Let's jump into a theoretical upgrade see what happens for a moment:

• 1: I spend a bunch of money on a new machine. Bank account feels the burn.
• 2: I get it home, unbox it, and then realize that I have to pull apart my current studio.
• 3: I rip out my old box and then setup my brand new shiny computer.
• 4: I spend 2 weeks solid of reinstalling my production software.
• 5: I spend another 2 weeks figuring out why half my plugins don't want to run on the new machine.
• 6: I finally get the new machine up to a "usable" state for music production and try loading an older song.
• 7: I experience a large dose of terror as I realize that my previous productions won't load!
• 8: I ask myself "why WHY!" did I have to upgrade my computer.
• 9: I moan and groan to all my music friends about the woes of running a production studio.
• 10: I blog about it.

Or, I could save the $4,000 - $5,000 on the new box and spend the 4 weeks of downtime on writing new music. Hmmmm. So why would I even upgrade?

It all depends on productivity. Shiny new toys are always appealing in the beginning. But in the end, it comes down to producing a song. Making a record! I don't think I've heard anybody say "sweet song ... I can really hear the quad-cores enhancing the song!"

I'm sorry if I'm sounding pissy about computer upgrades. There is always a time and place for upgrading. But I think it's very important analyze the reasons for upgrading. When should somebody upgrade? When you're computer cannot produce the music you are trying to create. That's a definite reason to upgrade. Otherwise, I always ask myself if I'm really ok with going through that 10 step list up above in this post. If I'm cool with it, then off to the Apple store!

VST, AudioUnit, MAS, 32bit, 64bit, PowerPC, MacTel, ohh my god! Look at a KVRAudio post by Zebra developer URS:

Now, formats... do they ever stop bringing out new formats?

I started with

AU
VST Mac
VST Win

but now it's all about

AU UB
VST Mac UB
Vst Win (<- only constant)
RTAS UB
RTAS Win

while in future we'll probably also see (all additional)

VST Mac UB 64
VST Win 64
VST3 Mac UB
VST3 Win
VST3 Mac UB 64
VST3 Win 64
RTAS Mac UB 64
RTAS Win UB 64

all this, and maybe Linux, too?

Seriously, the format hassle is going NUTS. Plugins shall not do 64 bit upon the format, but shall internally have corresponding switches, if desired (i.e. for marketing reasons). What plugin needs more than 4 Gig of RAM? No f***ing streaming sample player needs that.

I sometimes get the feeling that the format overkill is brought up to bring the small developers down.

Imagine that...

... including free/magware I currently have 16 plugins in my portfolio. It's hard to keep up with the common platform updates... arrrrgh...

I feel your pain URS! I support small developers because they produce cool tools. Look at AudioDamage .. they make amazing plugz! Supporting all those formats has got to kill development time (that time could be spent on building more cool tools). But, if the developer doesn't support all those formats, then they potentially lose sales.

It's funny how the same madness is mirrored in web browser support for CSS/HTML (IE's lack of compliance versus FireFox).

A common mistake is when somebody drops $3,000 - $4,000 on a microphone and only spends $400 on a sound card (audio converters). Big mistake! Lots of records have been cut with cheap microphones, but the difference is they were cut using analog tape. With digital recording, you inherently lose definition because the sound waves become steps (16bit has about 65,000 steps. 24bit has a few million). Analog tape is not restricted by steps (or bit depth).

I always advice people on getting the best possible audio converters there budget can afford. Emphasis on the "afford"! High-end mastering converters can out price Honda Civics! So stop lusting over that Nuemann U87 and get yourself the Apogee Rosetta 200.

The second question I get, after I tell people about buying the best audio converters they can afford, "is there anything I can do for my existing sound card/converters?" YES! If your sound card has a word clock input. Apogee makes a digital clock, Big Ben, and all it does is keep digital time. That's it! But man does it keep great time!

Digital clocks help reduce something that plagues digital signals (adat, spdif, cd players, etc) - jitter. It's your enemy. It's responsible for smearing your audio signals and blurring your mix when you can't get that bass to sit right (the room helps, too ). Clocks, like the Big Ben, do wonders for existing audio converters. The difference is almost night and day. Blurry undefined audio -vs- clear crystalline audio! The reason is cheaper sound cards use cheaper digital clocks.

The #1 thing I recommend for people when starting a studio is to invest as much money as possible into awesome audio converters. When your converters rock, you can record anything and it comes out sounding the way it should! Dry guitar direct input signals are rich and full of life, Shure SM57's cut through the mix, radio shack mics sound canned in a good way, and your monitors render your mix the way it should sound!

I just recently read about a lot of people having difficulties with the latest OSX 10.4.10 upgrade. It's creating pops, snaps, and crackles in the audio lines!!! AHH!! That's a musicians nightmare (especially an engineer!) I remember days being incredibly frustrated with my equipment, because of crashes, config issues, etc. Why would I change anything now??

Granted, would I love an 8-core MacPro over my Dual G5 1.8? Hell YEAH! I'm all for gear lust! But then again, changing over to a new system would easily take up 2 weeks of studio down time. New registrations, new system keys, and endless installations (I've bought a lot of plugins over the past 5 years!). Plus, some of my small German Audio Unit developers haven't been able to convert the plugins to the new mac-tel architecture yet! So I wouldn't have everything in my theoretically "better" system.

The only way I'm upgrading my studio (even Logic Pro) is if it's absolutely required for some feature I absolutely need.