MAC vs WIN for Music Production in 2023 - A Candid Discussion for New Producers

An earnest discussion on when you would choose a Mac over a Windows computer for music production and vice versa.

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Chapters:
00:00 Intro and my background with Mac & Win
01:39 Software
02:41 Cost of Hardware in 2022 - 2023
03:45 RAM can be a problem in SOME CASES
06:18 ASIO versus Core Audio
08:13 USB Midi Problems
10:23 Back to ASIO for a moment
13:07 What I'd recommend starting out right now
14:28 Thanks for making it to the end!

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#musicproduction #mac #windows

[TeftyMeems]

We were going to add a bunch of broll for this vid but we've got too many projects that need to be finished .... so treat this vid like a mini podcast ❤


All future technical music related content will be on that channel going forward. All future music 'performance' related content will stay on this channel!

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Tefty & Meems

[ed_ms]

I've watched quite a few Mac vs Win video's when it comes to music production. This is the first video that factually and specifically explains why this or that OS is better, or less suited. thanks for the knowledge. I've been using an M1 for about 2 years now (before Windows), and for everyday, non-professional use the user experience sure is sweet. My favorite feature by far on Macs is the way plugins install. You don't have to think about, just a few clicks and it's done. They are always installed on exact the same location, ready to use in your DAW. No more fiddling about in the folder/data management of your DAW to point your DAW to all the different folders where plugins were installed.

[arrivalsband]

Making music on a Windows PC for a long time. No major Issues to report. I am using many VST instruments and physical synths. Windows 11, Studio one 6, N.I. library, Izotope processing amongst many more. Again, very happy and see no reasons to switch

[matthewgaines]

I used to need to use my computers for a lot more than music production. Gaming, Analysis software, CAD, etc so it was PC all the way because you were extremely limited in what Apple supported for outside of standard productivity, video editing, and music composition. Now I have a dedicated music production laptop and desktop and stayed with Windows. Everything works just fine for me. Drivers aren’t a problem and both are user upgradeable (a must for me). Apple isn’t flexible. Repair and upgrades aren’t going to happen. I need to have control of my hardware.

[arminbreuer]

I used to be a Mac user; what really drove me to using a Windows PC for music was waiting for plugin vendors to update whenever a new OS comes out. Legacy plugins on a MAC? Pain in the ass. On windows? Everything works, with jBridge also really, really old stuff. Opening a session from 2005? Not a problem, all the plugins will (or can) be there.

[RichWarrenOFC]

This is a fantastic video! I would have gone with mac if mac's could be troubleshooted and build/rebuilt. I don't like proprietary nonsense, I like the ability to take a panel off and make an upgrade if needed or even fix something rather than send it back and wait two weeks to hear "It's borked, buy another one". I've worked with a couple artists that had mac's that crapped out, and had friends with PC's that crapped out. Electronics will be electronics, at the end of the day since I'm an avid "Hybrid" Hardware-Software user. I'll stick with windows, purely because I use an apollo x8p that handles all of my outboard gear and a modified windows system that uses a Thunderbolt workaround.

Either way, I agree, both have their drawbacks and their advantages and I'm glad you went in depth to the issues with both systems!! This needs to be heard everywhere!

[TonyThomas]

I have been doing MIDI stuff since the mid-80s. Started with Atari STs, and in the 90s, switched to PC and have been all PC ever since. Recently upgraded my $300 off-lease Dell 4th Gen i5 PC with 16GB RAM and 1TB HD to a brand new Ryzen 7 5700G with 32GB of memory and dual NVME internal drives: 1TB and 512GB. The total cost of the new PC was sub $1000. The only new Mac M1 you could get for around the same price is a 8GB RAM/512GB SSD. I have used Behringer interfaces for quite a while and have never run into problems with their UMC drivers. I have had no need for multiple audio interfaces, so ASIO has worked just fine for me. I use 7 or 8 different DAWs and tons of VIs and effects and everything works really smoothly.

[kris_lx]

The big problem with Apple is that it breaks compatibility with almost every OS update. If you have Waves plugins, be prepared to buy their Waves Update Plan every year because the plugins will no longer work after an OS update. You can of course choose not to update your OS, but then after a few years you can't use new plugins anymore because your OS is outdated.
The same with DAWs, if you want to keep running an old version of a DAW because you don't want/need the latest paid upgrade, then don't update your Mac OS because your DAW will no longer run.

