My PC which is pretty outdated anyhow, has been struck by a virus. Time to get a new one, and the whole world is telling me I should get a Mac. I have a handful of really important questions, to me, anyhow .
Iāve been using Cubase 5. It works for my purposes, so I never bothered with any updates. Can I update to Cubase 7? Or would I have to purchase that, which wouldnāt seem entirely right. If I can upgrade, how do I go about doing that?
What will become of all my Cubase projects if I switch to Mac? Will I be able to save them on on a hard drive and get them up and running on a Mac?
How steep is the PC to Mac learning curve, when it comes to navigation, files, etc. I have 20 yrs of learning on a PC, no experience on a Mac. Will I regret making the switch?
And some of us would say they are wrongā¦ (and they also say we should all be using Pro Tools!)
A properly configured modern PC will be faster and less expensive than a Mac. Unless you are properly skilled at building a proper DAW PC, however, you could have one built by a reputable DAW builder and have a fast, stable machine that is virtually trouble free for less money than you will spend with Apple. C7 is incredibly stable on my Win 7 64 PC - FWIW.
+1 here. It seems that a lot of the issues facing Cubase users are on Macs. My impression is that a PC makes sense financially as well as not having to put up with all that Apple crap.
I would do what Steve says, and give a Mac a test. I teach people who mostly go on to Uni, and a lot of them get told that they āneedā a Mac; some because they go on to Unis that use Logic, but others ājust becauseā. Quite a few do make the change, and not everyone likes them, but many who do become fervent mac lovers. Iāve never really got on with them that well (despite being a keen Unix/Linux user for a long time), I think itās horses for courses.
However, one thing to keep in mind is whether all the plugins you use are available on Mac; one student I had was particularly disappointed when he got his Mac and Cubase installed, and then found his favourite plugins werenāt available on Mac (Iād told him this, he just didnāt listen!). From a teaching point of view, I have to make the best of the available budget (which is Ā£0), so make a lot of use of free plugins, and there are far more quality free plugins available for PC than Mac.
Also, as said above, on a decent Windows 7x64 PC, Cubase is very stable. My main DAW has never crashed in session, only had the occasional (and I mean that!) lock up on exiting Cubase. I think thereās still a lot of Mac snobbery that is about, which got started in the late 90s when Macs were more powerful than PCs; now thatās simply not the case. Not to say that they donāt have their merits (build quality is excellent), but more power isnāt one of them.
FWIW my opinion, but most has been said i think on previous answers.
How steep is the PC to Mac learning curve, when it comes to navigation, files, etc. I have 20 yrs of learning on a PC, no experience on a Mac. Will I regret making the switch?
An explorer is an explorer, a browser a browser, a file is a file, and a OS is just an OS, probably as you are just aware of already. There are some differences, but that is only related to the OS workflow.
But even when changing within OS versions of the same brand it is every time looking for the functions and buttons you were used to have.
But with your background, you will probably not have a hard time on that learning curve.
Mac is hyp and trendy still, and certainly has cool looks, so if you want to be a cool teacher, and if your class is filled with macs, go mac.
That is never a bad choice.
It is only when you are pushing things to the edge there are notable differences that for the moment are in favor of windows since it is more open in every aspect. But for educational targets that should not be the major factor on buying things.
Thanks everyone. Did a little more quick researchā¦ and went shopping.
I had no idea what Macs were going for and that helped me bigtime with my decision. As did a few other considerations I hadnāt thought of at the time of my OP. Anyhow, I got myself a quad core 2TB with 8 gigs of RAM and an AMD A8 processor. Got a touchscreen monitor, too.
I ordered Cubase 7, sucked to have to drop another $300 there, but Iām happy that itāll integrate with Cubasis on my ipad. Now Iām just going to have to learn a bit about Windows 8.
Probably wonāt be able to break this PC down and set up the new one for a couple of days, but Iām pretty certain Iāll be back here when all the pieces are in place.
Looking forward to all this newness. Lots of excitement, just a little bit of nervousness .
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