Should I buy an Apple laptop?

iMac best for apt living

if you have a mac pro does it look like this when you open time machine?

http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/geekend/images/84573main_warpsped.jpg

^^^ tuomas + vast seas of mystery

In all honesty, doing high-or-even-decent quality recording or mixing on a computer is an expensive proposition, regardless of whether you use a Mac or a PC, especially if you are to be recording vocals. It could very well be that the biggest expense you have is the microphone(s) (and it certainly is the case for even middling studios). Other necessary components are an ADC (at least $500 for a decent one), amps, monitors, interfaces, and so on. You can reduce the costs somewhat by using a combo ADC/DAC w/good headphones (at the cost of a great mix, perhaps) and borrowing mics from friends. Fundamentally, though, you are going to be spending money, and the Mac isn't going to be yr cost center.

If you are cool with the fact that yr wallet is gonna get significantly lighter, then one of the first things you need to think about is the software you want to use. One of the nice bennies of Mac is that you can use Logic, which in my opinion is a damned fine piece of software. Another option is Pro Tools, which necessitates an investment of at least $500 (= Logic Studio $) in a Digidesign ADC/DAC, but which is also a great piece of software and is the industry standard for "live" (i.e., not sequenced) music. I'm not very knowledgeable about more MIDI-centric software, but that's apparently not yr central concern here. As far as I'm concerned, the only Mac to use with either software is either a Mac Pro (the best choice) or a MacBook Pro. Both of these have considerably more throughput than their cheaper counterparts, which definitely matters when recording and mixing music.

If you are not cool with spending a lot of cash outta the gate, but just want to get yr feet wet with recording on Mac, then I suggest you get a MacBook, a cheap USB ADC, borrow a Mic, and record on GarageBand, which comes with every new Mac (via iLife). You can probably get some surprisingly good recordings (albeit only 44.1/16) with such a setup, but yr mixes are going to sound amateurish because GB is quite light on mixing resources (no waveform editor, primitive automation, limited plugin capabilities, no buses, almost-nonexistent MIDI, on and on and on). However, GB has a good number of UI elements in common with Logic, so you could get an idea if Logic is for you. Most GB files can be directly imported into Logic 8, if you ever decide to upgrade. Also, you could get involved in the IMM Internet Service Collab project (which seems to be a bit stalled at the moment), and that'd be cool.

Personally, I have a Mac Pro 4-core 3.0GHz with 5G RAM that I use with a MOTU 828mkII ADC & headphones for recording & mixing in Logic 8. It's a bit of overkill, since I use it mostly for roughing out songs for my band: if I wanted to produce pro-quality mixes, I'd have to invest at least a good amp and a pair of nearfields, which might cause my neighbors (I have both upper and lower) to complain. Thus, I don't really put a lot of effort into mixing at my house (I have a friend with an iso room in his basement with good nearfields where I can mix if need be).

One thing worth noting is that Logic 8 is pretty good for both sequencing and recording. The sequence editor in GB is very similar to that of Logic, in fact.

^^^ power user

"one of the things about playing golf is that if you want to be taken seriously you need to spend as much money as possible on everything"

doing high-or-even-decent quality recording or mixing on a computer is an expensive proposition,

truthiest of truth bombs

If a power user is one who has more computer than he needs, I'm guilty as charged.

expensive is a relative concept here esoj. libcrypt seems to mean "low five figures" - I personally believe if you can't get decent-to-very-good recording and mixing out of a USD $4K setup then maybe you just shouldn't be making music, but what do I know.

You can make good music with a $4 cassette recorder you get at Salvation Army as long as you embrace the aesthetic.

you're absolutely right tom. i have the additional requirements of needing a buttload of inputs as i mostly record three or more piece bands playing together. but if you need only two inputs at once you're laughing for that sort of cash

that's a very good point. if they're playing together, though, my instinct would be to mix down to two channels on an analog rig using headphones like it were live. I realize that is also a terrifically stupid/horribly imperfect solution.

I think you guys need to reread 2nd-to-last paragraph above.

Dan, you may wish to budget for one of these:

http://www.seelectronics.com/rf.html

I'm going to get a Macbook (probably not Pro). I was thinking about just going to the Apple store and picking the best deal among their refurbs. Anybody have a better recommendation -- ebay, craigslist, etc?

Apple refurb is best 'cause you can get fresh Applecare onnit.

hey, is this a good deal or just an okay deal? it would be for my gf, who is starting grad school and just needs something stable (won't be doing much besides writing papers, youtube, and itunes).

