I know that everyone is probably really sick of the Mac questions, but I'm looking for some advice from people with experience with Macs for recording and composing.
I have a G3 ibook (which is virtually useless with today's current software) and I'm looking to buy another Mac. The new G5's are out of the question for me because I can't afford to dump a ton of money into a tower along with a nice monitor. This has left me with a few other options.
I'm considering a Powerbook. Maybe a 15" or 17". These are extremely pricey but I think it could be worth it. my big concern is buying a G4 Powerbook and Apple releasing a new line of Powerbooks. This happened to me with the G3 but was more my fault than anything. I've heard rumors of dual G4 and G5 Powerbooks, but nothing solid to go on. I know that Apple was having temperature problems with a G5 chip in a Powerbook. ANYWAYS...I just don't know if this would be a good move.
I'm also looking at the imac G5. Anybody have any feedback in regards to recording? I know the expandibility is an issue.
Lastly, I was even considering a new ibook G4. How well would one of these run Cubase or Pro Tools?
I'm trying to save as much money as possible here...but I've heard so many good things about the Powerbook being a workhorse for audio and figure that it might be worth the investment. I'm not looking to start my own studio as a business here. I'd just like something that's great for audio recordings and
visual editing...something I can lay out my ideas on and make a great recording / product.
Any advice would be helpful, especially from those of you who've worked on these machines with similar purpose. THANK YOU!
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I'm a Mac user since 1995. Logic is very integrated in Mac, has
I'm a Mac user since 1995. Logic is very integrated in Mac, has high end boundled plugins and soft instruments, and has a lot of power.
Thanks to freeze, you don't need so much CPU power.
Don't buy the most expensive Mac.
Just be sure to have 1GB RAM at least.
The powerbooks are perfect, because they have the dual monitor output so you can work with an external DVI or VGA display alongside with the powerbook one, enjoiyng a true dual monitor experience.
Be sure to have a Superdrive. In today's music productions a DVD writer is a must for data backup.
For the rest, just power it up and start producing, in a silky environment. OSX is the more secure OS, no viruses, no system crashes, no slowdowns, or other windows tipical weird things
Cubase SX3 minimum is an 867 G4, dual G5 recommended. I was nev
Cubase SX3 minimum is an 867 G4, dual G5 recommended.
I was never able to get good performance from SX2 on my 1GHz Powerbook, so I gave up.
The iMac G5 is roughly equal to a 1.2GHz dual G4.
Logic and DP are more cpu friendly, and even run well on my ancient G4/400.
With Logic I have no problems doing sessions of 32-48 stereo tracks using virtual instruments exclusively, and liberal doses of the freeze function.
8)
If you really want to run SX get a PC.