Scotmk Posted October 9, 2007 Posted October 9, 2007 Can you recommend some specs and models please? We need about 15 macs for the music department, they need to obviously be man enough for music software, we will be using Sibelious, maybe Logic, and other software, needs to have all the correct outputs etc. Don't really know alot about them, other than "why the hell no right mouse button, do'h" lol, anyways, advice would be greatfully received. Many thanks
StewartKnight Posted October 9, 2007 Posted October 9, 2007 why Macs? A pc can do anything a mac can do!
russdev Posted October 9, 2007 Posted October 9, 2007 Lets not go here.... Everyone has their view on macs and lets agree to disagree. Russell
tech_guy Posted October 9, 2007 Posted October 9, 2007 I used to sell Macs for a living - great machines. No, really, they are. It's the pretentious gits that use them and waffle on about how superior they are that p*** me off.
Rozzer Posted October 9, 2007 Posted October 9, 2007 I would suggest getting the iMacs as they are easy to use and look good and not to expensive for education. We have quite a few here and had no vanadlism for 1 year since we had them. Ross
Guest Guest Posted October 9, 2007 Posted October 9, 2007 Whatever you get you will need soundcards. M-Audio are a really decent make for your £. Perfect for schools imo. You will need to think; do i want a mac in which i can put an internal soundcard (is there such a thing?) or do i go the external route and pay double for the soundcard? Dont be put off by USB 1.1... or whatever. Any usb soundcard is perfectly capible of shunting enough data back and forth over the usb cable. You dont need firewire. Do you need midi? I persume you will. Does yoru mac have a midi port? If not you'll have to make sure your soundcard does. And what type of connector is it? A round (normal) one, or the gameport type one in which case you will need to budget for around £10 each for the adaptor.
Scotmk Posted October 9, 2007 Author Posted October 9, 2007 why Macs? A pc can do anything a mac can do! I know, its not my decision, I tried, no one listened, therefor we are getting macs Lets not go here.... Everyone has their view on macs and lets agree to disagree. Russell I KNOW We just had a new recording studio and music rooms built and the "people" who setup the studio yelled "Macs" to my horror, I was in a different room but my techy senses tingled and I felt faint, and no amount of screaming "PC's can do it and they will talk to our network easier" helped. Thats what lead me here.
Grommit Posted October 9, 2007 Posted October 9, 2007 Had the same problem.. you need IMACS but you also need to buy a Xserver unless you want you file server filled with massive music files..
plexer Posted October 9, 2007 Posted October 9, 2007 We have 15 PC's for student use in our refurbished music room, each one has a audio keyboard with midi usb plugged in with a pukka audio soundcard and a small mixer. Music teacher has the same. Another one lives in the recording studio running the project mix i/o If you want more info shout. Ben
triggmiester Posted October 9, 2007 Posted October 9, 2007 Plus the fact the advantage that a MAC has over a PC is that they tend to be industry standard in recording studios etc, etc. So that if any of the students goes into that side of things when they leave you will have already given them some good experience. And thats what school is all about IMHO.
mattx Posted October 9, 2007 Posted October 9, 2007 We just had a new recording studio and music rooms built and the "people" who setup the studio yelled "Macs" God knows why, I've done some stints on hospital radio etc over the years, in fact I am just about to write and record some Jazz Programs for Hayes FM which has just been setup around the Hillingdon area and I'll be using PC based networks for that. In fact I've done tours of quite a few radio stations / recording studios in my time - and they tend to use PC based software for most things.....
HodgeHi Posted October 9, 2007 Posted October 9, 2007 We have just had a music teacher come into our school. He knows his music and has been given the task of teaching our primary kids garageband. I loaned him a usb keyboard to see what he thought of it since it was a reasonable price so we purchased a couple. Not really knowing much about music and lacking the ability to play any instrument myself, i was eager to get a pro's point of view. With a basic macbook, garageband and a £50 usb keyboard he was amazed at the clarity of the sound coming out at the other end, with no latency. You press a key and hear it. You can also configure the midi module/utility thingy as well but like i said i don't know much aboout the music side. This is quality out of the box and i think is what buyers are looking at. I came from a school that had a Music teacher who loved his technology to boot and so enjoyed getting high-end setups on the go (for PCs). He spent a fair amount on all the gadgets to get a good sound so at the end of the day the costs about the same. High-end sound cards cost but the macbooks and imacs don't really need them. From what i can hear they souond pretty decent and the guy who comes in says more or less the same. PCs can do the job but you need to know what you're doing to get the best out of them where garageband can give you some of that without trying. Just a point of view from some non music-maker.
CyberNerd Posted October 9, 2007 Posted October 9, 2007 Clearly the technology is far too expensice to give technical people teh responsibility for a technical solution. If you can't cope with macs then make sure you get a support contract as well as the training.
Rozzer Posted October 9, 2007 Posted October 9, 2007 You don;t need a xserv for just a few machines a mac mini can do it fine a lot cheaper!
torledo Posted October 9, 2007 Posted October 9, 2007 You don;t need a xserv for just a few machines a mac mini can do it fine a lot cheaper! He wouldn't need an xserve, but it's a good idea to get one for anything over 10 machines. Rack mounted devices are always more elegant, redundant PSU's give you greater availabilty and OS deployment is much quicker with link aggregated gigabit ports. i would say an xserve is something of an expensive luxury for small mac deployments - and if a mac mini does a good enough job then fine but for any type of networked video application using network home folders you really need the processing power and expansion of an xserve (or Mac Pro if you don't have a rack.) Also, if you want FC or iSCSI storage you can't use anything less than a MacPro or Xserve. If you've got the money keep your mac mini in your lab where it belongs and deploy an xserve darnit.
