Originally Posted By: Janice & Bud
Macs come with a decent DAW GarageBand. Its big brother the excellent Logic Pro X costs $199 for life including frequent upgrades and additions to the vast effects and sounds library.

I used PC’s from their inception and switched to a Mac in 2011. I’ve never looked back.

I’m clueless regarding RealBand’s benefits so can’t help much there.

Bud

In other threads, we've been told by PG Music that, because of GarageBand, it was thought that there was no compelling business reason for porting RealBand to the Mac. Like Bud, I've never used it so have no idea how true that is. I've never felt the need, however.

Also, like Bud, I've used PCs from inception in various work environments plus I've owned Macs since 1984. In 2010, I stopped using PCs altogether even though my day gig was a Windows house—my database ran much, much better on a Mac. I, too, never looked back and when I left the job, was told to keep that PC (no one wanted to pay the shipping) and I gave it away a couple months ago.

The best DAW? It depends. I use Digital Performer, many of my collaborators use Logic so I know it well, lots of ProTools out there. Anything you do in GarageBand can be opened up in Logic. One thing common to all 4 apps is telephone support (Apple does not advertise this but it's true).

Of the many collaborators I work with, cross-platform Mac & Win, the number of Audacity and Reaper users I deal with = 0. At a certain level, if you are under a deadline and you need to know something, you want the instant gratification of a knowledgeable person on the other end of the phone. Apple/PT/MOTU can log into your workstation and see what you're doing with permission. BTW, same is true with the MacOS for 3 years after release even if AppleCare has lapsed. Mojave is still under support through November 2021.

Although I've made many support calls to Apple for OS issues, only one for help with an app and it was iMovie. The tech logged in and determined that a) I was doing everything right b) it really was working but c) because I was using a 2010 iMac, the task was going to take many hours to complete—but it would (AV rendering—yikes!). He was right and the task showed a small progress bar hours later and finished late the next day.

I took the hint and bought my first iMac Pro a few months later so I could complete the same task in 20 minutes (my current iMP does it in 6).



BIAB 2024 Audiophile Mac
24Core/60CoreGPU M2 MacStudioUltra/8TB/192GB Sequoia, M1 MBAir, 2012 MBP
Digital Performer11, LogicPro, Finale27/Dorico/Encore/SmartScorePro64/Notion6 /Overture5