Mac and Windows for Music

[Patman]

Hi:

 

Has anybody used Windows for their Music Department? Primarily Sibelius and (Mixcraft for Garageband substitute?) How about Music Technology?

 

As wonderful as Macs are, they are expensive. If we have to add an xserve (or mac server pro now?) to help integrate with AD, the cost goes up. Added to that the training of our sys admins on Macs.....

 

Can PCs be just as effective as Macs in music education?

 

Thanks,

 

Patman

[mjs_mjs]

yes - speaking as both a student and as a tech PC's can work. Sibelius will work no problems and their site license app for your server means that you can have concurrent connections from upto how many you're licensed to but have it installed everywhere. you might wanna think about upgrading the sound cards so something with an ASIO driver and as lower latency as possible tho (or use asio4all). we had a lab full of PC's (28 i think) running Sibelius and using asio4all to emulate a soundcard with an ASIO driver.

 

i've dabbled alot with cubase studio 4 and had an almost working network msi for it. it's not friendly for a network install and was fiddily to set up (a number of reg hacks) - tho this was on an RM cc3/4 network. i've never had any trouble with cubase on PC myself - but i am what i would consider not the average user.

 

I was a student and used Sibelius and cubase for my music GCSE and Alevel music Tech, had no technical problems in doing so.

 

One problem you will have pc or mac wise with real audio is that wav files are large, and large files will need to be in RAM and streaming across your network. and then there's backing it all up. as a student i was constantly needing/fighting for more space, think in the end i had about 4GB of audio files/edits and mixes.

[Patman]

Hi Matt:

 

Thanks for the response. It is good to get a student's view and a support person's view.

 

What would your response be to people who say with respect to teaching music that Macs are more user friendly, special keyboards, everyone has them, etc, etc?

 

Thanks again,

 

Patrick

[RTFM]

We use PC's and cubase / subelius as well and no-one in our music department ever complains or voices problems with teaching via those pieces of software.

 

[witch]

The local high school which is has a music specialism uses pcs, sibelius, cubase etc. I can't see why MACs would be any more suitable for music. mjs_mjs's point about size of file is more of an issue, I think, than the equipment used to create the music

[sidewinder]

My old school used PC's up until a few years ago - programs like Cubase did cause us problems when used by non admin accounts so it was a bit of a headache, however this was a fairly old version so it is probably a lot better now. Sibelius worked fine.

 

They changed to Macs in 2009, and things did run a lot smoother, probably due to less restrictions when students logged onto the Macs, and partly because of newer versions of the software. There still were occasional problems though.

 

So there is nothing wrong with using PC's for music at all. My current school currently has nothing and is going down the route of Mac minis - in this case it makes sense since there is no current hardware, and the cost of the Mini's isnt too much more than a decent PC. Oh and they want to use Logic Express...lol

[BKGarry]

IMHO it is not the equipment that makes the difference, it is the teachers in the room that do.

 

From past experience, at a previous school, if you have a, how should i put this, arrogant and stubborn HOD in music it will not matter what you do, how much you customise and spend on the machines, and even how many hour you spend in the room, the "equipment" will just not be good enough because the headphones break, cables fall out, the mandatory profile is recreated and the audio settings are wrong (yes we accepted that one).

 

We also used to use eJay, which was great, and they did not by Cubase but they bought Cubasis, which was just plane aweful. IMO Logic Pro on the mac is much much better.

 

Where as here, the HOD for music is great, we have a full suite of macBooks with a server for just Music/Media/Art mac users, as this mean it has its own seperate backup and does not interfere with the main AD/MIS/USER DATA backups.

 

Personally, it does not matter what you use, as long as you have decent software, enough storage, and a very supportive music Department

[K.C.Leblanc]

PCs here, but our music department only really use Sibelius.

[Marci]

Both here - suite of PCs runnin Cubase SX3 and Studio4, and a suite of iMacs running Cubase Studio 4 & 5 / Garageband. Suffice to say, when working in Cubase there is ZERO difference between the two platforms. The software is identical on each, and neither platform has any advantage over the other.

