soundiesam Posted April 26, 2008 Share Posted April 26, 2008 Hi I recently went to mac because I was getting sick of vista and that lak of quality of the audio out of a standard laptop. I was just wondering how many sound engineers out there used mac's because I have realised since I got a mac that all the important bits of hardware dont have mac software a couple of examples: XTA's, Mackie tt24... I was wondering if anybody knew why companies arnt making control software for mac??sam Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulears Posted April 26, 2008 Share Posted April 26, 2008 Simple - user base. While even ardent PC users acknowledge that macs are excellent for things that are graphics, video and audio based - the lack of software is a problem if you want a jack of all trades type computer. I'm a cubase user, so even though I could go adobe for my other needs, Windows even with all the problems is still the best - for me? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kurzweil_dude Posted April 26, 2008 Share Posted April 26, 2008 I dont know if u know, but with bootcamp you can run XP from a mac and thus run any Windows application.Best of both worlds then! :blink: http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/bootcamp.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnnie Posted April 26, 2008 Share Posted April 26, 2008 Or, if you didn't fancy having to reboot to get into Windows / OSX, VMWare Fusion is the perfect alternative; http://www.vmware.com/products/fusion/ Fusion allows you to run a Windows Virtual machine in OSX, and in comparison to other virtualisation software, it is incredibly fast and customisable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soundiesam Posted April 26, 2008 Author Share Posted April 26, 2008 yeh but I dont want windows I cant stand it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djw1981 Posted April 26, 2008 Share Posted April 26, 2008 I can understand the vista issue, but there are a fair few xp machines still around. You comment about the quality of output from the laptop was interesting. Even people I know who use mac's for audio recording and editing (using Digital Performer with a FireWire Motu traveller A-D interface) wouldn't use the on board sound card at all as (though better) the mac ones are still not very good. Thus it comes down to if you are using external kit anyway - soundcard; A-D interface; hard disk etc, then I would choose based on the programme with most usability for the purpose I wanted - Sound Effects, Recording, Playback. Then., as others have said strip the rest of windows out until its almost a barebones doing only 2 or 3 tasks. It may mean carrying 2 laptops around with you but that is not often too much of an issue, and the machine spec can be lower - so even if you keepo a mac laptop for personal use, a barebones windows xp one may be more suited for audio. As ever this is opinion and YMMV. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bobbsy Posted April 26, 2008 Share Posted April 26, 2008 As paulears said, the big issue with companies writing software for Mac computers is the user base. To put some flesh on this, in the first quarter of this year, Macs accounted for just 6.6 of American computer sales with the rest going to PC-based systems. (Source: HERE. ). This figure, as small as it is, represents a significant increase since the advent of Intel-based systems. If you were a software creator and could account for 93.4% of all users by with one piece of software, would you put the same effort and costs into covering the other 6.6%? In my case, my DAW of choice is Adobe Audition which presently is Windows only. Yes, by going to things like Bootcamp I could potentially run Audition on a Mac but, frankly, my Windows installations have always been stable enough that I don't feel the need to go to exotic solutions. I'm also sceptical of Vista but have found XP to be fine. At the risk of jinxing myself (and as I've said in a BR debate about theatre playback systems) to date I've never lost a cue using computers running first Win98 and then XP for playback...but have had a number of glitches using CD or minidisk. One thing to add is that, in my experience, the in-built sound cards on Mac notebooks aren't particularly good either. A friend bought a Mac for use recording voice for fan fiction audio dramas and was getting complaints about his contributions. I analysed the results on his computer and found pretty serious system noise all over his recordings. Just like with a PC, an external sound card sorted this out. The strength of the Mac system is the vertical integration they have--Mac control very tightly the software and hardware for their machines. However, in terms of variety and choice this is also their weakness--so long as Apple control things so tightly there will never be the competition and choice you get with PC based computers and software. Bob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mackerr Posted April 26, 2008 Share Posted April 26, 2008 If you were a software creator and could account for 93.4% of all users by with one piece of software, would you