Michael

@Astro said:

And then, of course, there are serious issues with many of Apple's business practices.  The recent news about the conditions in their manufacturing plants and the treatment of employees was alarming to me.  I am liberal American who believes a good business is one which is fair and ethical while still making a cutting-edge product.  When I see companies making obscene profits by taking advantage of people who have little control over their own lives, it makes it unlikely for me to do business with them.

You are mixing every thing, It is not Apple employe it is the Employe of the Chinees company that buiding for Apple and other like DELL.....nd probally some piece that is in your PC

The profit that Apple is not obscene, as for a Macpro with equivalent proc it is the same than a DELL server !

Iphone and Ipad are selling like croissants, Apps are selling vey well, 25 billions !!

Apple is very user friendly with prices of ther software compared to Microsoft

Look at the price of Mac os 10.7. ==> 23.99 euro  look at the price of MS Windows 7 pro 264 $ (at Amazon)

Look at the price of Mac os 10.7. server ==> 39.99 euro  look at the price of MS Windows 7 pro server you need to have a quote depending of the number of user !!!!!

Look at the price of MS office 199$ and at 279$ for 2 install, compared to the price of Apple office suite Iwork 79 $ and at 99$ for the family pack !!!!

They also introduce the price of the APP at 99 cents

Apple drop the price of Logic at 149.99 euro

This is a sale politics, do you sell very expensive at a few people like VSL does, or do you sell very cheap at at million people

Hello Astro,

Well I'm glad that you settled with ADK and I hope they won't disapoint you.  I bought my first machine with them five years ago and the only thing I've had to replace was the Nvidia video card which was pretty easy to do myself.  I didn't even use the customer support.

@Cyril said:

The profit that Apple is not obscene, as for a Macpro with equivalent proc it is the same than a DELL server !

Iphone and Ipad are selling like croissants, Apps are selling vey well, 25 billions !!

 

Even if the profits are "obscene"  well, GOOD FOR THEM!!!  If you make a product(s) that a lot of people are willing to part with their hard earned money to obtain then that's a good thing isn't it?  So what if you bank a lot of dough in the process.  

And what exactly constitutes obscene?  And who decides what is obscene and what isn't.  Why is it, whenever somebody comes up with a good idea, it sells like hotcakes, it's just assumed that instead of being successful they have been corrupted and they are now a big bad evil corporation and they got that way because they rapped pillaged and stole from the little people.  There should be some equalizer to come in and make things right. 

What a bunch of crap!

And so who is going to equalize the equalizer? 

Excuse me.  I should stop before I go off on another rant.

@Astro said:

And then, of course, there are serious issues with many of Apple's business practices.  The recent news about the conditions in their manufacturing plants and the treatment of employees was alarming to me.  I am liberal American who believes a good business is one which is fair and ethical while still making a cutting-edge product.  When I see companies making obscene profits by taking advantage of people who have little control over their own lives, it makes it unlikely for me to do business with them.

Largely OT, but if the labor unions have their way, the poor whose lives are improved by their employment by multinational corporations would all be thrown out of work. Capital investment in poor countries will cause wages to rise over time by increasing the marginal productivity of labor. If you want to support the Third World poor, purchase more of the products that they labor to make in the capitalist enterprises that have located there.

@PaulR said:

I drive a Porsche 911 Turbo (that's just one of my cars). I CAN'T DRIVE AROUND IN CARS LIKE THAT - and then tell people I OWN A PC!!!! What do you think that would do to my standing in the community, you silly PC people??? Cheeessuuuusss. FFS - if I suddenly owned a PC I would have to drive around in a Ford - or a Vauxall. 

That was my problem with all the "I'm a Mac, and I'm a PC" advertisements. Apple attempted to present itself as the (un)cool, unshaven messy teenager dressed in dregs, basically being the typical young turd whose whole preoccupation is iLife, and whose total lack of aesthetics is deliberately flaunted all over his body-language and attire. Who are they trying to kid? (morons obviously). Apple has always been all about aestheticism - many times sacrificing substance for it - and their guy should appear in those commercials draped in Armani, Gucci, Vacheron, and Bausch. It is the PC that should be looking like the derelict, made up of disparate apparel/parts etc., as in real life.