Windows doesn't have this problem, I still run some V10 Waves plugins without any issues and if I want I can run a 10 year old version of any DAW and it will just work.

[bluecollarstudio]

If you’re moving from PC to M1 Mac and do large orchestra mock-ups, get VE Pro 7 and keep your orchestra samples on your PC and DAW on your Mac.

[anytwopoints]

Another big advantage from the Mac side with respect to hardware MIDI is that Core MIDI supports audio timestamping so MIDI interfaces which support this (like my Edirol UM-880) are much more accurate in terms of outputting stable MIDI clock and again you're not reliant on proprietary drivers.

[austinbridge]

This is the exact video I have been looking for. Thank you for shooting this informational video without showing any bias. Your perspective is very specific to our industry and helpful in 2023.

[Necropheliac]

I’m glad I found your video because this is a topic that hits home for me because I’ve always been that rare person who has been using windows, Mac and Linux for the past 20 years because i just never thought of it as a mutually exclusive choice. I’m a server software architect so Linux, Mac and Windows was always just necessary platforms to have around.

When I put together my latest gaming rig I did it on windows because games.

When I put tighter my music production studio I used my MacBook Pro, because I didn’t want to clutter my gaming space with music stuff.

I have 3 MacBook pros all from 2019, 32 gb intel core I-9. Top of the line but not Apple silicon because I didn’t want to waste more money on buying another MacBook when I already had 3 that were only a few years old.

I’m starting to wish I made a new pc for the production studio based on the things you mentioned. Despite these MacBooks having core I-9 and 32gb, I can make a pc that has a better proceseor and more ram for cheaper, and it won’t affect my workflow to switch os at all.

It kind of doesn’t really make sense to use Mac unless you prefer Mac for whatever reason. Just use what you like.

[perrykeshahwalker]

I hear what you saying but I have to disagree with you with the apple M1 Mac Mini. I bought one a year ago I tried Apple I really tried to like the machine yes Apple silicone is fast but I found Macos very limiting for me. I did buy the 16 gig 256 I just couldn't believe how much of a price jump from 256 to 512 or 1tb would be. So I bought an external 1tb drive clone the main Mac drive to it but then I found out the harsh reality that Apple will not allow you to do upgrades on the external drive even if you type in the password to do the OS upgrades because it's not a mac Drive. Needless to say I bought a used HP Mini PC with an i7 9700 maxed out the RAM and I have a 2tb SSD and I can't tell the difference in performance between the M1 and that setup. The Benchmark says that the M1 should be mopping the floor with the i7 9700 but in real-world use it's not. The only thing the M1 is better at is editing videos and I'm going to keep it around for that purpose and that purpose only. But for audio production I'm going to use my new intel setup. Plus being back on Windows particularly Windows 11 I love the interface of Windows 11 is gorgeous, smooth and the automatic window resizing the effortless control I have is really refreshing for me.

[chillwalker]

The Logic Pro Argument is the only one.
...have been working for 25 years on both plattforms, but the last 5 years with an 11 year old HP Z800 workstation (about 8000 $ then, 600 now) with 2 6-core 3.3 Ghz XEON processors.
Now for the first time I have a problem that the new NI Massive synth needs a newer chip generation.
I got a 5 year old laptop for this.

Folks, buy old workstations for 1/10th the original price and be happy.
I recommend anything from the HP Z620.

the times when macs where better for music productions endet 2009, in my opinion. yiu just have to know what to do with your windows OS, or where to get and to know debloaking.

[michaelgray]

I know this is a year old, but it may be worth considering the project SynchronouseAudioRouter, if you're on Windows.

Basically it's a low levl C++ lib that emulates aggregation without using Asio4All, but rather leveraging the Asio driver on the audio interface itself.
Ran into this problem on windows recently, using my RME Fireface UCX II, which only has 1 x 8 ADAT IO. So extending my IO using a second interface was fine, but what I really wanted was to get 16 input/outputs so that I could use my cranborne on one and my eurorack on the other.

[geekmastermind]

Just took the plunge and got an M1 MBP. It's Ramen Noodles for awhile, but (re)starting (after 20+ years) and after tons of research and talking to folks who do music production, it just seemed the best bet. My Windows machine was a boss and ostensibly for gaming as well, but truth be told I'd collected a large Steam library that gathered dust.

It's kind of a weird feeling now. Like when I finally gave up a landline (I'm over 50, so that was really daunting!). Your vid helped confirm that I made the right choice (for me). Cheers!

