I have a few questions concerning mainly Mac / PC contemplation.

I am interested in editing music with good, professional music editing
software (like

Platinum Logic, for instance). I realise that some software (like the
one I've mentioned)

have taken a sharp turn toward Mac and do not support PC anymore. I
was told by someone that

generally, if you want to edit music professionaly, it's best to buy a Mac.

However, I'm a PC user for many years. I am very computer literate and
am also a programmer,

so switching to another computer should not really be too much hassle.
However, I have taken

the time to develop my own business software on an MS-Access Database.
Although I view

completely rebuilding this kind of software for a Mac as a
possibility, I prefer to avoid

that to save time. I do not have the space to have 2 computers, so
it's either all Mac or

all PC for me.

My questions are as follows:

1) Is it true that music editing software has taken a sharp turn
toward Macintosh? And is it

true that if I want to "work seriously" with music editing (for the
sake of recording

albums) then I should go for a Mac? What obvious benefits would there
be for working with

the Mac?

2) Are there any Databases on the Mac that are as user friendly as
MS-Access, or follow a

similar logic? How would I go about switching to Mac with my business
database? Could any

price-ranges be quoted? (expense is a strong consideration).

3) Am I barking up the wrong tree and asking the wrong questions? Have
I not given Linux

enough of a thought?

I would appreciate any helpful thoughts.

At the university they mainly use macs most likely because of the
disgusting auralia software. I hate Macs.


Cakewalk and sonar are great sequencing programs. There's plenty more
http://www.synthzone.com/midiseq.htm


Anyone software producer thats worth his salt knows they must market
towards PCs first to be most profitable.

I strongly recommend the Mac.  Filemaker Pro is fairly user friendly. 
Their are also powerful free options, such as mySQL and postgreSQL,
which I believe have some GUI front-ends available.  You may also be
interested in Sibelius, which works well on the Mac.

If you must use PC software, I recommend Virtual PC, which runs quite
well on my Powerbook G4, and will probably run much better on upcoming
Intel-based Mac computers.

     -welte-ga

My amateur and unresearched opinions:

1.  No and no.  You might get a slicker user interface, but you
wouldn't gain any significant functionality.

2.  There are probably Mac databases that are even more user-friendly
than Access.  You would probably have to rewrite your software.

3.  No and no.  I wouldn't recommend Linux for your needs.

Admittedly I know little about this subject. However, my brother is a
published and awarded composer, and a university music professor, and
he uses a PC, not a Mac, to work on. His website is here:
http://johnfitzrogers.com/ Feel free to contact him with questions,
and let him know his sister sent you. I'm sure he'll be happy to
discuss music authoring software with you.

Good luck!
Byrd-ga