Re: [Harp-L] Home recording

[Ken Deifik <kenneth.d@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> I use both Macs and PCs, but prefer my Mac. I think Macs have a lot of 
> advantages, especially for audio, and are definitely more stable.

Different people have different experiences with computer stability.  My 
Win XP installations, always running loads of apps at the same time, have 
crashed exactly once in all the years I have used them.

I occsaionally do work at a business that runs macs, and the machine they 
give me crashes out of the blue at least once a month.  Quite often I can't 
get my work done there because someone else's machine has to reboot because 
of a freeze up.  These are not boneheads, these are able computer users, 
for the most part.

I would switch my whole world to Mac if my experience with them was even 
equal to my experience with XP.  I have no loyalty whatsoever to 
Microsoft.  I am blown away by the Mac design teams, but a PC with XP works 
better for me.  For me.

Other people, including experienced computerists like Robert, have clearly 
had the opposite experience.

I do like to speak up when PCs are described as unstable because I have not 
found XP to be unstable at all, and I really put it through its paces.

That being said, even my friend at Microsoft was shocked that I was still 
using Windows ME a year after XP had come out.  THAT was an unstable OS.  I 
haven't used it since 2002.

My recommendations to harmonica players who are trying to decide which 
platform to use in their recording setups:

1. If you're already using a Mac use a Mac for recording.  If you're 
already using a PC, use a PC for recording.

2. If you are a PC person but your friends are all using Mac for recording 
and they are very knowlegeable and can help you and won't get bored of 
helping you before you stop needing their help, AND you can afford it, use 
Mac for recording.  Otherwise, get a copy of Audacity and start learning 
your craft on your PC.  Buy a copy of Samplitude or some other PC 
multitracker when you feel confident on Audacity.

By the way, the reason I was able to take the work at the Mac office was 
because I sat down at an OSX Mac for the first time and found it worked 
nearly identically to the Win95 model, which was not the case with previous 
Mac OSes.  The differences between working on the two OSes is, for me 
anyway, amazingly insignificant.  For me the issue was my own observations 
concerning reliability.

Mac computers could hardly be more beautiful to look at or use.  They work 
for lots of people, but PCs running XP do the job for me.

Since almost everyone on Harp-l uses either XP or OSX, and since we 
generally like and prefer the OS we're used to, I hope this post does not 
start a flame war.  All computers amaze me.

Ken