getting a mac

[soundtest]

ok so my pc desktop is a piece of shit, and rather than upgrade it, i've decided i'm going to ditch it and get a mac. i've been using linux for almost a year now, so i may install linux on the mac, but if i go the OSX route i'm gonna need software... and paying for software goes against my belief system.

pc warez are simple enough to find, but does anybody know of any good sites to find mac warez/appz (especially audio/midi production)? also, i'm somewhat new to OSX and macs (i've used them a lot at work, but i've never really had my own where i could do whatever i wanted to with it) so any advice from mac users on how to tweak the system, cool programs to look out for, etc. would be greatly appreciated.

also, i'm assuming the hard disk can be partitioned - can you dual boot on a mac?

[AChimp]

Macs don't have warez because no one uses them and there's no applications to begin with. Macs are for homos.

[soundtest]

I originally put a disclaimer in my message for idiots like you (actually for you specifically) saying that I did not want this to turn into a "Macs suck" or "Mac vs. PC" thread, because there are thousands of those on the internet. As tiresome as that age old debate is, at least sometimes valid points are brought up, or some comments that are actually funny are made. Yours are neither. I don't want to sound mean but you are predictable, tedious and unfunny. You endlessly call people homos and fags, yet you've probably never touched a girl. Think before you click Submit next time please.

[AChimp]

Homo.

[Immortal Goat]

OSX actually comes standard with a nice audio program called GarageBand. It has a nice selection of instruments to choose from and two methods of actually playing the notes (one is simply clicking on a keyboard styled window, the other is actually typing the notes out).

On the subject of dual booting, I am not so sure about that. I've only owned mine for about 11 weeks and have tried no such thing. You could ask the store clerks, though. One thing I noticed when buying my Mac laptop was that the employees were very friendly and helpful. More than I can say about most regular tech store employees.

[soundtest]

Homo.

I never saw that coming. You know what else will never be coming? You.

Haha. See how gay that was? It's because I'm a gay fag. You are neither hetero nor homo because you will never reach orgasm with aid from someone else, I promise. Your only option would be to get the balls to go and pay for a prostitute, but you're so much of a pussy that will never happen either. You may as well be a eunich. A creepy, ugly, eunich who stalks women.

http://www.media2017.com/tv/nohomo.gif

Immortal Goat: Thanks. I've heard of GarageBand but for the type of stuff I'm into I'm probably gonna want to use Cubase. It's good that there's actually something like that available 'out of the box' though. Macs seem to come with a lot of software that is actually useful.

[Immortal Goat]

Yeah, one of the reasons that they are bashed is because of the "lack of software", but the simple fact of the matter is that you can't buy software for them because it comes standard on it.

[AChimp]

Only a serious homo would spend so much time typing out an insult over the Internet when one word would suffice. Homo.

[soundtest]

being homo is the new black

you are ugly. i bet you dress terribly and smell too. go away

[Slinky Ferret]

>: Chimp shush your petty insults. If he wants to use a mac then so be it. He is into making music rather than coding hardcore graphics engines and to be honest, if he can get use to the mouse and the reverse maximise etc. then good luck to him. I've heard good things about that Tiger OS or whatever its called.

However, I personally am not a mac user and nor would I wish to be one. How can I abandon the joys of cutting my fingers open on my desktop case and the beloved blue screens of death?

Seriously though, I am suprised that apple have still managed to exist after all this time. Fight the good fight I say and a good healthy competitive market is what is required not world domination by a super company intent on profit but on good usability, accessibility and fully standard compliant browsers and software, not their own below par standards but the actual worldwide recommended standards for software.

Anyway, after my degree is completed I will fully become a linux gal. Why? Its so much more of a fun challenge! :)

[whoreable]

i think its a bad idea too
but i use this site for my download needs, It does cost money, but its like 3 dollars a month. To get really good speeds you can also pay for newshosting from several sites. I have downloaded well over 1tb now, and i must say it is worth it.


http://www.newzbin.com/browse/cat/p/misc/macintosh/

[ziggytrix]

Mac warez isn't much tougher to find than PC warez. The mac warez communities are generally friendlier and less 'OMGDUDE I H4X0r U!'ish than the PC warez community.

I don't use mac warez, as I only use macs at work, and work pays for all its software. But I'd suggest you look to IRC.

[soundtest]

Anyway, after my degree is completed I will fully become a linux gal. Why? Its so much more of a fun challenge! :)

What distro? Linux is great fun. I switched over from Windows a year ago and haven't looked back. Unless you're a PC gamer or use some specialized app for something, Linux can do whatever you need. I use it for music too - there are a lot of great apps out there.

i think its a bad idea too

Thanks for the link whoreable, I'll check it out. But you think what is a bad idea? Using a Mac? What is with Windows users and this insecurity? I don't play PC games. I use Linux - having a dual boot Mac with OSX isn't really gonna be that much of a jump.

ziggy: Thanks, I'll check IRC - I'm sure there are some Mac audio warez channels or something out there.