Guest Guest Posted October 9, 2007 Posted October 9, 2007 It always amazes me how many people will talk about things they have ZERO knowledge about. You CANNOT get low latency without a real soundcard. I think HodgeHi and his music teacher need to get their ears tested. Yeah it might be a daft laugh for primary kids but it completely defeats the point for older kids. Macs arnt always industry standard in the music world. Infact the poeple i know in the music world dont like macs. And tbh whats that got to do with anything anyway? So 1 out of probably 10000 kids might make it into a studio, yeah thats great justification for spending a small fortune and depriving the other 9999 of the resources they need. Oh well, ill leave it there as most of you probably cant even hear me with your head up your ass anyway....
Rozzer Posted October 9, 2007 Posted October 9, 2007 We have a Macpro and that looks quite nice in our server raq We also can do link aggregated gigabyte We have 80 machines setup her and does the trick
DMcCoy Posted October 9, 2007 Posted October 9, 2007 It always amazes me how many people will talk about things they have ZERO knowledge about. You CANNOT get low latency without a real soundcard. Because? Aren't they both just buses? On a general note I really am getting sick of this. Often I don't like our macs, often I don't like our PCs - but for a REASON. If people are going to go on and on about this please provide well reasoned, personal arguments, not "so and so tells me" or "I hate them because, they suck because..." with the only reason being Mac/PC/linux.
torledo Posted October 9, 2007 Posted October 9, 2007 We have a Macpro and that looks quite nice in our server raq We also can do link aggregated gigabyte We have 80 machines setup her and does the trick It may look good (although I'm dubious as to how good it actually looks if you can't lay it on it's side - surely it doesn't fit a 19" rack when layed on it's side)..but a MacPro in a 19 inch rack does absolutely nothing for front-to-back airflow in your rack which is an issue even if you're using comfort cooling - plus how many U's are you wasting by having a MacPro ? when you could have several Xserve's occupying the same space, the MacPro is performance wise equivalent to the xserve with increased expansion slots and greater internal storage - and it's a good choice for a server but the MacPro is a very different kettle of fish to a mac mini as a 'server'
torledo Posted October 9, 2007 Posted October 9, 2007 It always amazes me how many people will talk about things they have ZERO knowledge about. You CANNOT get low latency without a real soundcard. Because? Aren't they both just buses? On a general note I really am getting sick of this. Often I don't like our macs, often I don't like our PCs - but for a REASON. If people are going to go on and on about this please provide well reasoned, personal arguments, not "so and so tells me" or "I hate them because, they suck because..." with the only reason being Mac/PC/linux. Exactly. Horses for courses, it amazes me the number of people on here who've had a dig at Macs even though they've never administered a suite of them, tried to repair one, or even used one for a reasonable length of time. I use and manage Windows and Macs..clients and servers, and am about to add linux servers into the mix - they're all very capable. Windows is a good allrounder - capable as client and server. Linux is a great server and a very capable client. Macs are a breeze *most of the time* to administer, Server Admin in OS X 10.4 is what Microsoft would like to have copied for their Server 2003, and they're all great in certain specific areas aswell...QTSS or Xgrid on OS X server anyone ? Or a bind dns server in Linux ? Or how about the enteprise grade SQL server on a humble dell box ? Plus with MOSS 2007 Microsoft have another product to use as a stick to beat IBM with, following in the footsteps of SQL Server 2005 and Exchange 2003/2007. Sure i've got issues with Vista and Microsoft's roadmap - same with Apples hardware decisions....but overall the future looks bright. Stop whining and stop hating people
Guest Guest Posted October 9, 2007 Posted October 9, 2007 It always amazes me how many people will talk about things they have ZERO knowledge about. You CANNOT get low latency without a real soundcard. Because? Aren't they both just buses? Like i said "It amazes me how many people will talk about things they have ZERO knowledge about" By your logic integrated GFX cards are just as good as £x000 beasts right? Or why pay hunderds of pounds for a SCSI HD when a cheapo IDE one will do just as good.
localzuk Posted October 9, 2007 Posted October 9, 2007 It always amazes me how many people will talk about things they have ZERO knowledge about. You CANNOT get low latency without a real soundcard. I think HodgeHi and his music teacher need to get their ears tested. Yeah it might be a daft laugh for primary kids but it completely defeats the point for older kids. Macs arnt always industry standard in the music world. Infact the poeple i know in the music world dont like macs. And tbh whats that got to do with anything anyway? So 1 out of probably 10000 kids might make it into a studio, yeah thats great justification for spending a small fortune and depriving the other 9999 of the resources they need. Oh well, ill leave it there as most of you probably cant even hear me with your head up your ass anyway.... Sorry sparky, if you are going to be so rude then I will have to call you out on it. Modern computer sound cards, whether they are internal, USB, PCI or PCI-X are all of suitable quality (well, most of em, obviously some manufacturers will mess things up) to provide the situation that HodgeHi is talking about. We do not need the same level of quality in school's as a professional studio - we simply need something to provide a near enough experience - so the sound card is one area you can afford to scrimp on. Also, please keep your personal knowledge of what your friends have in 'the music business' to yourself - we don't want to know that. We want personal experiences. I happen to have used the studios at Lancaster Uni, all of which use Mac's. I have set up computers at a radio station in Manchester, and yes some of the stuff they do is on Mac - but not all. You are not depriving anyone of anything if you buy macs, you are providing a new resource which allows kids to learn how to transfer their IT skills between different systems. So, get over yourself and be polite!
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