My PC and MAC workstation – I live in both worlds

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I want you to show my both workstations in this post, a PC and a Mac workstation. The idea for this came from the lovely Jon Gall who was asking me about my keyboards as I posted a photo of my socks on Twitter:

In the linked photo of this tweet you see (beside my Minion socks) indeed two keyboards. A colourful Mac keyboard and one with a fingerboard. This is the entire photo of this workstation (without the socks):

Suzan's Mac Workststation
My Mac workstation, a mid 2007 iMac with old Pro Keyboad

Hell yeah, I own a Mac! I am a cool kid. ?

Erm… well – not really that cool. This one is unfortunately not my main workstation. This workstation is the one for making music. Why a Mac? For hard disk recording there are two “official” programs: Pro Tools and Logic Pro X. I know there are a few others around, but this two are the only ones for my purposes. Pro Tools is way too expensive for me, so I decided to use Logic which is only available for Mac. This was the reason I purchased a used and quite old iMac. It’s a mid 2007, 20 inch, 4 GB RAM. The hard disk died right after I got it. So there is a new 1 TB SATA hard disk inside. It runs El Capitan, the last OS available for this old Mac. So yes, this machine is nearly 11 years old but it still runs. Of course for bigger productions the RAM would be far too less. But at the moment it is OK for my seldom usage.

The keyboards

Now for the initial reason I wrote this post – the keyboards! ?

Apple Pro Keyboard and ALESIS Q25 keyboard
Apple Pro Keyboard of 2000 and the ALESIS Q25

Do you remember this kind of Apple keyboards? This one is from 2000! It is indeed 18 years old and still works perfect. Every time I post a photo of this keyboard someone is asking me about it. It is obviously an old Apple keyboard. But with all this coloured keys! So what this keys are for? They are made especially for the use with Logic. When you look close you can see the special icons made for Logic like the record or play button. In Logic like in every professional program there are lots of keyboard shortcuts. To help a bit with the usage of the Logic shortcuts this coloured keys were made. As far as I know, this was a standard Apple keyboard and the coloured keys where a set you have to install on this keyboard manually. A friend (also a musician) gifted it to me.

Nowadays you can buy modern Logic keyboards for Apple ready to use.

The second keyboard is a midi keyboard. It is a ALESIS Q25. It is very handy to have a midi keyboard, not only for playing piano but as well for drums, base e. g. I am not a piano player yet, but even for me it’s very helpful and really fun to play with.

The “ugly” brother – the workstation I work with daily

But there is also my other workstation. A PC based workstation. As well not shiny new, but still quite powerful.

Suzan's PC workstation
My PC workstation above the desk.
Suzan's windows machine under the desk
My windows machine under the desk. Not as sexy as a Mac.

It is not as shiny as a Mac. But it is a reliable worker. It runs Windows 10, has 32 GB of RAM, an Intel Core i7 3.40 GHz, a 256 GB SD and a 1 TB HD. The screens look a bit outdated already. This workstation is indeed my main workstation and I can work on it quite well.

Working with PC and Mac – they are both only Operating Systems

I have no problems with working on a Windows PC and I like work on a Mac as well. In the end they are both only Operation Systems. Both have pros and cons. If someone says it is not possible to be creative on a PC I only can roll my eyes. ? Years ago I like to work with Linux as well.

But of course there are reasons, so much creatives are using Macs. A few great programs are only available for Mac like Sketch, Framer or ,as stated above, Logic Pro X.

I really do like the look of the Mac hardware. But it is simply too expensive for me right now to buy Apple hardware. The prices are insanely high. I do spoil myself with some Apple products though like the iPhone X or the Apple TV 4K. Hello Apple, do you want to sponsor me? ?

Conclusion

Is there a real conclusion of this post? ?

I have lots of (old) gear.
I can work very good with Windows and MacOS.
Creativity is not a matter of the OS.
There are lots of keyboards around.

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By suzan

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