Musician and a Mac?

would seem to be the way to go, IMO. I should imagine that GarageBand really does well on the new Dual Core iMac.
However, I'm sure Lampie will be along shortly to give us the definitive answer to your question


P

Something you don't want to miss seeing.

Bob

Self,
You didn't tell us very much about your friend.

OK, that felt weird just typing it, but I digress.

What's he play?

Is he a; Beginner, Student, Professional?

If I'm supposed to guess what the computer's for, I'd better get started. The musicians I know use their computers for a whole bunch of stuff.

Transposing/writing/arranging?
Creation?
Editing?
Keeping track of bookings?
Buying slide trombones on e-Bay?
Doing a backround check on the new keyboard tech?
Downloading audio for sampling?
Posting to his fan site?
Organizing his ever growing collection of internet art?
Vanity searches on Google?
Making demo CD's?
Making music videos?
Writing lyrics?
Testing the DRM Sony BMI created for his "Live album"
Wait, I got it!
All of the above?

Good choice! Your friend sounds like a real musician, so for today let's start with earning a living. It's important.

While there are probably good music applications for Windows, I don't know much about them. Most of the musicians I've worked with for the past few years, use Macs. At least, that is, the ones who use their personal computers to make money. There are musicians who just use them for e-mail and looking at umm ... art. Yea, art on the internet. Some of those have PC's, but who wants to play the slide trombone for a living? (inside joke)

I am not a musician, and I've never wanted to play one on TV, so all my knowledge is observational. I have, however, spent 26 years working with musicians. Well, ok, not really working. Most of it was spent in the back lounges of Eagles, Prevosts, and the odd ''double decker'' watching movies and playing with computers on the way to a gig.

To the point.

ProTools, Reason, & Logic Pro, are the titles I've seen most often. As I understand it, Garageband is a simpler version of Logic Pro. It's also FREE.
Every time I hear the name ProTools, the word "Plug-in" is somewhere within a sentence of it, so I guess your friend will want to get some of those.
Reason is just really cool, even if you don't know how it works. I could play with the virtual patch on the back of the virtual rack for hours.

Real time audio manipulation of multiple tracks takes lots of RAM. Now is not a good time to be cheap. Tell him to pass up the sousaphone he saw on e-bay, and get RAM. Also, as the number of tracks goes up, your friend will need a fast hard drive, but RAM first.

What else can a Mac do?

In the past five years, I've seen macs driving midi keyboards, and backing up their sound settings, Controlling SMPTE time code, and playing extra tracks to fill in the sound, producing click tracks for drummers with short attention spans, and lyrics for singers with short term memory loss. I've used my Powerbook to run a two hour Vegas show with over a thousand dimmers and fifty "moving lights", when the Hard drive in the lighting desk crapped out twenty minutes before curtain.

I know a bass player that makes extra money in his hotel room laying down studio tracks. Recorded tracks are sent to him using iChat, through AOL IM. He adds his tracks using ProTools, and sends them back to the studio. These are VERY large files, so a broadband connection is a must, but AOL IM and iChat allow transfers of any size.

FOH & monitor engineers are still on Windows, but that's changing, as Mac software titles are released to interface with the cutting edge pro digital desks. One guy, that I know well, has been checking the web every week, waiting for that last critical piece of software that will let him say goodbye to Windows.

I've noticed that most people on the road doing work and making money with their Windows laptops end up not using it for anything else. They carry a second computer for personal stuff, and the ''work laptop'' becomes another piece of gear for the back-line guys to maintain, and pack into a road case after the show.
I guess they figure that using a Windows machine to surf the internet, do e-mail, use WiFi, and deal with spam, is too much risk to a piece of gear they depend on for a paycheck. Can't fault them for that, but I'm also guessing your friend can't afford two computers

Another observation.

When Murphy happens, and a Windows laptop breaks/crashes/''fails to function'' (usually just as the opening act walks off stage, because, Hey! it's Murphy!) the troubleshooting path usually becomes ''try to fix it'', and at the same time try to figure out how you are going to do without it if you can't fix it. I don't know much about Windows, and honestly don't know why this is,

Because...

When Murphy happens, and a Mac breaks/crashes/''fails to function'', it will still happen at the worst possible time, because ... yep, Murphy.
The troubleshooting path is different though. It still starts with ''try to fix it'', but at the same time it's ''go tell the T-shirt guy I need to borrow his Powerbook''. ''I can boot it from the back-up drive and still have time for a beer/cigarette/groupie/high colonic/prayer (depending on the band) before house lights go out''.

This is not a scientific survey of all musicians, or even of all musicians on the road. These are observations from the lighting desk. My best hope for showing musical talent is coming up with a good iTunes play list.

