Opinions on Mac for Cubase?

Hi,

I’m using Mac for some time already (when the Intel processors came). At this moment, I have the setup with two Macs (see my sign, please). Same for Windows, and Mac, once you have stable system, try to keep it, don’t change it, don’t update it.

As a local technical support, and music technology lector, I know, Mac is much more stable. Windows needs much more maintaining.

Converted from PC to MAC 5 years ago. It was when 64 bit windows was introduced. Had a lot of trouble on 4 different Win 7 PCs I tried out. After converting to MAC life has been easy. Not problem free as you mention, but it is heaven compared to the PC days. No searching for the .dll file and trying to place it somewhere smart if things does not go right, is only one thing I don’t miss from the PC days. The only thing I regret on the MAC is upgrading from Snow Leopard. I find that the best OS in the MAC history. Now I am on Mountain Lion and I do not dare to upgrade to Yosemite or El Capitan (even if I loose some of my memory installed). As another OP mentions: If something works, don’t change it.

I must add that I am not a particular MAC fan. I use PC for everything else. But for running Cubase I am all MAC.

Aloha guys,

Just to chime in…

I find most graphic functions to be ‘zipper’ on PC ‘puters than on Mac.


Good Luck!
{’-'}

Switched from PC to MAC three years ago for music production and won’t look back. Like you I was consistently dealing with Windows issues.
I too, use a ton of plugins. But like Martin says above, once you have stable system, try to keep it, don’t change it, don’t update it.
Just look at the MAC OS I’m using. I can work months without a crash, which is why I haven’t updated it.

Mac here since VST5. For the most part runs great.

I build and fix PC as my day job and also help setup pc for music, some of my clients have been running there pc for some time now with no major problem, but when I talk about a studio PC it’s 100% studio pc so no internet no facebook or porn or any funny stuff and since you don’t use internet directly no antivirus or any background scheduled application for me that the way to go but for myself I use a 2008 Mac Pro the full tower I know it’s Ooooollllld but with a new Sata III card and a SSD and get really fast access on top of that ECC memmory and 2 XEON Quad core I’m still in the game … I will keep this babby for a long time, it’s like punting on my comfy sleeper. If I hade more cash I would still go for a New Mac but for now it’s all I need … I can still record a full band with no problem , we are talking 2 guitars, 1 Bass, 1 Piano/keyboard and 12 mics on the drums at 32 bits / 44.1 with a 6,531 ms latency … good enought for most clients.

So if you have the cash go for a mac you will still get the mac color twearl but nothing is perfect and if you go pc take the time to look around on the internet you can get some good info on tweaks and also what the Pro builder are using.

Good luck and keep on making great music

I went from Mac to PC a few years ago for my studio computer and actually I’d say my Windows setup has been better than the Macs for Cubase. Might have just been lucky but I’ve not had a single issue on Windows, running 5-6 days a week full time. My various macs were mostly trouble free as well but I did have a spell of unexplained random audio dropouts when I was using an Apogee interface that I never managed to solve.

Personally, if you are familiar with Windows and already have the computer, I’d stick with it -and I say this as someone who does prefer Mac purely as an OS (I’m writing this on my Macbook Air!) The grass is always greener, as they say.

Not sure how current this information is but I’ve seen test reports from a few years back that show Windows to be quite a bit more CPU efficient with Cubase. Search for DAWbench if you’re interested.

I’m a recovering PC user for music and I switched to Mac 6 years ago and only wish I had done so sooner.

Very little Windows experience to compare with years of Mac, but I concur with Curteye, graphics are slower on Mac, giving the impression that the computer is struggling sometimes in big projects. This is even with a very fast MacPro and fairly good graphics card (HD5770). A newer/faster graphics card might improve this (I hope).

I’m really not sure why Cubendo has such poor graphics performance in Mac. It’s been that way for years, ever since OS X. Before that, graphics were quite snappy (i’m talking OS9, more than 12 years ago).

Which graphics cards do you have in your trashcan MacPro? If you’re getting slow Cubendo graphics on even the basic AMD Firepro D300 cards there’s not much hope for the rest of us.

I also find the GUI to be pretty sluggish on my 2010 3.33 6 core Mac Pro, mostly noticeable when doing stuff with audio like moving/sliding events where the waveform is pretty “zoomed in” and also when doing free warping in the audio editor.

