We continue our series of Myths of Modern Recording with a subject that should have been dead and buried a long time ago, however it seems some still want to peddle the myth that when it comes to audio, Macs are better than Windows PCs. A Brief History Of Modern PCs Rewind to the the early days of the PC (personal computer) and two camps emerged with very different agendas. IBM PCs (and clones) were being aggressively sold to businesses as the thing that would solve all their business problems.

In this post I review and compare the top computers and laptops for recording music in your home studio. Updated for 2018. Skip to content. Want to know the easiest way to piss-off a recording geek? For music production, there is no clear-cut winner that stands out from all the others.

Driven by Microsoft software (not Windows at this point) these machines promised to run your inventory, do your taxes, solve complex technical equations and of course they would help you write letters or reports that were then printed out on a dot matrix printer. Around the same time Apple were taking a different approach to the PC and with their Macintosh (Mac) computer offered a graphical user interface and a mouse. Apple marketed their computers to artists and graphic design users, offering access to the desktop publishing revolution. In 1985 a graphical version of DOS appeared called Windows which acted as a shell to the underlying DOS architecture.

Build ios app on visual studio for mac. For many years Microsoft Windows held almost 90% of the PC market, this was due to a number of things. Microsoft promoted themselves as the only choice for business. It worked and few businesses used Apple Macs for their day-to-day business tasks. Secondly Windows PCs were cheaper, often because they were open systems so anyone could manufacture a PC, or indeed build their own, so cost was also a factor. Apple on the other hand were largely used by those working in the creative sector because of the GUI and the software available to take advantage of it. Macs were expensive and only Apple made them.

Furthermore the ability to modify or indeed build your own Mac was almost non-existent. Software creators also played to these differences and in many cases software would run on one platform and not the other. Of course that software would play to the strengths of each platform thus creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. This created a basic (if not clumsy) line of thinking about the Mac and the PC; • PC = Ubiquitous. A business machine, good at number crunching, easy to network and relatively cost effective.

The machine for people wearing suits. • Mac = Only used by a discrete group. The best machine for creative tasks.

Hard to network and relatively expensive. The machine for the creative. In many ways both Apple and Microsoft continued to play to these stereotypes in their marketing and messaging. When Apple started to gain traction in the home PC market (largely due to the halo effect of iPod sales) they exploited some of these stereotypes with a campaign of 'I'm A Mac' ads (see below).

The campaign seemed to reinforce the historical point of view of the main differences between the two camps. Apple also worked hard to make the Mac even easier to use, offering a suite of software called iLife which made creative tasks incredibly easy. When FIATS Were Rust Buckets There was a time in the 1970s when FIATS were seen as rust buckets. In fact many cars in that era weren't rust-proofed but when it comes to marketing, mud-slinging sometimes it sticks for years - even when a brand has moved on from that era. I cite this example because the 'Macs are best' myth is only true if we rewind back to the Mac v PC period I've already outlined. Now when it comes to Macs and PCs there's far less difference than there once was. Now a Mac user can use a spreadsheet and do complex equations, you can also network them with the minimum of fuss.

On the other hand PCs are able to perform creative tasks and are being used for music, graphics and audio tasks by millions of professionals around the world. Strengths Are Also Weaknesses So is everything completely the same when it comes to Macs and PCs? Well no and that's because the strengths also happen to be weaknesses.