# Microsoft Surface



## garyhiebner (Oct 26, 2016)

How's the new Microsoft Surface:



I'm a Mac fanboy, but wow! these look great. Wonder how well they will be for a studio machine.


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## coprhead6 (Oct 26, 2016)

I'm having hot flashes. 
Imagine doing score engraving on this thing!


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## germancomponist (Oct 26, 2016)

Great!


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## MA-Simon (Oct 26, 2016)

Hardware has come such a long way... were to even go from there?

Excuse me, but I need to go somewhere to quietly sob because I am so poor.


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## Shan (Oct 26, 2016)

Wow! This certainly has my interest.


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## Noam Guterman (Oct 26, 2016)

I just died


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## garyhiebner (Oct 26, 2016)

Here's the tech specs on the guy:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/devices/surface-studio/tech-specs

Wish there was a thunderbolt port on it at that price.

But the multitouch screen looks amazing. Imagine drawing in your automation on that!


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## d.healey (Oct 26, 2016)

Looks like a fancy screen with a non-upgradable mediocre specs PC attached to it


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## EvilDragon (Oct 26, 2016)

Might be really good for digital artists and the like, for them the price of admission will definitely be worth their while.


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## zacnelson (Oct 26, 2016)

Very impressive machine! Not really a sensible investment for a composer unless you do graphic design as well.


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## Gabriel Oliveira (Oct 26, 2016)

and this


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## zacnelson (Oct 26, 2016)

AMAZING!


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## mac (Oct 26, 2016)

They do look amazing, but it's the OS that's going to let them down. I tried using the latest windows after many years on a mac, and it was *painful*.


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## rgames (Oct 26, 2016)

Gabriel Oliveira said:


> and this



Wow - that's some of the most innovative music tech I've seen in a while! Clever use of the dial.

I doubt StaffPad can compete with full-fledged notation programs like Finale/Sibelius but combined with the Surface Studio it looks amazing as a composing tool.

Kudos to the teams at StaffPad and Microsoft.

rgames


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## PeterKorcek (Oct 27, 2016)

mac said:


> They do look amazing, but it's the OS that's going to let them down. I tried using the latest windows after many years on a mac, and it was *painful*.



To be honest Win 10 has been stable for me - no crash or anything like that, snappier, and I like it more than Win 8.1 - what was painful about it? (I have also Macbook Pro with Mavericks, when I had Yosemite THAT was painful sometimes, I did not even try to go for El capitan)


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## tabulius (Oct 27, 2016)

That round controller-wheel-thingy would be a great daw jog wheel! Steinberg, are you listening?

Surface Studio is very attractive for graphic designers and I like the design - even more than iMac. But that design comes with a high price and I could build more powerful pc with that price. Sure, it comes with that beautiful screen but I already have a 30 inch and other monitors. I was almost tempted, but I think I'll keep my money in my wallet this time. Maybe I'll look into Surface Studio 2 or 3?


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## mac (Oct 27, 2016)

PeterKorcek said:


> To be honest Win 10 has been stable for me - no crash or anything like that, snappier, and I like it more than Win 8.1 - what was painful about it? (I have also Macbook Pro with Mavericks, when I had Yosemite THAT was painful sometimes, I did not even try to go for El capitan)



It isn't a stability issue, purely a (personal) workflow thing. Something as small as hitting space to preview a file, or swiping to switch screens. It's second nature to me now, and when it's not there, I might as well be typing with my elbows.


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## Daryl (Oct 27, 2016)

mac said:


> They do look amazing, but it's the OS that's going to let them down. I tried using the latest windows after many years on a mac, and it was *painful*.


Of course it all depends on what you're doing. I've been using both for years, and it's only recently that Mac has actually got close to catching up with what I can do on Windows, so my experience is the opposite of yours.


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## Gabriel Oliveira (Oct 27, 2016)

rgames said:


> I doubt StaffPad can compete with full-fledged notation programs like Finale/Sibelius but combined with the Surface Studio it looks amazing as a composing tool.



Staffpad exports MusicXML and MIDI so I imagine that it would be very fast to do note input on it then using Finale or the-other-program to refine, optimize and print the final score.


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## EvilDragon (Oct 27, 2016)

mac said:


> They do look amazing, but it's the OS that's going to let them down. I tried using the latest windows after many years on a mac, and it was *painful*.





mac said:


> It isn't a stability issue, purely a (personal) workflow thing. Something as small as hitting space to preview a file, or swiping to switch screens. It's second nature to me now, and when it's not there, I might as well be typing with my elbows.



Don't you think it's a bit too much to infer your own workflow preferences as a possible downfall of the product here? You're overly generalising here on something that purely applies to yourself, and which might not apply to each and every individual out there. Not really an objective standpoint, then again it doesn't seem to me that you even wanted to be objective in the first place.

