mac or pc...

[TristanRay]

i recently got a firepod, and ive been a windows user my whole life, but i notice there are a lot of technicalities when it comes to using the firepod with a PC, so i was thinkin, of maybe juss buying an apple imac, which now comes with leopard. and im very lost. i really dont know what to do at this point. mac or pc, and if i do go with a mac, will the firepod work okay with the system and the provided cubase le? and if the cubase le wont work with the firepod, wats a good recording software? thanks.
-tristan:

[vcovco]

DONT DO IT!!!!

I see just as many horror stories with Macs, especially with the firestudio project and especially with OSX leopard...yes...different chipset...but don't be fooled into thinking your problems will be washed away by switching to a mac. There are tons of weird issues with Macs and 3rd party firewire devices...

As a network admin, I manage both Macs and Wintels, and trust me when I tell you I DO NOT go home to a Mac like the apple ads would have you believe ;)

On the other hand, vista is just plain awful...

I would recommend to wait a bit before making the jump...

[stratology]

DONT DO IT!!!!

I see just as many horror stories with Macs, especially with the firestudio project and especially with OSX leopard...yes...different chipset...but don't be fooled into thinking your problems will be washed away by switching to a mac. There are tons of weird issues with Macs and 3rd party firewire devices...

As a network admin, I manage both Macs and Wintels, and trust me when I tell you I DO NOT go home to a Mac like the apple ads would have you believe ;)

On the other hand, vista is just plain awful...

I would recommend to wait a bit before making the jump...


I bought the Firestudio Project 2 weeks ago, set-up on my PowerBook was ridiculously easy, works like a charm.


Note that I'm using Digital Performer as my DAW, not Cubase LE. I played around with Cubase LE, it's a PC app ported to the Mac, needs lots of resources, crashes a lot, poor interface etc. Definitely not recommended.

The Presonus FireControl software does what it's supposed to do, but is clearly a 1.0 product: you cannot load presets at the moment, and the GRAPHICS cause high CPU load - so if you're on a Mac, set it up, then hide it -> CPU load goes down to normal.
Presonus support promised updates soon..

I have used both Macs and PCs for audio. I'm strongly biased towards Macs.
The main differences are:
- time to get things set up and running
- workflow


Regarding workflow: when you start using a Mac, get a good book like David Pogue's 'Missing Manual' for OS X. You can use a Mac in a similar way to Windows, but life gets really good when you start taking advantage of Mac technologies like spring-loading folders, Exposé, Services, Smart Folders, Labels, Stickies, Spotlight, Automator, column-view, audio previews from the Finder, etc. Also, don't underestimate the impact the underlying technologies (Unix foundation, Core Audio, Core Midi, Spotlight integration, etc.) has on how well things work.

- If you're not terribly into technology and just want to get things done, you will like the ease of use. (Although I noticed that switchers often look for a complicated way to do things instead of trying the obvious - example: dragging a .jpg on your Mail icon in the Dock creates an email message with the pic attached, which has a button at the bottom that lets you resize the image)
- If you're technology minded, you're in for a treat. You get excellent Developer Tools for free, you can dig into the Unix underpinnings, you get Apache out of the box, you can open the Kernel in a text editor and mess with it if you want to, because the foundation is open source, etc

I agree that I'd be cautious with Leopard for now, mainly because it's so new, and it always takes audio developers some time to get things working reliably. The good ones are fairly quick, though, Motu has already released a compatible version of DP.

Anyway, get a Mac. If you have any specific questions, don't hesitate to pm me..

Frank

[samuel1]

Apple's computers can have problems like any other, and they do.

However, you are right - more often than not driver/compatibility problems we see in this forum come from windows users. Mainly because apple writes all of its drivers, and builds them right into the system's massive sub-component: core audio.

Now like ABSOLUTELY ANY new OS release, be cautious - things can go wrong... ask around in forums about how your software works with it, ask around about how your hardware works with it, and once your confident the you can try it.

By try it, i mean try it with a complete system backup of your old system. I think macs still come with tiger but ship with a leopard disk. I can tell you that Tiger (the previous system) is **** stable and time tested, and works flawlessly with the firepod.

SO FAR leopard works great with my firepod and logic studio. There are problems with the firestudio and leopard though...


Essentially - Tiger seems to be generally very compatible with presonus, generally more so than windows.

Leopard - known issues (expected ones), but I am confident that Apple will fix it - they have done a great job so far.

Apple is no fool proof fix, but trends on this forum do suggest that macs have pretty good compatibility records with presonus.

[scarrgo]

Hi TristanRay,

samuel1 is correct in my opinion, I will say I am a mac guy, but I believe in use what is best for you, I have a g4 tower, g4 laptop at home, and an intel laptop at work, all running tiger, I also use Cubase Studio 4.1 with 1 Firebox and 2 Firepods.

The CS 4.1 update has been a little trying for me on the g4's but works well on the intel.

I know the cost for a mac is a little more, But I believe you get what you pay for.

But you really have to try for yourself, go to an apple store or find a friend that has mac and try it out. Only you can figure out what to get, so dont let anyone tell you that you have to get one or the other. I use both win and mac, if I can you should be fine... Happy Shopping...

Peace

Sean...

[mwrecording]

the problem is waiting for presonus to fix the firepod bug with Leopard. I have to find Tiger now.

[tobiaspb]

DON`T WAIT.

Switch to a Mac immediately. The current problem with Firewire and audio interfaces is a Apple Leopard bug (not PreSonus). I would recommend using Tiger with your audio setup. I never had any problems with it and it`s rock solid and dead easy. Upgrade to Leopard in some month or have it dual boot if you can`t wait. :-)