Ableton Live: Mac or PC?
Ableton Live runs on both Windows and OSX – but which one runs Live the best? Here’s some of the pros and cons of using Live on each platform, along with some interesting performance stats.
Here we go again, the infamous debate: Mac vs PC…
Firstly, I used Ableton Live on my old Windows PC for the best part of a year or two, before getting a MacBook Pro. That doesn’t mean I’m biased towards Macs – in fact, Ableton Live ran perfectly well on Windows. After using Live on both platforms, here’s some of the main differences I’ve noticed (by no means a complete list, if you’ve got more then share below!)
Ableton Live
The actual application itself is very much alike on both platforms. There are some very slight differences, for example the Windows version exports mixes as .wav files, whereas the OSX version exports as .aif (with the option to export as .wav). Also, the Mac version supports Audio Units as well as VST instruments. No biggies here – there are no major features that are left out of Live on either platform.
Audio Drivers
If you’re using Windows and running the default sound drivers, don’t – download ASIO4ALL and your latency will drastically decrease. If you’re using an external sound card though, you should be fine (these have their own drivers). If you’re running OSX then no need to worry, CoreAudio is pretty good in terms of latency.
So in terms of sound drivers, Windows takes slightly more effort to set up (if you need ASIO4ALL) but once everything’s running smoothly then there’s no advantage either way.
MIDI
Windows: Start Live, and then plug in a MIDI interface. It won’t be recognized until you restart Live.
Mac: Start Live, and the plug in a MIDI interface. It should work straight away.
VSTs
There is a much bigger range of VSTs (and free VSTs) available for Windows, so PC owners are the winners here. If it’s a popular commercial VST though, it will probably be available for Mac too.
Hardware/Reliability
When it comes to using a computer/laptop for performing, then the actual hardware should be almost ‘transparent’. What I mean by transparent: it shouldn’t get in the way of the performance or cause any problems – instead, it should sit there reliably, letting you create music without thinking about the hardware/set up in between.
My MacBook Pro does exactly that – I’ve never had a single glitch performing with it, so I can just make music without caring about the technical side of things while playing. I can’t say that for my old laptop however: a few times the CPU randomly was throttled back to 1/4 speed while performing – I still don’t know why, it used to randomly do that occasionally – but that’s really not cool in a live situation.
As far as I’ve experienced, Macs seem to be reliable for the most part. When it comes to PCs, it really depends what you get – if you pick the right model, there’s no reason why it can’t be just as reliable (or more reliable) than a Mac.
Performance
So what does Live actually run best on? Thanks to everyone over at the Ableton Forum, there’s a pretty in depth list of stats for different computers. Results are found by running a standard test inside Ableton Live – here’s the link, it’s worth a look!
Ableton Forum: Live 8 Performance Test
In Conclusion
Mac: runs Ableton Live well, reliably and relatively little set up required.
PC: depends what computer you have and how well it is set up for Live. There’s absolutely no reason why Live can’t run reliably and well if you have a good PC and set it up well for audio.
Thanks!
This is very helpful information. Thank you!
I’ve used ableton on both platforms and now I’m exclusively mac. I had a killer Win7 64bit rig with RAID 0/1 on the media drives and 6 gigs of ram. Ableton would chirp and hang when running at 96K sample output. I don’t think its ableton and speaking with tech support it seemed to be more of a driver issue. Ableton is not a 64bit app Still, when you drop 5K on a DAW you expect some bang for buck.
Sold the POS, got a mac. It’s slower but everything runs out of the box.
Has anyone here used a Macbook (not a pro) to run Ableton Live?
yes i have it normally runs just fine the only time it ever crashed was when i was move a frozen track to an audio slot… but other than that it works great
does ableton 8 work with old mac?
It’s funny a PC and a Mac are the same inside the case lol.The operating system is the issue here not the computer lmfao.Lion vs Windows 7 pretty much lol.All Apple parts are off the shelf Chinese PC parts from a factory that makes PC and Macs lmfao.
What version of Windows are you talking about? I don’t think any versions matter except 7, and I haven’t noticed any of these problems on it…
The only problems related to Windows itself were the default sound drivers and a MIDI issue. Like I said, depending on your sound card you may not have a problem – however, I have experienced problems in the past (Windows 7).
As far as I’m aware, the MIDI issue is still present on Windows 7, although I may be mistaken. It definitely existed in the XP and Vista era. I haven’t used Live on Windows 7 in a while, so it is quite possible that you are correct – if you want to verify this then go for it :)
I never really noticed the MIDI issue before because I’m always plugged in, but it seems to me it would be an issue with Live, not Windows. Given that a music production system is typically always set up, this seems like a non-issue to me.
I don’t experience sound lag on ASUS laptops or custom built desktops, typically they use onboard sound.
You make some good points!
I’ve noticed the same MIDI behavior differences in several other OSX/Windows applications. Thus I always assumed it was an operating system thing – but you’re right, this assumption may have been incorrect.
I leave my laptop plugged into my gear for the most part, although when I’m away it gets taken with me. When MIDI gets plugged back in after hibernation/sleep etc, this is when I notice the difference. Whenever I used Live in a live situation I’d notice it too – starting up Live before plugging MIDI in would result in me having to restart Live (on Windows). For a lot of people though you’re right, it wouldn’t be an issue.
Thanks! Great post ….
“Start Live, and then plug in a MIDI interface. It won’t be recognized until you restart Live.”
Correction – Ableton will not recognize USB Midi Devices. It still recognizes new 5 Pin Din connections.