But Apple didn't want anybody accusing them of 'elitism' now did they? What an awful word... 'Elitism'... What unhealthy connotations can be extrapolated from such dreadful, politically incorrect notions... How can I cleanse myself of such anachronistic posits? I know! I'll just listen to some Hans Zimmer! What a salubrious soma for such conditions! What deliverance!!...

P.S.: I have to totally agree with Paul though regarding Apple employees in the stores and the telephone support has been completely unacceptable in my few experiences with expensive Applecare: A Paki answering the phone from the other side of the universe with absolutely no english beyond "Can I help you?", taking 5 minutes to write down my serial numbers successfully (on my long-distance support call!), not being able to help me at all(!) for what I considered basic support enquiries, both because he was incompetent AND due to non-existent english, and worst of all, trying repeatedly to sell me advertising (on my long-distance support call!!!). Apple do have a lot to answer for hiring the cheapest common denominator to serve (sic) its customers. It says a lot about their regard for us...

If you want to "take far more control of your MAC" just run "console" and you have all Unix commands under you fingers [:@]

@Astro said:

I absolutely agree with this too,  with the money I saved by not buying into the Mac thing,  I bought the complete VSL Super Package, and my £1500 PC works flawlessly with unnoticeable low latency and plays any score I throw at it (and I use big full orchestrations all through MIR).  And at times I have Sibelius running in the background with it's memory hungry library running too.

No fancy raid set up, no SSD, just a cost effective Win 7 PC that allows me to get on with my music.

@Errikos said:

That was my problem with all the "I'm a Mac, and I'm a PC" advertisements. Apple attempted to present itself as the (un)cool, unshaven messy teenager dressed in dregs, basically being the typical young turd whose whole preoccupation is iLife, and whose total lack of aesthetics is deliberately flaunted all over his body-language and attire. Who are they trying to kid? (morons obviously). Apple has always been all about aestheticism - many times sacrificing substance for it - and their guy should appear in those commercials draped in Armani, Gucci, Vacheron, and Bausch. It is the PC that should be looking like the derelict, made up of disparate apparel/parts etc., as in real life.

Exactly. And this is the way I talk about computers. I don't get into parts of a a computer and tweaking this or sticking my finger into something just to see if I get electrocuted. For 10 years now, you still get this slightly ridiculous nonsense about sample libraries juxtaposed with computers. What a load of crap! 

By now, you should be able to just plug sample libraries in and they should just work well. Period. Who care HOW they work  - as long as they work. My experience of people that spend inordinate amounts of time talking about computers is generally - they are crap musicians. Total crap. If they spent as much time practising their scales as they did talking about computers they'd be brilliant . It's no big deal - they just got their hobbies mixed up.

Anyway - Lightroom 4 just came out. Oh wow! I'm so nervous. Will my computer have a problem? Is there enough gigabums? Oh what will I do if there's a problem etc etcetc etc.

 I love PaulRs descriptions of various people he encounters.  

Since I like to tinker things together I tend to gravitate toward PCs which allow you to stick one device into another at the least expense though you are not being cool like a Mac. It costs money to be cool so I am uncool. 

My current PC has two extra hard drives that I made cardboard holders for because I didn't want to buy the fixtures.  I did paint them black though, so they would be a bit more cool. 

Beautifully put, William!

@William said:

 I love PaulRs descriptions of various people he encounters.  

Since I like to tinker things together I tend to gravitate toward PCs which allow you to stick one device into another at the least expense though you are not being cool like a Mac. It costs money to be cool so I am uncool. 

My current PC has two extra hard drives that I made cardboard holders for because I didn't want to buy the fixtures.  I did paint them black though, so they would be a bit more cool. 

@Errikos said:

P.S.: I have to totally agree with Paul though regarding Apple employees in the stores and the telephone support has been completely unacceptable in my few experiences with expensive Applecare: A Paki answering the phone from the other side of the universe with absolutely no english beyond "Can I help you?", taking 5 minutes to write down my serial numbers successfully (on my long-distance support call!), not being able to help me at all(!) for what I considered basic support enquiries, both because he was incompetent AND due to non-existent english, and worst of all, trying repeatedly to sell me advertising (on my long-distance support call!!!). Apple do have a lot to answer for hiring the cheapest common denominator to serve (sic) its customers. It says a lot about their regard for us...

when was that, where do you leave ?

In France the people that are ansewring are French and it is a free call since a few years, you can alose ask to support in english

The 1 st level of answer is for basic problems

the 2nd level is for major problems

Apple called back some video cards a few years ago, they send a technician at home to replace it !!