W10 is a pretty great, stable, and efficient OS. It has its own idiosyncracies just like macOS has its own. I don't think it's going to let Microsoft down. It let *you *down, but that's solely because you're set in your ways. (Aren't we all?)


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## tabulius (Oct 27, 2016)

W10 is working for me. I'll double click my DAW icon and start composing. 

Here is a good video from Molten Music Technology about Surface Studio and giving some pros and cons for us music folks:


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## gsilbers (Oct 27, 2016)

hilarious! MS just said fuk it, we are just gonna do what mac did that works.
which is a good move. MS smartphone os has like 1% market share.

hopefully this will start a new race towards more smaller powerful systems.
more HD space and faster processors would be nice for us.
for the past few years it seems the move was towards those tablet and chromebook for the business men.
these new ms products, even if its a blatant ripoff of apple strategy, I welcome it very much.

but sucks for me though as I am logic user. :(
I might start looking at that Cubase thingy again


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## gsilbers (Oct 27, 2016)

mac said:


> They do look amazing, but it's the OS that's going to let them down. I tried using the latest windows after many years on a mac, and it was *painful*.


meh, you get used to it.
painful is the iOSification of mac os. its like macs are getting dumber and dumber...
imo both are trying to appeal to that smartphone-check youtube - facebook-email only crowd$.


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## gsilbers (Oct 27, 2016)

so the high range is
6th Gen Intel Core i7, 32GB RAM for $4200.

I am not too well verse with recent i7. can anyone chime to let me know if that's a good cpu?
thanks


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## Symfoniq (Oct 27, 2016)

gsilbers said:


> meh, you get used to it.
> painful is the iOSification of mac os. its like macs are getting dumber and dumber...
> imo both are trying to appeal to that smartphone-check youtube - facebook-email only crowd$.



Yeah, different strokes, I guess. I've been using Macs for more than 25 years, but at this point, I find Windows perfectly adequate—and in some cases even preferable—for getting work done. The dumbing down of OS X (sorry, macOS) continues apace. At least with Windows 10 Pro, I can use the Group Policy Editor to turn off most of the stuff I don't like (Cortana, forced automatic updates, app recommendations, etc.), and I can use whatever hardware I want.

I think the Surface Studio looks amazing, though I'm a bit sad (if not surprised) that Microsoft beat Apple to the punch creating a computer like this. This kind of product should have been right in Apple's wheelhouse, being the natural evolution of the technologies that Apple developed for the iMac and iPad. Instead, they're focused on designer watch straps.

Hopefully Apple's event today won't reveal more of the same, but I'm not holding my breath. I think Apple has lost its way.


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## Symfoniq (Oct 27, 2016)

gsilbers said:


> so the high range is
> 6th Gen Intel Core i7, 32GB RAM for $4200.
> 
> I am not too well verse with recent i7. can anyone chime to let me know if that's a good cpu?
> thanks



It's a Skylake quad-core, octo-thread CPU. Without the specific model number, I can't tell you the frequency, but it's definitely a fast CPU.


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## 5Lives (Oct 27, 2016)

Wish they had an SSD and USB-C for sample streaming. Without that, doesn't seem that ideal for music.


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## Emmanuel Rousseau (Oct 27, 2016)

Kind of off topic, but for those who whant this kind of tactile interaction with their screen, there are several other solutions on the market worth looking at :

http://www.deviltechnologies.com/ : DTouch converts your DAW into a multitouch controller, you "just" need a multitouch screen (which is still far less expensive than a all-in-one solution like the Microsoft Surface) and lets you keep your beloved own computer specs.

https://www.wacom.com/fr-ca/products/cintiq-27-qhd-touch : The Cintiq 27QHD (so mainly for Pen, but capable of singletouch as well of the "Touch" version). Like DTouch, it's just a screen, so you keep your computer.

I'm personnaly using a Wacom Intuos Pro with a pen, and that's one of the best investments I made for my workflow. I can switch easily between several screens, configure all sorts of shortcuts, and can draw all my MIDI CC's much more precisely. Not to mention the pains in the wrist I had with a mouse.

Sorry for the half-off-topic, and sorry for my maybe not so good English !


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## EvilDragon (Oct 27, 2016)

Symfoniq said:


> It's a Skylake quad-core, octo-thread CPU. Without the specific model number, I can't tell you the frequency, but it's definitely a fast CPU.



Very likely it's one of i7-6700 CPUs.

http://ark.intel.com/products/family/88392/6th-Generation-Intel-Core-i7-Processors#@Desktop


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## Mornats (Oct 27, 2016)

I grew up with Windows and worked for a publisher for 6 years and was Mac-based in the office and Windows-based at home. The biggest pain out of any of the operating systems was swapping habits between them. If you're a whizz with using either then the other is going to have shortcomings.

Edit: forgot to say that the Surface Studio looks amazing. It's pricey but that screen looks worth the price for its specs and functionality. Hopefully the upgrade path will be more friendly than that on a Mac or other closed/all-in-one system.


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