For some reason, the PC vs Mac debate (or as some would say is more accurate, Windows vs Mac) often generates a pretty emotional response. Let’s not forget that computers are tools that help us get things done! With that in mind, let’s get to the bottom of things as quickly and objectively as we can…
The Answer: Mac (almost always)
That was quick wasn’t it?! With over 25 years of experience in computer music production, 20 of those with Mac and Windows, I can say with confidence and authority that Mac is a better platform for music production.
Price
There’s no getting around it, Macs do cost more than PCs. Or, perhaps a better way to put things is that the entry point for a new Mac is higher than that of a PC. Sure, you can buy a PC laptop or desktop for a few hundred pounds or dollars, and the least expensive Mac at time of writing is the MacBook Air base model for £999. The thing is, though, you get what you pay for and a PC that will match the horsepower of that entry level Mac for music production really won’t save you much — if any — money… and the ARM architecture of modern Macs will smoke equivalently priced x86 based Windows PCs in lots of very useful performance factors.
Things get even more interesting when looking second hand. The M1, Apple’s first entry in its ARM based chip lineup that was introduced in 2020, is still an excellent platform for music production (as well as video). As of the second half of 2024 the 16GB model in Mac Mini format is going to cost about £550, and as a MacBook Pro £700. The tiny footprint, silent-nearly-all-the-time thermals, and IO of the Mac Mini easily bests PCs for that price, and the quality of the keyboard and trackpad, the screen, and the excellent battery life — again with that silent-just-about-always operation — just can’t be matched with a PC laptop. For the seriously budget conscious a late model Intel Mac can often be found at a similar price to brand new budget PCs with usually roughly equivalent CPU and memory performance along with significantly better build quality, but if possible getting in at the M1/16GB level is a better experience and won’t cost a ton more.
Optimisation
Apple has always championed its multimedia chops. The operating system is written with audio and video deeply and fundamentally implemented in a way that just isn’t the case with Windows, and it’s not uncommon for the same level of out-of-the-box Mac performance to either take hours of tinkering, compromises with performance in other areas, or simply not be possible on a Windows machine.
The reasons are myriad and the symptoms run all the way through the system. Windows machines will often struggle with Wi-Fi and require specific hardware or simply disabling Wi-Fi (at the system level, not just turning it off at the taskbar) to avoid audio issues. Windows handles all the things it’s trying to do at once in a very general way, and so called ‘DPC latency’ (standing for Delayed Procedure Call) improves the perception of general system performance at the cost of mission critical things like making sure audio is completely accurate and the signal isn’t broken with pops and crackles; minimising and troubleshooting for DPC latency issues can take a long time and in some cases (especially in laptops, where components can’t be swapped out), just can’t be satisfactorily mitigated for studio level use.
Macs, on the other hand, have CoreAudio running deeply through the system. Latency is great even with the built in audio in a Mac, and often there isn’t even a dedicated Mac driver for audio interfaces because there’s nothing to improve on.
Capabilities Unique to Mac
Aside from simple performance and optimisation points, there are some things on Mac that Windows can’t match; on a Mac regardless of the software, with multiple pieces of software running at the same time, all will be able to access the audio interface with CoreAudio. A Windows PC will almost always have drivers for audio interfaces to get the best performance and these drivers will lock the audio interface to a single piece of software at a time. It’s a massive bonus for Mac, and being able to route sound from one piece of software into another is trivial with free software for Mac and worryingly unstable for Windows PCs. Oh, and because of CoreAudio it’s possible to create an ‘Aggregate Audio Device’ and connect multiple audio interfaces to a Mac and simply configure them to be one mega interface, showing up in software as one device with all the inputs and outputs.
The M series chips for Mac are great for audio performance. They’re also FANTASTIC for video, and even an M1 Mac will go through 10 bit, highly compressed 4K footage like butter. To get equivalent performance on a PC tends to require a significant outlay into a graphics card, which may or may not be something you care about at all – but if you’re into music production, you’ve probably got at least a passing interest in video too.
It used to be a fun thing to moan about how Apple was only including USB-C ports on its computers. In a few short years since that was introduced, it’s become a pretty ubiquitous standard. The thing is, on modern Macs those ports aren’t just USB-C, they’re Thunderbolt 4. And on most Macs, multiple buses of Thunderbolt 4. This means that you can plug in Thunderbolt hubs to essentially give an accessory the same amount of power, speed, priority, and connectivity as if it were directly plugged into a motherboard PCI Express slot. For connections that rely on stability and performance, this is excellent… and whilst not necessarily unique to Mac, the often multiple buses of Thunderbolt 4 implementation on Macs is generous compared to even higher budget PCs.
