Jumping Ship

[Gigmeister]

I've been using Garage Band for the past 7 years on a Mac with decent results. I do a solo act and make my own backing tracks, using sequenced drums, keys and the occasional string part. I record real acoustic, electric, pedal steel and bass tracks digitally and combine everything to play back on gigs via iPod. I saw the video demo of Cakewalk Home Studio XL a while back and was quite impressed. I am in the market for a PC and would like something that will work with my Presonus Firebox. I am looking for a new PC, probably an HP, Dell or Gateway running Windows 7. Can you folks suggest a minimum in terms of processor, RAM, etc? Is the new Windows OS able to multi task at the same time? I use my computer with guitar students as a playback device (running guitars through the Firebox into GB), running Transcribe! to slow down song solos, use Guitar Pro for charts and often have the internet running in the background. Can this be done with a new PC or am I better off biting the bullet for another costly Mac? Thanks in advance.

[Ryan_Sloan]

Hi Gigmeister,

A PC can do essentially everything that a Mac can do these days. There are certain pieces of software that are platform specific, but many of the most popular software products are cross-platform.

It's very important to get a quality machine when you're looking to purchase a Windows based PC. Comparing basic specifications often isn't enough. You'll also want to know the manufacturer of system components like the Motherboard or the Firewire Chipset in order to get the most out of the machine. The cost will typically be higher on these machines, but it's well worth it in the end if it saves you all the headaches that some people encounter. A good baseline for comparison would be the Sweetwater Creation Station PC's. They're built specifically with audio in mind.

You can read more about them here:
http://www.sweetwater.com/creation_station/


Ryan Sloan
Sales Engineer
800 222 4700 x 1306