Cubase on Pc or a Mac ?

:laughing:

I’m sorry, I don’t understand. It’s certainly a good joke, but I’m waiting for serious advices about a serious investment.
Thanks.

It’s simple really. If you’re comfortable with technology, at home with a screw diver, prepared to do some research and able to cope with the odd surprise or two, then building your own PC is a lot cheaper.

Can’t say much about the MAC. Never been able to afford one that could compete, performance wise, with a PC I could build my self.

Had some airy moments though, like having to wait weeks to get a bad cap replaced on a Gigabyte Mother Board under guarantee.

Edit: Also, had a beauty with the last build before this one. The PC would boot, run for a while the intermittently turn itself off and reboot. Ended up being a faulty reset button. On a brand new case too.

Not trying to put you off or anything :slight_smile:

Not goin to say it out loud but why not go with hakintosh and win machine all in one :ugeek:

Thanks for your answers Dark Blue Man and Ruffindajungle.
Yes, I’m comfortable with a screwdriver - repaired a lot of old PCs in my school and installed new ones a couple of years ago (I’m retired now).
I’ve been on PC from 1996 til 2008. I was not very lucky with a machine that was powerful (at that time) a dual-core with 2x MP from AMD. Precisely with the motherboard :open_mouth: a Tyan …
At the end I build a 4800+ with an Asus mobo, I still use in my little music network but with only 3 gig ram recognized
because of the mobo. And as I wanted a machine with plenty of ram I looked towards Apple, got a Mac Pro and bought ram at OWC.
No problem to fix, only music to do…so I’m ready to buy a new one but if somebody tells me (s)he has a PC with say 32 gig of ram or more and overall Cubase 7 running faultlessly, I’ll consider building a machine again.
Are there people who manage to use many sound libraries (VSL,NI etc…) and VSTIs like Spectrasonics’ instruments and MachFive? If yes, on kind of machine?
Thanks in advance for your help.
Edmond

well may I recommend some hardware for you to check out , a favourite motherboard seems to be the asus p8z77v series 1155 socket and it’s also used by some mods for testing and as the latest i7 processor is 3770k it’s well suited and that bundle with the corsair 32 gig or ram will suit all you needs . The reason im recommending this build is because now the new 2011 socket is becoming more widely available the 1155 setups are getting cheaper and cheaper so I decided to build the exact built myself im just waiting for the 3770k to turn up and im all systems go . Im 100% sure you wouldn’t need to upgrade for a few years :wink:

Edit
sorry and I do know quite a few people that do run this system with win 7 64 bit and they do run perfectly once they have been optimized for music production

regards
john

Since you’re already happy using a Mac and you’re also using VE Pro, you could actually just stick with Mac as your control platform and build “farm” machines out of PC components as needed.

Now don’t get too surprised that when you build that farm machine, it will run circles around both your Macs combined. :wink:

The main issue, though, is whether or not you’re really comfortable switching platforms. There will be other issues that pop up that you don’t expect, but then again, you’ll get a lot more bang for the buck. But again, if you’re already satisfied where you are now with Macs, the PC “farm” approach with VE Pro could be the most economical approach.

Good luck!!!

I reckon, at the moment, if you shop clever, you could build a monster PC for under a grand (Brit Money) or not much more depending on how much RAM. Raid system, SSD etc you go for. And that’s without skimping on anything.

Personally I stick with Intel processors and either Gigabyte or Asus Mother boards. Presently I have a 650 watt Corsair PSU, and trust me, my machine is full of stuff… like one 240 gig SSD, 3 standard hard drives, two UAD-2 cards, a PowerCore Firewire Element and a EMU 1820m Sound card.

It’s a Gigabyte EX58, I7, 6 gigs, fan-less NVIDIA Graphics. It does everything I want for now but I don’t use huge sample libraries. Sometime next year however I plan on building a beast machine with a fancy case and oversized cooling system for over-clocking (never done that before but, what the hell!)

I’ll be upping the PSU to about 850 watt and I’ll be sticking with intel, gigabyte or Asus but I’ll probably spend at least a month researching the rest, FireWire chip set, RAM etc etc.

Then, fingers crossed :ugeek:

Edit: Also, my sound card is about ten years old and hasn’t been supported for years, yet it just keeps on working. Got all my hardware integrated into Cubase and everything. But alas, I reckon it’s days are numbered. Had my eye on the Steinberg Sound card for a while but I’m not sure about FireWire for sound cards. This new Tunderbolt technology looks interesting though, doesn’t it?

Quick points here:

– Your 2008 Mac Pro is pretty ancient. Even a mac mini quad will run circles around it. (except if you need a ton of RAM. Mini is limited to 16GB, I think).