[whoreable]

I dont have anything against someone wanting to use a different os. Personally I hated it using it, but that is not why i would be agianst it. My main argument is that the hardware just seems like a ripoff(value/performance). And as you can see the warez availability is not nearly as good.

if you could build your own mac/customize it and parts were as widley available and as cheap as pcs i would be all over it(for at least one system).

[Immortal Goat]

They are rather expensive comparitively, but you get what you pay for, IMO. The hardware is reliable, sturdy, and just pleasant to look at (not neccesarily a selling point, but rather a nice addition). The software works the way it is supposed to. There is one real virus out there, and it requires an installation program to run to get it.

For music, photos and video, Mac is really the way to go. Sure, it's gonna cost you, but quality is worth the price of admission.

[Ninjavenom]

I guess i'm not contributing a whole lot, just agrring with Whoreable. The only downside to macs besides the lack of games is that you can't really customize them the way you can with PCs. What kind of mac are you looking for, anyway?

[soundtest]

That's ok because, again, I plan on dual-booting OSX and Linux, which is far more customizable than Windows will ever be. I don't game at all, so gaming is not an issue for me. I was thinking of picking up a Mac Mini with 1GB of RAM and an 80GB hard disk. I like the idea of a nice stable box that leaves such a small footprint, but I don't really need a laptop (and I think 99% of PC laptops are butt-ugly or look like toys with flavour of the week designs).

The main reason I'm not getting a PC is because I just prefer how audio recording apps work on Mac - they seem far more stable and just work. If Linux audio recording apps were mature enough for what I want to do, I'd just stick with Linux for everything. Cubase SX3 for Windows has all of these timing issues when recording and playing back MIDI and audio simultaneously that I've never encountered when using a Mac. I've had my share of Windows audio recording hell, and I have no desire to go back. Basically, I'd boot into Linux for most of my daily computer use, and boot into OSX for audio stuff.

[Anonymous]

If you do get it and put Garageband (the program) on it tell me if it's any good :) I built another PC with an AMD processor that works very well (no latency) but would still like to try a Mac for recording.

[AChimp]

LOL LETS GET A COMPUTER BECAUSE IT LOOKS PRETTY

[soundtest]

:lol

I love how you ignore all the main reasons I give for wanting a Mac and focus on the 'by the way' footnote that they look nicer. Just because you are ugly and prefer to be around ugly things to make you feel better about yourself is no reason to take it out on Apple.

[Chojin]

Immortal Goat: Thanks. I've heard of GarageBand but for the type of stuff I'm into I'm probably gonna want to use Cubase. It's good that there's actually something like that available 'out of the box' though. Macs seem to come with a lot of software that is actually useful.
Garageband's main feature is its integrated amp simulator, but it's far from a good sequencing program. Cubase is cross-platform software. Logic is mac-only (and basically 'the rest' of GarageBand), and Cakewalk is pc-only (the big 3 sequencers). Logic is generally considered to be the best of the 3, though.

Yeah, one of the reasons that they are bashed is because of the "lack of software", but the simple fact of the matter is that you can't buy software for them because it comes standard on it.
This is not true at all. I mean, not even close, are you just repeating shit Apple store clerks were telling you?

There are a lot of solid reasons to get a mac, but no-one has really mentioned any of them: Most major audio applications are mac-native and therefore have less bugs. A handful of these apps are proprietary, though cross-platforming is becoming more common nowadays. The same goes for most graphic applications, and these things also tend to get updated faster than their PC counterparts. I've heard shit about macs like 'The colors are more real/accurate because of special mac pixel handling!' This is complete bullshit. However, Mac monitors in general are way higher quality than the lion's share of regular ones (of course, you can use a mac monitor on anything).

In the audio world, studios tend to get Macs and live sound techs tend to get PCs. Tons of PA calibrating software is PC-only. Generally, this is because of tradition and because PC laptops tend to be cheaper and more reliable. In studios, common perceptions of the people that come in have to be catered to, and it's expected that you have a Mac with Protools or you don't get taken seriously.

I personally dislike OS X intensely, though not as much as its predecessors. However, I'm sure that it has no more annoying quirks than Windows XP does - I'm just not used to my computer fucking up in the new and interesting ways that it proposes (at Sheffield, we were ALWAYS having problems with the macs mishandling file permissions, and the instructor had to keep rebuilding the permissions database). Macs also still seem to crash far more often than a well-maintained PC, though they do it in several languages (http://developer.apple.com/qa/qa2004/images/qa1370_1.jpg).

Another plus for macs are its fanatic dedicated userbase, who generally go out of their way to be friendly and helpful to others in their cabal. Meaning, it shouldn't be too hard to find what you're looking for if you ask them.

Reading over this, it sounds like I'm being sarcastic, which was not my intention. I do know that I feel way more creative when working on a Mac, which can be directly attributed to its clean OS and pretty hardware.

