> I like to think the Mac and PC are both equally screwed up in different
> ways. ;-) And yes, I own a G4, too...<<
^_^
> Yes, you're right, I've seen totally idiotic software behavior on the
> Mac too
> (including some totally stupid problems in Cubase). But it's usually
> because
> the applications themselves are buggy and horribly written. The PC
> has an
It's been my experience that on the PC it's more of a hardware than
software problem. Windows used to be crap, but they've done a fair job
of addressing what they can. Down right amazing when you take into
account the fact that they run on every Ma & Pa home brew PC from here
to Taiwan. When it comes to audio, which is highly timing sensitive
most PCs fall short. Combine this with several million possible
hardware configurations, each with it's own slight variance and
"quirks" and you have any software developers worst nightmare. For most
application developers this is no big deal, they're abstracted high
enough above the hardware platform that rarely do they need to care
about variances in BIOS behaviors and bridge controllers. When it comes
to audio, no such luck.
Two other factors come to mind: the platform of origin, and the company
culture and attitude towards quality. Most DAWs right now are developed
on two platforms. The platform where that software was originally
developed will likely be more stable than a ported platform. And let's
face it, some companies seem to think that crashing mid record is
perfectly acceptable so long as it happens "rarely"...
> Computer recording is pretty much a necessity. Even if you go out and
> buy a
> stand alone 24 channel digital recording system like a Macky, I
> believe all
> they do is build a PC computer into the recorder and you're still in
> Microsoft
> hell. It's getting impossible to avoid anymore.
But if you use a mackie 24 you notice it's rather stable. Why? Because
the designers where faced with a much smaller problem space. This
effect is most noticeable on console games. How often do you crash a
video game? Not very often. Is this because video game engineers are
such hot shit that they don't write bugs? No, quite the opposite
actually, but what they do have is a very limited problem space. They
know exactly what kind of hardware and limitations they'll be running
into, and most importantly: they know that the end user will be running
∗exactly∗ the same hardware they're running. That makes a ∗huge∗
difference. Some audio companies even go so far as to advertise a
recommended system on their website, this is advice well taken.
Ideally, you want the same hardware used by the development team ;)
> Most computer programmers have no business programming computers.
> That's the
> main problem.
Software programs are no smarter than the idiots who program them.
^_^
--mikes