On 6 Apr 2006 at 17:39, Johannes Gebauer wrote: > On 06.04.2006 David W. Fenton wrote: > > My thought is that if I went with a dual-boot Mac, I'd use OS X for > > Finale and audio. > > Why would you use the Mac for Audio? Win XP has much better Audio > software than the Mac imo. It is currently my biggest problem with the > Mac and one good reason to dream of a new intel Mac, so I can boot > Windows and run Samplitude or Sequoia (once I can afford it).
Well, I thought the Finale experience was better on OS X. > But this raises a question for me: > > > > Are there as many free tools for this as there are for Windows? I'd > > hate to give up Exact Audio Copy (for burning CDs), or LAMEBatch > > (for batch conversion of WAV to MP3), or MIDI2Wav for recording WAV > > files from MIDI files, or Audacity (general wave-based audio > > editing). > > Audacity I believe is available for OS X. If you just need simple > copying of Audio CDs, with quite a bit extra, iTunes will happily do > the job, but it isn't for pro-use. iTunes will also convert from Wav > to MP3, not sure it does batch conversion. iTunes can also convert > Midi to Wav, but I am not sure the quality will please you - it uses > the built in Quicktime synthesizer, which is, well, not great. I am very anti-iTunes for anything other than as a media player (which I use it for). I won't use it for anything else because I don't like the choices that have been made for me. For MIDI-to-WAV conversion it's useless, since it uses the horrid QT instruments. > Are > > there free counterparts, or applets included with OS X that allow > > you to do this? I don't really like iTunes, to be honest, and > > wouldn't want to use it for the first two tasks. > > Well, then you might have to search a little. Not sure what else there > is, but perhaps iTunes on the Mac is better than on the PC? I don't know. It would have to be substantially better, completely different, in fact, for me to consider replacing all the special-use tools that I have for those tasks. > > And > does the Mac have hardware-based synthesizer cards, or is it > > basically a choice of outboard synthesizers or software > > synthesis? > > To my knowledge the latter. But aren't hardware synths becoming a > thing of the past anyway? They may be, but I consider that a stupid trend. Systems are moving towards handing off all the graphics processing to dedicated devices, so I don't quite understand why the trend in audio is going in the other direction. There was a time when there was a move to share video and system memory, but that obviously didn't work out very well for the new graphics-heavy OS's, so that's ending. It just makes sense to have a separate device for this and I just think it's bloody stupid for the industry to try to move towards all- software synthesis. Soundfonts are great, but they can just as easily be loaded into the synthesizer card's RAM as into the PC's. > > I'm not at all thrilled about the performance-hungry profile of VPO > > -- > > What is VPO? Brain fart -- I reached into my memory for "GPO" and retrieved "VPO" instead. > > I like to do other things while letting slow processes run in the > > background, but if the system is already heavily taxed, the result > > would be flawed output files. Basically I don't want to have to walk > > away from the computer while these things are running. > > I don't know why people still think the Mac is better for Audio. Imo > it isn't, simply by the lack of decent software. Certainly for > professional classical music mastering the PC has a lot more to offer. > Sequencers are ok, but the choice on Win is just as good if not > better. OK. I didn't really know that was the case. > This might change when SonicStudio brings out their new mastering > soft, but this would still leave the Mac with one option, while there > are at least three on the PC (Sequoia, Pyramix, Sadie). > > So then it comes down to Finale. Would you really ever switch to OSX > for Finale? Well, I don't know. > I really can't see the big advantage of having a dual boot machine for > anyone who is happily running Windows today. I love the Mac and OS X, > but in the last two years I have been very close to going over to > Windows several times. For me the dual boot is a god sent, but perhaps > not in the way that Apple intended it. For me it may very well end up > being the smoothest way to slowly start converting to Windows. And I > sort of fear that I won't be the only one. Well, I'm not completely happy with Windows. Secondly, I've coveted the Mac's better UI for as long as I've been a computer user. Third, I would like to become Mac-proficient so that I could offer broader service in my consulting business. Fourth, I do substantial graphics work with my web clients and the Mac would be better for that in terms of graphics editing. If my finances had not gone bad in the last 3 years, I likely would have acquired a Mac as a second platform for certain things. As it is now, I can't afford a second machine. A Mac laptop would be very attractive to me (the fit and finish means a lot to me), and if it could dual-boot Windows, that would make it possible for me to use it in my business (I don't have a laptop at all right now). -- David W. Fenton http://dfenton.com David Fenton Associates http://dfenton.com/DFA/ _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