YMMV, know what I mean?

Lampie

I am a musican and I will chime in hear a little bit.

Now to be honest which machine he chooses does not really matter. Most of the major software choices these days come on both systems and they operate exactly the same on both. The only major software environment that is Apple exclusive would be Pro Logic and its' little brother Garagband.

On the flip side, if your friend makes electronic music there are a slew of tools that are PC only including: Fruityloops, Project 5, Sonar and a few others. For pure recording however you can choose either and be happy.

Now lets assume for a minute that your friend actually plans on purchasing all of the music software he wants to use. If that is the case, then cost wise the machines will be very comperable. It is important to note (and I am not advocating this) that one of the reasons PC's have made a major jump in the computer music world is because it is very easy to find cracked music programs for them.

Now with the issues of stability. OSX will probably be a more stable machine and have better support with drivers for different midi tools, but a PC machines does not crash that often if it is maintained properly.
If your friend does not plan on performing live with his laptop, then that slight stability improvement that OSX has doesnt really matter. Yes it maybe frustrating if your song crashes while you are in the studio recording, but most software these days has an autosave feature to backup your project.

Since I am a musician what you really should do is not try to find a machine and then match the tools to that machine. Instead your friend needs to find out which audio tools he/she likes to work with. Every software environment has little nuances that may "click" with one person over another, and your friend should really make the hardware decision based off of the software decision.

Now, that all being said...Garageband is a killer app. One can certainlly make professional quality songs in it if they take the time to do so and you can do just about everything you need in it to make music. If your friend just wants to play guitar or piano and record his vocals then Garageband is a great way to go. What's more is that garageband is free and could save your friend from potential problems of having to download cracked versions of some comperable program for windows and then either getting into trouble or having problems with his/her computer.

Hi,
I have a new Mac laptop and also run Windows XP Pro on my desktop-so I'm familiar with both. I recently purchased Pro Logic 7 for the Mac. This is a recording package that would be equivelent to a $100,000 recording facility in the early 1990's.The nice thing about Pro Logic 7 ($1000) is that you won't need any more software - it has everything you'll ever need to record. Now, Garage Band is pretty good too and would probably suffice for simple recordings (i.e. modest demo tape). It comes free with the Mac. The operating system stability on the Mac is clearly superior, which is important when recording (the last thing you need is the system to freeze up on you after a great take). Now, your friend will also need a digital-analog converter (cheap ones $150, good ones $500) , a few mics, etc... Good Luck

A Mac everytime because as far as I'm concerned a musician's best friend is EMagic's "Logic" software.Unfortunately, I run a PC and I understand Apple bought Logic,then promptly withdrew the support for PC users.I am thinking about buying a Mac purely for this very reason.I run Logic 5.5 and would not be without it.I have even told my wife if it comes down to a straight choice between Logic and her----well, I would have to give it serious consideration. Seriously though to me, it is that good.It's not cheap, but worth every penny.
Hope that helps some.If you need any in depth info on Logic I would be happy to oblige.

Though there are some pretty decent PC's that are capable of handling music from a musicians end(see MPC at Sam Ash) with some mods, MAC actually rules in this department, and have for many years. Not to be too technical, and purposely more general, most of your more legendary musicians, such as Herbie Hancock, Stevie Wonder,Chick Corea, and boy I could name more, have been MAC users almost from it's inception (25 years??). I haven't switched yet ( I am over 50 and a tad slow)but working and teaching my son the foundation of music, has re-awakened my desire to not only utilize my PC more creatively, but also purchase my first MAC. Your advice was neither wrong or misleading, since those named musicians also own and use PC's as well. Try one of the larger musicians stores, latest electronics musicians magazines, in other words garner all the info and shop wisely.

The two most powerful music creating softwares on the planet (sibelius kiss my ***) are compatible with mac. If your friend decides to go with a PC, he will have to settle with some non-topoftheline music recording software such as cakewalk, although finale will still be compatible. Also, PC's can be a pain for music writers/composers/preformers. If you write lyrics, or begin to compose an awesome song and get a virus, well, all musicians have been down that road... So I, as a musician, suggest using mac,
P.S.-tell your friend to wait for the macbook pro, i sure as hell am.

hey im studying music at my college and i had the same argument... i didnt knew what to buy... a mac or a pc...

so i went with the iBook G4 and its amazing... when im performing live it works great, when im writting songs at finale its beautiful and you dont have to worry because of virus or blue screen and other stuff i used to have on a pc... garageband will make your life easier but the pro apps are incredible... so if your friend must decide between a mac and a pc he should go out for the mac because its way better and its sexier to play live and have a mac on stage... it just looks better than a black toshiba