Opinions on Mac for Nuendo?

Hello Headlands,

I understand your question unfortunately it requires more granularity. There are UI and OS things that are slower on the Mac and ones that are slower on Windows. Kind of like the old Mac PowerPC days when Macs were ridiculously underpowered and Apple would find one PhotoShop plugin that would run better on the Mac and show that at their annual event to prove how amazingly fast the new Macs are. Not a lie, just selective.

Certain scrolling things are faster on a Mac, some are much faster on Windows. It’s how the OS prioritizes the tasks. Network access is consistently faster on Windows although high track counts to a network drive appears to be faster/better/more stable on a Mac. Lots of individual items to consider.

So the only answer to your question is you need to borrow one, load it up, and try it. It won’t be like a Windows machine in response, some things will be different. SSDs, please, only, for the OS/Apps drive.

Hugh

I agree. Overall, my impression is they both run quite similarly: here, N7.03 on 12 core mac pro w/ Yosemite on a PCIe flash & Win10 on an SSD. ASIO load etc seems about the same with identical large projects /plugs /VIs. I find screen-set configurations far more reliable /as expected behaviour on OS X with this 2 display set-up. Windows is just plain weird & inconsistent with some of that in N7. Graphics behaviour & windows re-draws is very different and sometimes this gives the artificial impression of ‘slow’ or ‘fast’. Fonts and readability I find better on OS X. On the other hand, say, (doing audio grunt), large numbers of multiple track render times appear identical; fast locates around the time-line; loading and saving large sessions etc.

For me, the main issue is that maintenance and installation side of Win simply takes more time to set, and far more messing about (drivers, ports, GPUs, yadda, yadda). Generally speaking, OS X takes little effort to get going - unless of course, either Win or OS X go pear-shaped. In which case, usually back to (DOS or Unix) command lines or clean installs and insults for both. Depends on your persuasion, some people like to fiddle with the computer and/or maximise and tune /tweak /hot-up its performance & if a Win guru, that is far more flexible. OS X doesn’t easily allow for interference, ‘sit back and enjoy the experience’ mantra … reminds me:

If Operating Systems Were Airlines

Mac Airlines
All the stewards, stewardesses, captains, baggage handlers, and ticket agents look the same, act the same, and talk the same. Every time you ask questions about details, you are told you don’t need to know, don’t want to know, and would you please return to your seat and watch the movie.

Windows Air
The terminal is pretty and colorful, with friendly stewards, easy baggage check and boarding, and a smooth take-off. After about 10 minutes in the air, the plane explodes with no warning whatsoever.

Unix Airlines
Each passenger brings a piece of the airplane and a box of tools to the airport. They gather on the tarmac, arguing constantly about what kind of plane they want to build and how to put it together. Eventually, they build several different aircraft, but give them all the same name. Some passengers actually reach their destinations. All passengers believe they got there.

Linux Airlines
Disgruntled employees of all the other OS airlines decide to start their own airline. They build the planes, ticket counters, and pave the runways themselves. They charge a small fee to cover the cost of printing the ticket, but you can also download and print the ticket yourself. When you board the plane, you are given a seat, four bolts, a wrench and a copy of the seat-HOWTO.html. Once settled, the fully adjustable seat is very comfortable, the plane leaves and arrives on time without a single problem, the in-flight meal is wonderful. You try to tell customers of the other airlines about the great trip, but all they can say is, “You had to do what with the seat?”

I’m still waiting for upgrades for my iMac 5K to start using it in earnest, but first impressions are great. They upgraded my machine just before shipping to the new spec, and this thing flies!
I wish I’d sprung for a bigger internal Flash/SSD as it’s the fastest damn thing I’ve ever used.
Benchmarks put it at around the 1800/2000k per second (as opposed to 520k in my PC with a Sandisk SSD) and the system feels very responsive and fast.
Nuendo seems to behave well, though does seem to have some issues with the largest resolution. Update still feels snappy, but when the window’s sized to full screen I get some black borders…perhaps the programmers weren’t expecting it to be scaled to 5120x2440 :slight_smile:

With regards to Hackintosh - been there, done that. I would strongly advise against it.
Yes, it does work, and there can be quite a bit of ego stroking when you manage to get it running.

But my system was never truly stable, and installing a new app or an update by accident could break the whole thing.
And any updates you’d want to do, you’d have to wait and find out if some enthusiast with an alias on one of the hackintosh sites had hacked/coded a fix for it yet.
That to me was the entire reason to forget about it; you have no support and no recourse if anything breaks; in fact, in my case it brought me back to the incessant fiddling that I was trying to avoid by switching to OS X in the first place :stuck_out_tongue:

Hello Headlands,
That’s how we tend to purchase our many mac systems. Be sure you keep the original parts. If you have to send it back to Apple for a warranty repair and it has replacement parts they tend not to honor the warranty until you change them back. Sometimes you’ll get an Apple repair person with a clue who understands that, for instance, a third-party hard drive has nothing to do with, for instance, glitchy graphics, but the party line is easier for them to adhere to.

H

Macs are easy to upgrade, usually. I shop for competitive pricing, but usually settle on macsales.com or newegg.com.

B&H Photo in Manhattan usually beats them all for a brand new Mac.

IMO, Next Gen mac pros may take quite some time, ~2017? (and only if Apple decide to continue with this) Skylake processors are quite a ways off for that platform & will roll out in a zillion variants from the bottom up before then; see Intel Unveils Full Lineup of Skylake Processors for Notebooks and Desktops, Early 2016 Likely for Most Macs - MacRumors The other issue is that the Trashcan is way over-spec’d in terms of the GPUs: is a box purpose-buit for FCPX really. Unless of course Apple did consider an audio production box & down the GPU to a single, reasonably priced option. My 2 cents, anyways.