15 inch Apple PowerBook G4 laptop -- $350.00

1.5 GHz, 1 GB DDR SDRAM, Superdrive (burns DVDs and CDs), 40 GB hard drive, beautiful condition, good battery life, never needed a repair. Comes with Mac OS X Tiger 10.4.11, power cord, and original install discs.

It'll do ok, but it is a bit of a dead end, being a G4. It better have word etc. loaded on it because you'll have a hard time finding software for it. If it were $200 I'd be more inclined but it seems a lot for something 4-5 years old.

Once she puts her songs on there and a few videos that 40GB is going to feel very very small. And 1GB RAM is not enough for having say, iTunes, iPhoto, Word, Mail open and Safari playing a Youtube video at the same time, at least not on a G4. it's relatively cheap to upgrade the memory and the HD but that's about $100-$200 extra you're looking at. So I'd ask for less.

But I'm typing this on a G4 Powerbook that still does me perfectly well (after upgrading everything to the max).

thanks guys. is it reasonable to swap out/upgrade the memory & hard drive yourself, or do you have to take it somewhere? (i've haven't fucked with a mac since i was like 12)

iirc it is a real pain to swap out the hard drive on the G4 powerbooks; I did it with my 12" and it involved many tiny screws

have a look

for $350 you might be able to pick up an early Intel-chip powered macbook, the plastic ones, and it'd be a lot more future-proof (plus swapping HDs on those is much, much easier)

Jordan: the single best Mac I've ever owned is my 12" G4 PowerBook but that's largely down to the fact I've had it now for donkeys' years and it's a dependable workhorse that I've lugged about all over the place and have always been able to rely on.

But ... compared to this (also wonderful) iMac on which I'm writing now, it feels painfully slow; 10.4.11 (which it's running) lacks a lot of nice productivity tools (eg Spaces) which I take for granted now; I'm starting to realise that there's a lot of stuff it just won't run (eg the new version of NetNewsWire); basically, although I love the thing like a child, I wouldn't pay $350 for it. Like Ed says, $200 would be a much, much better price.

I am trying to convince my wife we should get an Apple laptop to work on musical endeavors (her website, my idle musical ideas, etc).

- Which machines should I be looking at if my parameters are "better-than-decent"?
- How much, realistically, should I expect to spend for a better-than-decent machine?
- How useful is the out-of-the-box software? What should I consider upgrading and what's the cost for that?
- Anyone have experiencing adding a Mac to a Window-based network? How complicated is that to manage?

I am revisiting this! I was looking at MacBook Pros but the lowest-level one I'd consider is the 15" 2.66 GHz processor one, which is already $1999. Conversely, I could get a quad-core 2.66 GHz 27" iMac for $1999. The screen real eastate is going to be critical to me re: looking at sheet music/sequencers/etc so I'm currently leaning in the direction of the iMac since it seems to give a whole lot more machine for the $$. Anyone have pros or cons to add to this line of thinking?

(as an aside, how easy is it to upgrade RAM in an iMac?)

I dunno but my mom just started using one for some kind of music composition/manipulation software and she is suddenly IN WUV and wants one -- I've been asking for a mac laptop for like 10 years but have my parents ever bought me a computer?? NNNOOOOOOOO.

HI DERE the upgrade is easy.

if you don't need to take it anywhere i'd say go with the imac for sure.

ya if you dont NEED a lappie the desktop models will always offer more screen real estate, RAM, HD space, ports etc for the $$

I was originally thinking laptop because I don't plan on giving up my PC desktop and it might be easier to set up music stuff somewhere else in my place if based around a laptop (plus easier to take with me and work on stuff "on-the-go" if I so desire); however, I started cleaning up my office space this weekend and, if I move my printer, I will have a perfect place to put an iMac that will be totally accessible and make sense as far as building a music space is concerned, plus it's not like trying to toe around an iMac is like toting around a Dell desktop machine so there could be limited portability if necessary.

very tempted to buy this this week actually

btw is there a practical difference between 4x2GB RAM and 2x4GB RAM, like are Macs built suck that it makes more effective/efficient use of larger RAM chips?

the only real difference is that 2x4GB will probably cost more, but would leave you with two empty slots in case you want to add memory in the future.

I'm sure you know this but just in case: if you're upgrading your RAM, do not buy it from apple, they're extortionate

I likely want to go to 16GB at some point but, for what I want to do initially, 4-8GB should be plenty.

wtf is it with me and typos today btw

I absolutely love my 24' iMac and would recommend one to anybody. However if you want to get a 27' I might wait until the next batch/update - there have been some display issues apparently, though like with many Apple hardware problems, it's hard to tell how widespread the problem really is (actually serious or just enough on the internet to make a stink). And you know, first generation of anything Apple... (sorry to be that wet blanket)

Hmmm...

