample rates and re-intalling Asio4all etc. I stripped the entire operating system down to absolute bare essentials only to find out I needed an intel system :laughing: so in the end I started using an intel laptop with less power and it did the job better, the things you learn ey! Great advice, most people wouldn’t know until they bought an AMD system and realised the huge mistake they made!

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Intel based with 2 harddrives is the route I’m going anyways :slight_smile: Hackintosh is really that easy? I thought you had to build a very specific system and spend hours modding to get a working hackintosh build?
AMD is an absolute no go for me as it doesn’t play well with my Numark soundcard, unusably so!

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Hopefully I’l like the Mac OS so much that I don’t need to use that :wink: I have been working with windows my entire adult life though, so it’s going to really need to impress me for that to happen haha

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I’m currently working with a celeron because I have no choice. I sold my i5 rig before I got into producing and I’m kicking myself now.
Honestly though, you don’t need an awful lot of power if you can optimise Windows. This celeron dual core laptop handles Traktor very well, less than 10ms latency with my controllers and no audio dropouts. In terms of production it was doing great. It handles Massive, Nexus, FM8, Harmor etc with no issues. That is until I started building up my presets, it’s having a few issues now but this is probably down to lack of RAM. A core 2 quad is with 6-8GB of RAM is a major increase on what I’m currently using & I’m confident that it’s going to equate to complete stability and fit my needs perfectly, for a while atleast anyway.
But yeah it handles synths very well, I do full production on this thing.