Re the ‘parts’ thing. In the US, UK and AU (may be others) the way that seems to be best working is through ‘refurbs’ or ‘BTO’ (not parts), i.e., the vendor uses 2010 chassis & motherboard and drops in new components to suit: GPU, CPUs, Ram; then if one wants: PCIes (eg USB3), drives etc. Then vendor warranty against the parts and build.

See for example: OWC (US): Other World Computing - MP10D9C16T1 Item Not Found

In the UK & EU: https://create.pro Also see ProTools expert: Installation & Testing Of Create Pro 12 Core Mac Pro Upgrade | Pro Tools - The leading website for Pro Tools users (tho’ these people seem a bit expensive to me)

In AU, lots of BTO options, many working via eBay. eg: see MacGPU http://stores.ebay.com.au/macgpu?_trksid=p2047675.l2563, Embark technology http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Apple-Mac-Pro-2010-Custom-12-core-3-33Ghz-to-suit-your-needs-/171857933096?hash=item280387f328:g:0UsAAOSwPcVVpHmE etc

In my case, used Embark for 12 core 3.33Ghz, 48GB, Nvidia GTX, USB3.0, BTO mac pro 5,1. Worked exactly as described. The single ‘downside’ in my view: no Thunderbolt (ever). But am using only UA Apollo on the FW bus, otherwise USB 3.0 has been excellent and fast for the rest (external Raid) etc.

Welcome to the “bright” side. Your processor is keeping up because the Mac OS is written specifically for their hardware. Microsoft has to write software for millions of combinations of unknown hardware. I find the graphics in Nuendo on a Mac are not always smooth for some reason. Sometimes my track waveforms are blocky and drag a bit. I don’t know why, but it’s been that way for several years with different computers/OS/versions. My guess is the code for drawing windows and waveforms must be very old and it doesn’t get re-written in new versions. Probably talking out my butt on this one, but it seems like the same graphics for years now. It would be nice to see some updated track pictures like spectragrams.

Jumping in here…

I’m reading this because I am thinking of going the OTHER way - Mac to PC. Why? Because I feel, regardless of cost, I can achieve better performance (i.e. plugs, VSTi’s and external monitoring). I seem to hit a ceiling on my Mid 2012 12 Core Mac Pro. I may be fantasising, but i am imagining getting greater power headroom on a HP Z9840 or something, and switching to windows.

However, after reading all that is in this thread, I am now hesitating. My experience with Mac, (before this I was on Atari) has been pretty smooth, apart from the two paradigm shifting transitions that Apple needed to do over the years (OS9-10, and Power PC to Intel). Both these switchers were a pain, but survivable.

I still run 10.8.5 on my main Mac. It is very smooth, except for the power ceiling I mentioned. If it wasn’t for this, I would not even be considering any switch.

It is true to say that I am protected by the OSX eco-bubble. Everything just basically “works”. When I hit a strange anomaly in Nuendo, I can be pretty damn sure that it is Nuendo that is the cause, most of the time. As mentioned, a quick forum search and my system has so many commonalities with other users (on Mac) that I can hone in on the problem, pretty fast.

I have never had a USB/firewire etc fail. Apple as a concept can be pretty annoying at times (especially the anxiety over whether Apple will actually be making computers with mice and keyboards for very much longer) but as it is, it is totally professional and reliable. And I guess I have paid for this with the price.

Hesitating to upgrade to a trashcan….but if it aint really broke….

B

The towers are still usable with Nuendo. I only switched to Trashcan because of the age of my tower. I can say that Nuendo isn’t really much faster, but the whole OS is faster, especially since I went to 10.9 (and now 10.10 El Capitan). You might consider doing that after you put in an SSD for your main drive.

I don’t think it’s “personal preference” when users claim that they don’t have any problems with platform X but had them with platform Y. That’s a statement about facts.

My only problem when discussing all of this is that we end up sort of ignoring the fact that both work flawlessly for a lot of people, and that a lot of people have problems with either platform. And it’s not limited to Nuendo.

Like (I think) I said before; I’m on an old quad-core Win7 x64, haven’t tweaked it one bit, surf the web, watch Netflix, AND I’ve mixed shows on it, professionally. So, if anyone says “Oh, I had to tweak my win machine and then I switched over and had zero problems” then to me that says one thing and one thing only: That you can have an “equal” experience on either platform. It does not tell me that one is superior to the other.

I can’t remember any exceptions to any problem on either platform having been related - directly - to hardware, OR, non-OS software issues. The latter being cases where people upgraded software without checking compatibility. The former being a hard drive failure, or a RAM stick failure, or a mobo failure etc.

So, as I said before: I’ve had FAR more issues with professional Pro Tools HD systems running on Mac OSX than I’ve had Nuendo on Win 7 x64. The comparison isn’t even close.

What does that tell us?

I will chime in here too. I have been on windows from the start with xp being the 1st OS that I liked simply because I never had to look under the hood. It just worked. I’m now on win7 64 on my 6 year old i7 computer and have had no desire to upgrade, though I would like to get an SSD or two. It has been solid and fast with the exception of a power supply that went bad a couple of years ago. I know of mac user friends who have had nothing but problems and some who have had the success I’ve had. Same on windows.

I think that the platform is less important than driver compatibility and poorly written plugins - the two main culprits when there are software problems.

It seems that once we got into protected memory OSes and now 64 bit OSes it is much clearer sailing, whichever platform you choose.

Dean

Maybe that it wasn’t such a clever idea of Mr. Hernandez to cut development costs?

My experiences predate Hernandez by quite a bit actually.

Can anyone kindly suggest if there’s “seemingly” a most stable Nuendo 7 / Mac OS version?