One of my old Macpro was making a chearpy noice, they send a technician at home to fix it !!

APPLE is said to have one of the best support !

read this : http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-20108336-17/apple-tops-in-customer-satisfaction-for-8th-year/

Once again, the company ranks first among PC makers, receiving a score of 87 out of 100 in the American Customer Satisfaction Index. HP follows in second place.

@andyjh said:

I absolutely agree with this too,  with the money I saved by not buying into the Mac thing,  I bought the complete VSL Super Package, and my £1500 PC works flawlessly with unnoticeable low latency and plays any score I throw at it (and I use big full orchestrations all through MIR).  And at times I have Sibelius running in the background with it's memory hungry library running too.

No fancy raid set up, no SSD, just a cost effective Win 7 PC that allows me to get on with my music.

what do you have in your PC ? you cannot pay a PC at 1500 pounds when  2 Xeon processors cost from Intel 3000 $ (1500 $ each)

What do you have in your PC ?

To compare MAC and PC you have to compare MAC and PC SERVERS, because none of the PC at HP or at DELL have XEON processors

 The only way to compare two computer is to compare their performance not necessarily what they have in them.

My PC has an 8 core i7, with 24Gb of triple DDR3 memory, with  three Western Digital Cavier black drives (6TB), silent cooling fans and running a pair of 1920 x1200 monitors. With this I run upto 3 instances of VE Pro, with typically around 20 to 30 libraries, mainly VSL, some EW and Kontakt and BFD as well, most of my VSL instances have 9 to 12 articulations loaded ready to go - and it all runs together (all through MIR as well), and not only that,  but I often have Sibelius loaded as well with it's memory hungry library (and that has Vienna Convolution reverb running as well)..

It has never ran out of memory or glitched at all, it is ran as a slave PC, my other PC runs Cubase via VE Pro.  So this PC is more than powerful enough to run anything I throw at it, and I do use big full very active orchestrations.

You don't need Xeon processors, SSD drives, use RAID configs, or waste money on Macs (or branded PC's) to have a very powerfull flawless computer.  My working PC is proof of that.

You cannot compare a PC with an I7 and with 2 x 6 core Xeon.

Give your adress I wil send you a file to test With MIR in 7.1

I bet a beer that you cannot play and bounce this song on a single i7

I forgot to say, I run on my two Xeon 12 core 64 GB :  Logic with 1 omnisphere and 2 K4 + one VE that has 97 VI + 3 input with MIR in 7.1

All VI are loaded with preset level 2 !!

I do not use my 8 core !

Astro, you will find that ADK support is excellent, and will work with you to make sure a problem is fixed should one occur.  I have used them for a number of years, and they are a great company.

For me, it has been very worthwhile to pay a bit more for their expertise rather than buy a generic PC box or a computer from that company with a logo of a fruit with a bite taken out of it.  I recently did something by accident to mess up my VSL setup, and ADK helped me to get back up and running again.  That specific type of support is not something Dell, HP, Apple, or any other generic computer maker offers.

@noldar12 said:

  I recently did something by accident to mess up my VSL setup, and ADK helped me to get back up and running again.  That specific type of support is not something Dell, HP, Apple, or any other generic computer maker offers.

If you have a VSL problem, you are getting very good support from VSL.

If you mess up something in VSL, on Mac you just need to re-install VE and VI !!!

@Cyril said:

You cannot compare a PC with an I7 and with 2 x 6 core Xeon.

Give your adress I wil send you a file to test With MIR in 7.1

I bet a beer that you cannot play and bounce this song on a single i7

 Yes you can compare these two system, because my system works absolutely perfectly with all my full orchestra arrangements, it is widely known and accepted that Macs do not deal with assigning cores as well as PC's do, Macs do not run Cubase very well, some companies like East West even go as far as to suggest Macs are not suitable for some of their libraries, and I believe it has been stated on this forurm that PC's handle VE Pro better as well.

It's time to face reality Cyril,  OSX just doesn't make use of it's hardware well, and in the real world of using music based software, a PC is so much more effective, both in terms of performance and cost.

I don't particularily like Microsoft, and I don't think any company should own the majority of the worlds operating systems, but until something can challenge it (be it OSX or Unix), a windows 7 PC is the most logical decision.

Hey - just had a thought! 

Do any of you guys carry a gun?  [:$]