There’s not much software of note that’s not available on only one or the other platform, but Logic Pro is one of Apple’s true jewels in the crown. At £199 it’s the least expensive ‘pro’ DAW on the market, and yet it goes toe to toe with everything from Ableton Live to Cubase to ProTools to whatever else in terms of features and functionality, audio quality, and included instruments and effects. It’s been updated significantly over the past decade spanning at least two major versions of other DAWs at no cost for users, too. Saving £200-300 on a the flagship edition of competing DAWs and potentially (there’s no guarantees Apple will give updates free forever) another few hundred in upgrades over the years suddenly makes the difference in hardware price seem less painful, too.
If you use other Apple devices, from iPhone to iPad to other Macs, the Apple ecosystem is superb. Some of the features — like Continuity, which allows you to sit two Macs next to each other and literally drag a file from one over to the other — seem like magic. Answering a call on your Mac from your iPhone is really cool when you’ve left your phone in another room too, and whilst some stuff is possible with third party software on a PC it’s deeply integrated into the Apple ecosystem (nothing’s flawless, of course).
Perhaps the Only Places Windows Wins Out
If you’re interested in gaming, Macs aren’t the system for you. You can game on a Mac, with decent (and quiet) performance in some limited modern games, installing Steam, GOG, and other game stores as well as emulation and so on, but for triple A gaming look to PC or console. And that’s pretty much it: if you like gaming and only have enough budget/space for a single system (or you just like the idea of a single rig that does it all), then maybe Mac isn’t for you.
Apple’s become notorious for its OS updates breaking third party hardware and software until it’s updated to continue working, too. If you’re into old hardware bargains you might find that the line in the sand drawn around MacOS Catalina 10.15 from a few years ago has seen to it you’ll never be able to use certain old gear that manufacturers are no longer interested in updating driver support for. (One way to look at this is an unfortunate side effect of the original manufacturers treating their gear as time capsules rather than long term investments, and if you do have old gear then either a Windows computer or an old Mac that can run the older 10.15 Catalina MacOS might be your only option.) If you’re a super tinkerer and love the latest updates, this might frustrate you; some key players in music production are still updating their software and hardware support nearly a full year after a MacOS update comes out, at which point it’s time for the new one. Still, at this point MacOS is pretty mature, and it’s less likely that a killer feature will make you bemoan being locked into an older OS than it has been in the past.
The Other Important Considerations
The choice of PC vs Mac for music production is perhaps the simplest it’s ever been, but there are a few important considerations that are good to be aware of…
What About Linux?
Unless you’re a masochist or just like tinkering more than you like making music, Linux isn’t a reasonable suggestion for computer music production. Sure, there are some DAWs (notably Bitwig Studio) that have a Linux build, and there are plugins too. But considering the hardware you’re using to run Linux will almost certainly also be able to run Windows, a software platform with vastly more high-end software choice with significantly less setup required, it’s not worth it.
If you’ve got a Linux platform on hardware that doesn’t run Windows or you’re a diehard Linux nut (if so, considering MacOS as a cousin to Linux with its UNIX base might help..?), then you’ve clearly got a very special use case in mind that doesn’t put you in the normal realms of this question…
How About ARM Based PCs, like Snapdragon?
The success of Apple’s M series of chips has been a serious sea change in computing. Silent laptops that last a day and a half of heavy all day usage make the 2-3 hours of noisy x86 based systems seem like relics, and it’s no surprise that there’s a new generation of ARM chips designed for Windows. Whilst they are really promising in terms of delivering the advantages that Apple saw moving to ARM processors, they don’t have the hand-in-hand nature of the hardware manufacturer and software developer as one, so implementation of software support on these new chips is pretty sparse and I wouldn’t count in it getting its act together anywhere close to how quickly Apple handled the transition. For now, and probably at least a couple of years into the future, I wouldn’t expect ARM based Windows machines to be my recommended choice for music production. Not to mention, of course, that they’re generally similarly priced to Macs.
What’s the Bottom Line?
Look, if you’ve got a Windows machine already and just want to get started with making music, don’t let this deter you. People the world over are doing just that. If you’re looking to get a computer that’s going to be absolutely everything to you including gaming, then don’t think you can’t get a good experience with Windows. You’ll be in good company and, if you’re prepared to do the work and have the budget, can get equivalent or maybe even higher raw performance.
But if you’re looking for a system that just works, you don’t care about gaming, and you’re not the type to feel like you’re missing out by waiting for confirmation of support before updating your OS on day one, then a Mac is, by my recommendation, a better system for music production.
