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Should I buy a new Mac or a new PC?
If you're buying a new computer to run Hauptwerk, the first and biggest question is whether it should be an Apple Mac or a Windows PC.
Hauptwerk has always been available for the PC, and has only been made available on the Apple Mac since November 2006. However, we're so impressed with Apple Mac OS X and the current range of Macs, that we believe these provide an ideal platform for Hauptwerk.
Don't worry if you're a Windows user; Hauptwerk will continue to be supported and developed for the PC as much as ever - it is just that we would normally recommend a Mac when asked what to buy to run Hauptwerk.
So why Macs? We like them because:
- The current Macs give phenomenal performance. For example the basic Mac Pro models typically allow more than 4500 pipes to sound at once!
- Mac OS X performs superbly for audio and MIDI. High quality, robust, reliable audio and MIDI support is built into OS X and it works immaculately. We found it almost impossible to make an audio glitch even if we deliberately and massively overloaded the computer, and it recovered immediately, with no timing disruption.
- Almost no compatibility problems. Because Apple makes all of the computer hardware and the operating system, everything immediately just works perfectly together without spending days trying to get components and drivers to work, which is common if you build a PC yourself, where the parts and software are typically made by many different companies and may never have been tested together, especially not for real-time audio performance.
- Everything has been tested with the same computer hardware. Because there are only a few Mac models, you know that all audio and MIDI interfaces and their drivers will have been tested by the manufacturer with almost identical hardware, which means they actually work reliably with it! Likewise with Hauptwerk, your hardware and software will be almost identical to what we've tested Hauptwerk on, so if it works well here it should work well for you too, and you should get very similar performance to us.
- Readily available and ready-made with perfect specs for Hauptwerk. If you want a very high-performance PC to run Hauptwerk you often have to build it yourself, which often takes quite a bit of skill and lots of patient and perseverence.
- Mac OS X allows Hauptwerk to use up to almost 4 GB of memory. You can load almost all sample sets available for Hauptwerk within 4 GB of memory, even the largest cathedral organs, with no loss of audio quality. 32-bit Windows Vista/XP has a limit of only 2 GB or 2.7 GB per program. 64-bit Windows Vista/XP allows effectively unlimited memory but not all audio or MIDI interfaces are fully compatible with it. OS X 10.5 'Leopard' now has 64-bit support, and thus potentially allows almost unlimited memory. We will be producing 64-bit Hauptwerk for Leopard as soon as possible. (The current Mac version of Hauptwerk is fully supported on Leopard but is not yet 64-bit.)
- Primary platform for audio and MIDI. The Apple Mac is generally regarded as the preferred platform for 'pro' audio and MIDI, which means that most audio and MIDI interface manufacturers put more effort into making their hardware work well on Mac OS X than on Windows, and release updates sooner for OS X.
- Excellent hardware quality.
- Reasonably priced. They are usually comparable in price to PCs of similar specification.
- Generally easier to set up and use. We found the Mac platform to be quicker and easier to configure and use, which is very important if your primary interest is music, rather than computers.
- Mac OS X needs no fine-tuning to get good performance.
- Three-year waranty available from Apple for the system as a whole. If one part of the computer goes wrong, there are no lengthy wrangles trying to identify a faulty part and to get it replaced, which can be an almost impossible task with PCs assembled from parts from various manufacturers and supplers.
In summary: we've found them to be easy, reliable, robust, hassle-free and to give amazing performance, which is what most musicians look for, in our experience.
Of course, if you're a skilled PC user or have lots of Windows software that you want to continue to use, then you may prefer a PC, and it's perfectly possible to get equally amazing performance from a PC, especially if you buy a PC that has been specifically made for Hauptwerk use from a specialist supplier or if you build it yourself. However, our experience is that building your own PC is generally a much more involved process, with many more variables, uncertainties and risks, which is the main reason we would recommend a Mac for most users.
In general, if you are considering buying a computer to run Hauptwerk and you do not have much experience with building computers, diagnosing driver and hardware compatibilities, and so forth, we would recommend either buying an Apple Mac or buying a PC from a company that offers ready-made high-performance PCs designed and tested for use with Hauptwerk. The MIDI hardware section on our website lists several such companies.
[Note that there is one situation that can only be catered for by a PC running 64-bit Windows Vista/XP: currently only 64-bit Windows allows you to use sample sets larger than 4 GB in Hauptwerk. Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) is limited to 4 GB per program, but OS X 10.5 (Leopard) has 64-bit support and thus theoretically allows access to almost unlimited memory. However the current version of Hauptwerk is not yet 64-bit on the Mac platform, and so is still cannot use more than 4 GB of memory. We will produce a full 64-bit version of Hauptwerk for OS X Leopard as soon as possible. Note also that, almost all Hauptwerk sample sets can fit into 4 GB. Please see the enhancements page for more information about the status of the 64-bit Hauptwerk port for OS X.]
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