put the same effort and costs into covering the other 6.6%?Those figures would be more meaningfull if every piece of software was written for every user. While the general population, including big businesses, is overwhelmingly Windows based, the entertainment production business is not. Software written for the business we are in is offered to a market that has a much higher percentage of Macs than the rest of the world. On the last 2 B'way musicals I was involved in there were at least 4 Macs for every PC. This is creative staff, and business staff. On the corporate presentations I work, it is even more lopsided. When Smaart analysis software was recently completely rewritten, it was to meet the demand for a Mac version. There is a lot of demand for Mac software in our business, and if developers are using the same statistics as Bob to convince themselves to develope for Windows only, they are shortsighted. Mac Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soundiesam Posted April 26, 2008 Author Share Posted April 26, 2008 Thank you mac Im glad im not the only person who believes this. I have about 20 friends good friends in the industry all using macs and we all swear by them and more of our friends are coming to MAC is it not about time that the sound equipment manufacturers realised this???sam Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete McCrea Posted April 26, 2008 Share Posted April 26, 2008 Going back to the OP- if you really need to run that software, then your going to have to consider one of the routes to run windows, or sell the Mac. As others have said, there are more and more people going to OS X in the events industry. And there are more people who would if they could, but see the issues with proprietary control software generally being written for Windows only. Hopefully with the iPhone making waves in the corporate sector, there will be more software developers seeing OS X as a worthwhile platform, and consider writing apps for both OS's. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soundiesam Posted April 26, 2008 Author Share Posted April 26, 2008 I dont see how someone like Yamaha can make there software conpatible with OSX and everyone else cant lets face it most of the recoding industry are on MAC Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smalljoshua Posted April 26, 2008 Share Posted April 26, 2008 Perhaps an option saying 'both' on the poll, Please. Josh Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heapsy Posted April 26, 2008 Share Posted April 26, 2008 I dont see how someone like Yamaha can make there software conpatible with OSX and everyone else cant lets face it most of the recoding industry are on MAC But even Yamaha only offer limited software options. There is still no editor for either the M7CL or the LS9 (their 2 most recent desks) and after various conversations with Yamaha staff I think isn't likely to change! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mackerr Posted April 26, 2008 Share Posted April 26, 2008 I dont see how someone like Yamaha can make there software conpatible with OSX and everyone else cant lets face it most of the recoding industry are on MACUnfortunately even Yamaha doesn't have all their products on Mac. I spend a fair bit of time on PM1Ds, and that is a Windows only console. I have a Toshiba laptop that I bought just to run PM1D Manager and AudioCore, 2 Windows apps that I need to use. Hopefully XTA will update their interface to Smaart, and it will get Mac compatibility that way. Yamaha also has no MacOS software for the M7CL or LS9 lines, and I think, the DME line. These communicate over Ethernet, and for some reason Yamaha hasn't written a driver for them. There a lot more programs becoming available in MacOS for our industry, but there is a long way to go. Besides Yamaha and Smaart, I regularly use Shure Wireless Workbench and the Java control applet for Dugan model E automixers. The Dugan is an interesting example, because it is inherently dual platform. By making the control software a Java applet that resides in the actual machine, it is accessible from any web browser. It would by nice to see more hardware manufacturers follow this route. Ours is a small industry, and it may not be feasible for software developers to support 2 platforms, but if they are basing the choice on the commonly quoted statistics, I believe they are misreading their market. Mac Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ferrisio Posted April 26, 2008 Share Posted April 26, 2008 Simple - user base. While even ardent PC users acknowledge that macs are excellent for things that are graphics, video and audio based - the lack of software is a problem if you want a jack of all trades type computer. I'm a cubase user, so even though I could go adobe for my other needs, Windows even with all the problems is still the best - for me?Have I missed your point, as Cubase has been available for the Mac for years? Version 4 is available right now, and is still actively developed - Cubase System Requirements Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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