[soundtest]

This is just pure speculation based on nothing, but perhaps your horrible experiences with Macs had more to do with your school's network admin being an audiophile who also wore a sysadmin hat but really didn't know how to properly maintain a network? Because I've never had such issues. Don't get me wrong though, Windows XP is a great OS - most of the complaining about XP is just Microsoft bashing by zealots and trolls like AChimp with his knee-jerk Mac bashing. The only time I have to reboot XP is when I do Windows Updates, which while stupid, is probably less than I've had to reboot Linux (I'm talking desktops, obviously).

Anyway, your point about why Macs are so good for audio was the main reason I was trying to get at but couldn't because I took too many drugs in the 90s: the apps (that I prefer at least) were originally made for the Mac platform and the PC versions are just ports. Preferring Cubase on PC would be like preferring the NES port of Double Dragon to the arcade version.

[Chojin]

I do prefer the NES port of Double Dragon - the Arcade version has some severe slowdown issues.

That said, I do like being able to right-click in audio and graphic apps. Digidesign (as far as I can tell) intentionally cripples their PC ports, but it might just be a side effect of them being as inept as they are with everything else. Also, most large franchises have seperate divisions that handle the PC ports, so there's little (if anything) lost in the translation. Most of the holy wars are moot points now - It just generally comes down to what you like, what you can afford, and what programs you can live without.

[soundtest]

I'm glad we both agree that Linux is the OS of choice for most computing needs.

As for that Double Dragon comment, I'll see you in Mock Wars pal.

:domo

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v58/chungking/ddarc_lets.gif

[ziggytrix]

If you can't right-click on your Mac, you are using shit peripherals.

BTW Choj, what you said about Mac vs PC color - that's a bit incorrect. Macs use OS-level color management, so you have more consistent color reproduction on various output devices, or something. I dunno, I'm not a press guy. Talk to someone who owns a $20,000 4 color process printer about the difference.

Most users won't notice or care, but at a professional level Macs have some color advantages yet. None of which are show-stoppers, I think, but I doubt every color press in town is full of Macs because Apple has a better sales department than Dell.

Color management in thsiindustry is a fucking bitch and a half, I know that much for certain. Fortunately I'm removed enough from it that all I have to worry about is keeping my monitor calibrated. :)

[Chojin]

Choj, what you said about Mac vs PC color - that's a bit incorrect. Macs use OS-level color management, so you have more consistent color reproduction on various output devices, or something. I dunno, I'm not a press guy. Talk to someone who owns a $20,000 4 color process printer about the difference.
Yeah, but see, this is all I ever hear. "Macs have better color, really. I hear. From some people that I don't know. And I don't remember what they said."

Any good image program forces you to use color profiles which make it a moot point.

[ziggytrix]

It's hardly a moot point.

If you'd ever been involved in any step of catalog production, you'd know color management is a fucking nightmare headache monster with the power to devour the weak and tired. :(


Let me try to give a quick example. Let's say I'm looking on my Mac's screen at an image with a Adobe RGB (1988) profile, and you are looking at the same file on your PC's screen. We each make proofs which we match to our displays, printing 2 copies when we are satisfied that they match. We then mail the 2nd copy to each other and compare each others proofs to our originals.

Problem: Will they match?

Bonus: Why or why not?

[Immortal Goat]

I wasn't just repeating what they said in the store :(

The applications I was referring to were the movie maker, dvd maker, garageband (I know it isn't the best, but I didn't know exactly what he needed. I don't make music), and the like. And the other stuff, you actually can buy. Audio, video, photo, it's all better on Mac. That isn't pure regurgitated store-clerk fodder, that is pure hard fact.

Oh, and you can right click on a mac. They are coming programmed standard so that a right click with a regular mouse equals a control click, so you don't have to go through the agonizing two minute process of assigning a button to a certain action.

[Chojin]

Zigs are you talking Apple brand monitors being better or Macintosh computers being better for color management. I do not dispute that Apple brand monitors are good pieces of equipment and tend to be more true than other brands.

[ziggytrix]

Actually, I'm not even talking about the hardware aspect at all.

It's at the OS level that Apple has better color management. That's not to say you can't do color critical work on a PC. We're running our RIP and our LVT off PC boxes. But on the PC boxes you pretty much have to keep your processes in one application (in our case we're only printing proofs and finalized images). If you're doing anything where you're moving files between applications, you are better off with an OS level color management system like ColorSync, rather than relying on 3rd party developers like Quark and Adobe to make their color management systems perfectly compatible with each other.


Ok, so we're kinda off on a tangent here. Most people aren't printing proofs for onoxiously anal art directors. For personal use, or for single application use (e.g. you do everything in Photoshop and print from there) it's really just a preference issue.

You shouldn't choose between two cars based on their top speeds when you don't plan to take either over 75 mph. Maybe its more important that the driver's seat is comfy, eh?

So, let's say you do a LOT of work in Photoshop. Trying to go back and forth between the PC and Mac versions is a bit awkward, in my experience. It's better to just decide which setup you find the most comfortable and to stick with it.