The Yamaha AN1x Synthesizer mailing list

All,

>Erm...yes. You are right, if i follow the logic...;)
>What i mean is, that i am dealing with PC´s and it´s flaws now since
>those came out, 20 years ago. And i´ve never seen a Notebook operate
>without a flaw, neither at presentations, where only Powerpoint ran
>on the Notebook, or at musical events, where the musician(s) were
>using a PC notebook. Windows is simply not stable enough, and it
>won´t any more stable with XP.

Can we please not turn this into a Mac vs. Windows war?  I didn't think 
this was the forum for OS debates.

I know musicians who use Macs successfully on stage.  I also know musicians 
who use PCs successfully on stage, including yours truly -- at least I did; 
I'm not playing MIDI'ed music at the moment.  I use a Compaq Armada M700 
laptop for MIDI, and for presentations, too.  I'm teaching a course on 
Sunday called "MIDI and Computerized Music" at a local university, and I 
expect the PC will work flawlessly as both the presentation tool and MIDI 
controller, as it did last year.  I can't really recommend Compaq to most 
users -- not because the PC platform in unsuitable for music, but because 
Compaq has a long-standing track record of making subtle "improvements" to 
the PC software (and sometimes, hardware) to try to make it stand out from 
the pack, which is counter to the safety-in-numbers design philosophy of 
the PC.  If these changes are backed out, a Compaq laptop can work well, 
too.  For the average user, IBM, who still establishes the standards; Dell, 
who follows them; or Sony, who cares deeply about the musical aspects, are 
probably better choices.

I designed PCs for a living for eleven years, including 
laptops.  Historically, one of the big reasons that so many musicians use 
Macs is that the IBM-PC side of things refused to take music seriously 
until about five years ago.  I know:  I was a vocal proponent of adding 
quality audio and MIDI to the designs as early as 1991-1992, and NO ONE 
would take me seriously.  This gave Apple a huge edge in terms of defining 
musicians' preferences, since Apple recognized the musician-computer 
connection early on.  This also translated into more musical software 
packages for the Mac, which made the platform even more enticing.  Windows 
has been catching up in the last few years, but let's face it:  If you've 
been using Macs for ten years, and you know and understand all the quirks 
and major applications, why would you want to switch platforms now?  That's 
a big part of the musical "preference" for Mac computers, which translates 
into large numbers of Macs on stage -- but it shouldn't be confused with 
reliability.

Regards,

-BW

--
Bruce Wahler
Design Consultant
Ashby Solutions™   www.ashbysolutions.com
CloneWheel Support Group and HiNote moderator
978.386.7389  voice  978.964.0547 fax
bruce@ashbysolutions.com