Switched from PC to Mac two years ago…will never look back. I use a MacBook Pro (late 2013) as a master, and PC as a slave. I use both Logic X and Cubase 8, and both run great (except Cubase seems to fall behind every time the Mac OS updates); rock solid though. I also do a lot of film/tv work, and I highly recommend hosting your resource hungry VI’s on a slave machine via VEPro. I have templates with up to 200 instruments loaded, and the Mac never flinches. I find the Mac virtually worry-free, unlike windows when I was constantly struggling with settings and other crap. That’s just my own experience though, for what it’s worth.

Switched from PC to Mac two years ago…will never look back. I use a MacBook Pro (late 2013) as a master, and PC as a slave. I use Logic X, Pro Tools and Cubase 8, and both run great (except Cubase seems to fall behind every time the Mac OS updates); rock solid though. I also do a lot of film/tv work, and I highly recommend hosting your resource hungry VI’s on a slave machine via VEPro. I have templates with up to 200 instruments loaded, and the Mac never flinches. I find the Mac virtually worry-free, unlike windows when I was constantly struggling with settings and other crap. That’s just my own experience though, for what it’s worth.

Here a Cubendo Mac user since hard times past (insane G5 era… :unamused: ) and I have seen an improvement performance from early versions to actual. In my opinion 7 and 7.5 was not the more stable mac version but Cubase 8pro works fine on mac. I’m a MacPro 2009 owner upgraded to a powerful workstation (faster Xeon processor, full RAM, SSD hard drive, NVIDIA graphic etc…) and Cubase works wonderfully. As others have written before, don´t try to get last OS updates: little improvements, lot of problems

Sooner or later you’ll end up having to repair permissions or open a terminal window or two to do something or other, and it will just be like having a computer, whatever’s stuck on the front of the box - Mac’s aren’t without their problems, as a brief look on Apple’s forums will tell you - when Apple aren’t breaking everything with OS X updates though and the kinks have been ironed out with Cubase.x updates, it’s absolutely solid as a rock, before I updated from Cubase 4 to 8 when I got a new Mac, it was basically bulletproof, I don’t think I had a crash in years, and never managed to max it out. Depends what you use it for though I guess.

I could be wrong, but I think the graphical issues on a Mac are because they don’t use the OS graphic system (no idea what is called).

So the menus aren’t standard as with most Mac apps and it doesn’t have standard features like native full screen and window handling.

I love Cubase but it does look pretty clunky on a Mac. I’m hoping the next version will tackle this and include retina graphics.

I started years ago with a PC, simply because a PC was a whole bunch cheaper than the equivalent Mac.

These days I use a dual quad 3.3 GHz Mac Pro with a Quadro 4800 driving two 24 inch monitors and an Nvidia 120 GT driving a third 22 inch. I see no issue whatsoever with graphics flicker, distortion or anything else. The major issue for me is that my 22 inch monitor is rotated, and Cubase can’t seem to remember how that works from boot to boot. I always have to reset the workspace when I start it.

On the other hand, I have no crashes or other weirdness.

I’ve also got a working copy of Windows 7 running Nuendo on my Mac Pro. I’ve noticed over time, though I don’t use it much these days) that Windows on the Mac Pro seems slightly quicker on the Mac than OS X does. I’ve never tried to measure it, it’s just an impression

I have both an i7 4Gz 2014 MacBook Pro and an i7 3.8 Ghz OC to 4.2Ghz Win 10 Pro system (Asus, AMD, SSD, etc)
Both share the same 4K Dell monitor (and another monitor)

Even though I prefer OSX to Windows, I like the flexibility of building out my own system for recording. I assume that when people have problems with windows that is the combination of plugins and the audio device driver vendor. I use the UR44 . You’re mix of H/W + Plugins may have a problem coexisting on windows.

Once you start up Cubase, the OS really does not matter much since the application seems to be built using some common UI libraries so that it is consistent over both platforms. But when I use Logic Pro X on the Mac, I can really see/feel the difference when an application is written with a single OS in mind. It looks way better on the 4K monitor and overall has a better OSX native feel. That being said, I like Cubase features better and the Windows version feels faster.


John

+1
{‘-’}

I essentially have the same machine as you do (ATI 5770 card), but haven’t noticed this problem. Is this a 7.5 versus 8 difference? (Been too busy to upgrade Cubase yet)