Not being super int tune with the Apple product cycle, where do I look to figure out when the next update will come out?

New MacBooks are expected (and somewhat overdue).

It's always good to check the Mac Buyer's Guide, where they keep track of Apple's release cycles.

So a few things:

1. Super super SUPER pissed that apparently you can't buy the 2.8GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7 at the store; fuck you and your "baseline configurations", your Boylston St store is fucking massive and should be able to support this kind of thing. The sales guy I talked actually said "we don't have the tools to do that" which made me go "uh this store is somewhere between 20K-25K square feet, what do you MEAN you can't do that type of thing here". This is the type of thing that makes me scream "style over substance" at a lot of Mac products; you can usually find about a bazillion different processor options on various PCs at Best Buy/Micro Center.

2. The screen issues are terrifying. I am imagining the fury I would unleash if I dropped $2500+ on this thing and it's all jacked up and no one really wants to see that.

3. I really only need the 21-inch one as far as screen size goes but the processor I want only comes with the 27-inch one, which after seeing it in person is kind of fuck-off huge, to the point where I was a little like "lol actually I am very satisfied with the size of my penis, no compensation necessary". (see also bullet #1)

Also lolled at inept salesdude's failed Jedi mind trick re: "well some ppl buy a MacBook Pro and a big monitor" right after I told him I was switching focus to an iMac because of processing power and screen size per dollar. It was very funny because I basically kept quoting stuff I read off the website at him and asking "is that correct?" to which he was like "well let me look that up... yes". I was really hoping he could give me a loophole around the processor thing and he couldn't, which you know boo hiss etc.

I am imagining the fury I would unleash if I dropped $2500+ on this thing and it's all jacked up and no one really wants to see that.

it would make an awesome thread, you have to admit

apple store people pretty much blow; buy online imo

yeah i would check dealmac and macmall for, um, deals

apple stores are only useful if you want to get something repaired and don't want to wait at home for the UPS guy, or you need a baseline iBook NOW. geniuses notwithstanding, the employees tend to be morons, and, yes, they maintain a very streamlined stock.

if you drop $2500 on is and the screen is busted then can't you just get a refund? i don't get it. or are you worried about three years down the line? (buy applecare, by the way.)

The only screen issues I've heard of are immediately apparent out of the box, so I don't think it's anything you'd have to worry about in the long term.

I was worried about it cropping up later, yes.

Also, tbh, I'm a little worried about the box being delivered to my house and my wife going "OKAY WTF IS WRONG WITH YOU" when she sees how large it is. I need a large screen but I don't need one that large!

Can I do financing via DealMac and MacMall? (willing to look this up, just wondering if anyone knows offhand; I am currently credit card lite by choice and need to know if I should be prepared to shell out $$$ up front, as that will greatly reduce the spree aspect of this purchase)

there was one guy who got in the news trying to submit a class action suit after his imac g5 screen failed after three years or something. apparently the problem with his class action was the class was essentially just him. he tried to include "every owner of an imac in the U.S." without asking them. got thrown out iirc.

dan: apple hardware problems tend to get a lot of attention because they are pretty much the biggest selling brand of home computer these days, with a very high media profile compared to, say dell or lenevo, and expectations are very high. i think the fact that there are only about ten configurations on sale at any time tends to contribute to the echo chamber too; if your lenevo xbt670A-SD fails in some way, you're unlikely to find a community of people with the same machine to figure out the problem and/or convince yourself it is systemic, which is very easy to do with a mac.

anyway, apple hardware always has scored extremely highly on customer satisfaction surveys and independent reliability measures. so, they are far from perfect, but unless you are unlucky, it will likely be more reliable than any pc you have owned.

I need a large screen but I don't need one that large!

to that i respond, where the tittays at?

27" is kind of nuts, but you can never go home again once to step up.

don't want to confuse you, but given you're looking at the very top of the line imac, why don't you get a mac pro and a dell monitor?

does apple in the u.s offer an academic discount? in the uk it's very easy to find someone to make the purchase for you (can just be an undergrad, doesn't need to be a student), and it's quite a substantial discount (15%?).

they do, and often you can just make up whatever university you wish you actually went to on the online apple store and they do not ask for proof. whereas when you go to the b&m apple store, they ask for ID.

but dan went to harvard, in case you were wondering