 

The entire basis for our Music Dept getting Macs was so that they could have Garageband for Yr7/8 students, introducing them to Cubase in Yr9.

 

If we have to add an xserve (or mac server pro now?)

Mac Mini Server

[mjs_mjs]

Hi Matt:

 

Thanks for the response. It is good to get a student's view and a support person's view.

 

What would your response be to people who say with respect to teaching music that Macs are more user friendly, special keyboards, everyone has them, etc, etc?

 

Thanks again,

 

Patrick

 

no worries,

 

i would argue that if your school has invested 100,000£ in PC's across the site, in hardware, software, support and training then it would be silly to introduce mac's. if it's one member of staff insisting they need macs then what happens when they leave? the same arguments go the other way - if you've invested in mac's why introduce a PC? a teacher should be able to teach in a platform independent way. (this argument only works if you assume that the software runs equally on both platforms which IMO it does.)

 

special keyboards? - if you mean music keyboards or midi keyboards - they're not special, and all of the ones I've used and use today are platform independent and fairly generic.

 

everyone has them - if referring to macs, no they don't. as a sound engineer i see lots of macs in use, but if you look harder behind the scenes you'll see devices powered by linux variants, and PC's with control software. I know a number of producers who use PC's, and a number that use mac's. using one device because everyone else is using it is a no brainer of an argument. you wouldn't jump off a cliff just because everyone else is doing so. i've herd great productions from both macs, PC's and linux, running all sorts from frooty loops, cubase, logic, protools, audacity ect...

[BKGarry]

no worries,

 

special keyboards? - if you mean music keyboards or midi keyboards - they're not special, and all of the ones I've used and use today are platform independent and fairly generic.

 

 

My 2 pence worth on this one, is whether you have Windows PCs, Macs or even Linux make sure you get USB Music Keyboards, as they are much less hassle than standard keyboards with a midi out, as you do not need extra power, and there is less of a latency issue with them

[Marci]

Can I correct that without getting into a technical debate on the subject...

 

My 2 pence worth on this one, is whether you have Windows PCs, Macs or even Linux make sure you get USB Music Keyboards, as they are much less hassle than standard keyboards with a midi out, as you do not need extra power.

 

The latency issue is nothing to do with MIDI keyboards, and solely to do with the soundcard/MIDI interface and it's drivers. USB Midi Keyboards have their own builtin dedicated USB>MIDI interface.

[BKGarry]

Ooops Sorry Marci, was just a silly moment, just most of the time, a USB Midi Keyboard is cheaper than a "Standard" MIDI with a decent soundcard. (maybe I should read before i click post)

[garrya100]

We are mixed environment with PC's, Mac's and iPad. Try using MuseScore, it is dual platform, does almost all Sibelius does, and a much better price point. It's free! It was requested by our music staff. We also use Mixcraft on PC's, Garage Band on Mac and iPad, and Symphony Pro on iPad.

 

All at the request of the teachers themselves, and they are very happy with the mix. (Pun intended!)

[mac_shinobi]

Both here - suite of PCs runnin Cubase SX3 and Studio4, and a suite of iMacs running Cubase Studio 4 & 5 / Garageband. Suffice to say, when working in Cubase there is ZERO difference between the two platforms. The software is identical on each, and neither platform has any advantage over the other.

 

The entire basis for our Music Dept getting Macs was so that they could have Garageband for Yr7/8 students, introducing them to Cubase in Yr9.

 

 

Mac Mini Server

 

what about logic studio on the mac ?

 

Apple - Logic Studio - What Is

 

Was that too much money wise ??

[Patman]

Big thanks to everyone who commented. This info very much helps making recommendations.