– Cubase is very stable on my 2012 Mac Pro. I don’t think it’s ever crashed or hung on me. I also have way, WAY more CPU headroom than I will ever use (large surround projects @48/24 with lots of plugs). Mac Pro is about expansion, but also more RAM slots than a laptop, which you might want for orchestra VI work. And this machine is very quiet, too!

– You could save money and build a Hackintosh, if you have the time and know-how. Or, you could try a mac mini with your MacBook Pro (you didn’t say which model). Very affordable mac and you could focus on your music rather than the build & maintenance of a Hack unit. Time is money!

Good luck!

Consider that Hans Zimmer uses Cubase on a PC. And it’s not like he can’t afford a mac. The truth is, a PC will run Cubase much more efficiently, given the same processor, RAM etc. So, with $2,000 you can build the ultimate PC that will be faster than anything Apple has in its catalog.

Windows 7/8 is extremely stable and reliable. You won’t lose anything by switching, only gain.

Does he build his PC’s himself? Or does he just set them up? Or maintain them? I doubt :slight_smile:

I can see another “my mac’s better than your pc naaaaaaa” war starting here .If it runs what ever you feel you need to run to produce what ever your doing does it really matter what platform it is unless of cause your a computer snob ? And if I was a computer snob I would go for the x79 chip set with an xeon 8 core so mac still looses :wink:( im not saying everyone that has these amazing machine are snobs im just using the chipset as an example sorry if you take it the wrong way :wink: )

BYOWS

JM2C :nerd:

The truth is, a PC will run Cubase much more efficiently, given the same processor, RAM etc. So, with $2,000 you can build the ultimate PC that will be faster than anything Apple has in its catalog.

Where did that come from? This is NOT true. I have been running Cubase for 7 years on different configurations, both PCs and MACs and on different OS. I have been in a position where I could test different configurations. The least trouble with CB is by far experienced with MACs. Within Cubase I experience no speed difference between the two (wtih comparison configurations) but I have experienced a lot of difference in trouble like program freeze and sudden shut downs and plugs that won’t run properly - all in favor of MAC. And the MACs have alway been more responsive when opening the program.

My current configuration is a MAC pro and a PC as a slave (both VST linked and VEPro linked). The PC slave is used to run plugs not avialable on MAC. However it is less and less used as most (useful) plugs now come on both platforms.

A MAC is always a MAC (within the same model), but a PC is seldom a PC. A PC can be assembled in sooooooo many ways, using different components. MAC in just one. MAC is more expencive to buy YES, but counting all the trouble I have had with CB on different PCs, the MAC comes out as the CHEAP solution. Just look at the forum and see what kind of trouble the two different platforms yield.

It really depends whether you’re the sort of person who feels cosy inside Apple’s walled garden, or if you find it restrictive and long to escape. I’m the second sort!

:laughing:

For some people, mac is a religion. And like all religions, it relies on groundless beliefs and faith. Like the mac being invulnerable to malware and windows crashing every 5 minutes. Or windows requiring constant tweaking and maintenance and the mac never having any issue of any sort.

For anyone else, there are actual benchmarks and windows ALWAYS comes on top. Enjoy:

http://www.dawbench.com/win7-v-osx-1.htm

Glad I brought plenty of popcorn and beer :laughing:

When I wrote the first post I was afraid it will happen…

…actually it’s more “my pc’s better than your mac” :wink:

Anyway, I’m happy because I got many very useful and kind answers, thank you all :slight_smile:

Edmond

@rumdrum: you mentionned VEPro, I use this wonderful soft but what do you mean by “VST linked”?

@papi61 : sorry, Hans Zimmer works on Mac (http://www.cinezik.org/infos/affinfo.php?titre0=20121005182011)
I don’t know about his team of 10 composers…

@jpgtr: it’s a mid 2009 MBPro 2x3.06 GHz with 8 gig of ram, 2 SSDs (I put the optical drive in an external case) actually I charge it with Spectrasonics instruments + many sound libraries in VEPro without a problem. It’s true that it’s not my DAW, just an audio-slave, but I think it is not far from the 8 core Mac Pro as for its power.

You sound like a man after own heart. Anecdotes and faith are so compelling to evangelical believers (this DAW sounds better than that DAW, anyone?) but stop dead at the brick wall of unambiguous, science based scepticism.

I really don’t care for the MAC v PC war. It’s pointless. Use what you want, I don’t care, it’s your money. But if you want to convince me, or anyone else for that matter, that the MAC is in any way superior to a well built PC, don’t tell me stories… show me well documented, peer reviewed, double blind tested evidence. Then I will listen.