[billB]

Always been a Mac user from the late 90's. Work as a producer and sound engineer ( both Live and studio, ) and also lecture music production and live sound in a Uni that is all Mac based, never even considered a PC. Why would I. Not even an industry standard in my world.

Until a few years ago when I started to learn motion graphics, CGI, generative graphics, Unreal engine and 3D (and very quickly found that a Mac doesn't cut it in that world. ) So I installed a custom Ryzen 9 3950x 2080ti PC in my studio. To cut a long story, one day ( just for shits and giggles ) decided to instal Ableton on the PC to see how it faired. Basically I was totally blown away by the sheer power of the machine over my Macbook Pro ( yes it's a desktop vs a Laptop ) but still, I loved it from the get go. Just ridiculously powerful. And, for some things I actually preferred the windows environment over OSX, especially the file management. I connected the PC to my modular setup via my expert sleeper/RME baby face combo ( which is solid ) installed Bitwig and haven't looked back. Now I absolutely love it.

FTR my PC cost my around £4K here in the UK, the equivalent Mac Pro ( at the time, 3 years ago ) would have cost me around £12K and it wouldn't have run the renderers needed for the 3D work I was doing.

Anyway, I still use the Mac for teaching and the odd project but I'm loving the PC all the way ( never thought I'd say that sentence either )

My only real issue ( and I agree here ) it that the PC is awful with aggregate devices, core audio is way better for bigger setups. It also can't run Logic Pro, Pro Tools looks crap on it ( which is surely an avid thing ) and I can't run the Dolby renderer for Atmos mixing on the PC which is a pain as it's something I'm learning ( again, an avid thing )

And to top it all off I get to run Microsoft Flight sim in my downtime which is amazing.

At the Uni I get to work on the new Mac studio computers too, I find them a little frustrating to be honest now, especially with file management. The M1 chips are not as great IRL as people make out either, lots of issues over the intels, especially with plugins and older interfaces. I don't really like Ventura either, Apple IMO keep making the OS worse by trying to make it simpler.

Anyway, that's my take. PC's though are definitely not the dogs they used to be though, that I'm absolutely positive about.

[netrodex]

me, I use Ableton live. it works on both mac and win. but... as my experience, live and macos were made for ich other. I'm not saying windows is impossible to work with, but specially if you're a laptop producer... windows can be a pain in the ass. the hardware is amazing compared to Macbooks, but the software is where it lies the problem. guess on Desktops is different. but yeah I started with Mac, and it is best to stick what works for you in this area. but I get it... companies don't make it easier to pick

[kaikiefer]

Thanks for sharing. I use an smaller MiniM1 as my Music only computer.
aspects on MacMini specifically
a.) it is silent/tiny/easy to tug away- no fans
B) hard drive space on those - too small for my liking and bigger ones are uneven more expensive. You can get around with an external drive but really wish the internal would start at 512GB to have room for libraries.

[joesalyers]

I started years ago in the same way you did, I was a Pro Tools engineer in Nashville from 2000 to 2005 and I owned 2 full Pro Tools TDM systems and rented them out to artists so they could record at home. Back then you still couldn't mix in the box since most CPUs were single core, but you could do 90% of your tracking at home. I switched to using a Mac in 2004 simply because of core audio. I still have both Windows for some things but I use Macs for music because of Core Audio, which replaced the ASIO standard that everyone (Mac, PC & BSD) used back then and Windows still uses it. Core Audio put the driver standard in the actual OS Kernel making the need for a driver for 90% of interfaces a thing of the past and it integrated nicely with the operating system and your DAW. Also your DAW doesn't take over your computer's entire audio system like ASIO when using the Core audio which is nice if I want to refrence a song on Youtube during a mix session. Most (not all) Windows drivers are the standard USB Ploytec driver which is just class compliant USB passthrough, which isn't that great. So it can be hit or miss with some interfaces. Others like RME and Motu have built their own drivers with most engineers saying they are rock solid. Thunderbolt drivers are pretty much rock solid on a Mac while I hear tons of engineers complain about how terrible most Thunderbolt drivers for Windows. I like Windows for engineering apps like solidworks. But I find myself moving more and more toward Linux over Windows but I use Macs for audio production in my studio everyday and for live audio nothing has been as stable as MacOS when using live audio production apps like Mainstage or even Waves Soundgrid. But over all It's like a car, some people have great experiences with Chevy cars while other people have better experiences with Ford so you stick with what you are most comfortable with.