 

Thanks,

 

Patman

[mac_shinobi]

If money is an issue like you said in your first post / comment then get mostly PC's with which ever choice of software(s) then maybe get one or two macs at least with garage band ( which is included ) that way at least the students can get experience of both platforms as far as operating systems as well as different software - you can always get logic studio and other software later on money permitting.

[Arthur]

what about logic studio on the Mac?

Just for reference a K-12 site license for Logic Studio costs £1,499.00 (8,941.78 Dirham's) (which is cheaper than buying 9 x Cubase 6 licenses or 15 x Sibelius 6 licenses).

 

The best thing about Logic IMO is you don't need any stupid USB dongles or activation servers and the site license allows installation on upto 500 Mac's.

Edited June 11, 2011 by Arthur

[Patman]

Thanks Mac_Shinobi:

 

With the Macs, would you suggest networking them or leaving them as stand alone? I am concerned that we don't have any Mac expertise on the SysAdmin side. If I wanted to integrate them with AD so students can access all their files and shared drive, printers, etc I think I need a little expertise. Would I then need a x-server or power mac (or mac mini as earlier suggested)? There seems to be a bit more overhead than simply buying machines. What is your opinioin?

 

Thanks again,

 

Patman

[aarono]

Thanks Mac_Shinobi:

 

With the Macs, would you suggest networking them or leaving them as stand alone? I am concerned that we don't have any Mac expertise on the SysAdmin side. If I wanted to integrate them with AD so students can access all their files and shared drive, printers, etc I think I need a little expertise. Would I then need a x-server or power mac (or mac mini as earlier suggested)? There seems to be a bit more overhead than simply buying machines. What is your opinioin?

 

Thanks again,

 

Patman

 

No, you don't need an x-server. You can 'bind' a mac to your AD which allows AD users to login with their credentials and access their documents. And it is very easy to do to!

I personally prefer Macs for music. For a school garageband is perfect to teach the basics of music recording and editing with results the students would be very proud of. You could purchase the macs one year then wait a year and on the next years budget you could look into Logic pro... very good and profession software.

[Marci]

If you want to lock down the machines to restrict students doing stuff, then you ideally need one mac to one side on which you can install WorkGroup Manager, which then allows you to set managed preferences. This can be a regular Mac client, doesn't need to be a powermac / macmini server etc.

[Tim_H]

We have been a Music specialist school since 2005 and have used Windows exclusively. With the exception of the odd request for Logic we have never been unable to fill the needs of the school - there is an arguement that Logic is not really needed as such - but it is very widely used in music production and in HE. It is usually NQTs or placement students who request Logic as they have had access to it (I even had one NQT argue that macs were better than PCs because macs have logic and PCs don't! hardly an advantage of the platform itself IMO)

 

We started with XP workstations on a vanilla 2003 domain, we are now running 64 bit Windows 7 on a 2008R2 domain.

 

Sibelius is great, very few problems with it and good support on the very rare occasion I have had to contact them - not sure if the support is still as good now that Sibelius have been bought by Avid, but I haven't had to find out so that's a good sign.

 

Cubase - currently we use Cubase 5 and that works well most of the time, there are a few performance issues once in a while but nothing too bad. Steinbergs support isn't that great as a rule. Earlier versions of Cubase could be a little quirky, but on the whole everything needed in the classroom has been delivered without too many headaches! Cubase 5 does require a dongle - we mount these inside the case to prevent "borrowing"

 

Reason - currently we use Reason 4, we haven't bothered with Record as we have Cubase. Very few issues with Reason with one notable exception - rewire doesn't work with 64 bit (last time I checked anyway) and this has been an issue for quite a while now - I should probably have another look at whether this has been solved yet!

 

In terms of effectiveness, we run NCFE music tech, music GCSE, Music and Music Tech A levels and some of the Exams for these subjects are computer based. We have never found any course requirement that we have been unable to meet - so I think that PCs are just as effective as macs for provision of education although it is worth exposing students to as many different technologies as possible in my opinion, but this is held in check by the reality of cost and supporting more equipment.