Regards to all,
Am eager to switch to Mac (currently have an ailing Celeron 333 running '98 ) but am obviously quite cautious about the upcoming January announcements. I'm looking at a home-studio set-up based around Garageband initially and then possibly migrating to Pro Tools M-Powered at a later date (I'll be purchasing the M-Audio Pre-Mobile USB interface which would allow for this transition). I have no need for soft synths, MIDI, loops, or any such other features as I'll be treating the recording environment pretty much like a tape-machine. All my recording work will be based around live instruments and I would like the portability of a laptop so that I might hire a rehearsal space and record drums and other things too loud to be done at home.
So... *draws breath* for a number of reasons I am considering an Apple Refurb 14" 1.42ghz G4 iBook. This seems to me to represent good value at about 25% less than the retail price. I can't stretch to a powerbook so I'm looking at maxing out the RAM straight away to 1.5gb, getting an external 160gb 7200rpm Lacie Firewire drive, and am hoping that this will give me the headroom for around 20 audio tracks with minimal effects (always been of the get-it-sounding-right-before-it-goes-in school of recording). EQ tweaks and a splash of compression here and there.
Why not wait for MacTel? Well, I will not at any point in the forseeable future be able to stretch to a powerbook (am far too close to my Bank Manager as is), and am concerned that Firewire may be dropped from the next round of Apple consumer level notebooks as recording to a fast external drive appears to be the first rule of computer based recording. Also, it seems unclear how long it will be before all those audio programs that require Altivec support will be on the market for the new Intel machines.
I apologise if this is a rhetorical ramble but would really appreciate it if anyone running a similar set-up could give some insight into what might reasonably be expected of it in terms of performance.
If I could record drums and loud guitars at home I would obviously plump for a G5 iMac and carry out the same mods to that which I'm sure would run at blistering speeds.
Ta very much, Derwood
Am eager to switch to Mac (currently have an ailing Celeron 333 running '98 ) but am obviously quite cautious about the upcoming January announcements. I'm looking at a home-studio set-up based around Garageband initially and then possibly migrating to Pro Tools M-Powered at a later date (I'll be purchasing the M-Audio Pre-Mobile USB interface which would allow for this transition). I have no need for soft synths, MIDI, loops, or any such other features as I'll be treating the recording environment pretty much like a tape-machine. All my recording work will be based around live instruments and I would like the portability of a laptop so that I might hire a rehearsal space and record drums and other things too loud to be done at home.
So... *draws breath* for a number of reasons I am considering an Apple Refurb 14" 1.42ghz G4 iBook. This seems to me to represent good value at about 25% less than the retail price. I can't stretch to a powerbook so I'm looking at maxing out the RAM straight away to 1.5gb, getting an external 160gb 7200rpm Lacie Firewire drive, and am hoping that this will give me the headroom for around 20 audio tracks with minimal effects (always been of the get-it-sounding-right-before-it-goes-in school of recording). EQ tweaks and a splash of compression here and there.
Why not wait for MacTel? Well, I will not at any point in the forseeable future be able to stretch to a powerbook (am far too close to my Bank Manager as is), and am concerned that Firewire may be dropped from the next round of Apple consumer level notebooks as recording to a fast external drive appears to be the first rule of computer based recording. Also, it seems unclear how long it will be before all those audio programs that require Altivec support will be on the market for the new Intel machines.
I apologise if this is a rhetorical ramble but would really appreciate it if anyone running a similar set-up could give some insight into what might reasonably be expected of it in terms of performance.
If I could record drums and loud guitars at home I would obviously plump for a G5 iMac and carry out the same mods to that which I'm sure would run at blistering speeds.
Ta very much, Derwood