Hey guys. I want to help out a friend of mine that bought a PowerMac from me a while ago. It's a dual 800MHz quicksilver. He needs sound input on the machine. He wants to connect his audio mixer to the Mac so he can record audio. Can any of you give me an idea for a cheap solution to do this? The PM has just audio out and speakers connector on the back. No input. Any cheap pci cards that are known to work with leopard? Firewire sound cards are not a solution since i can't find any, here in Romania at least. Thanks in advance.
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Cheap sound card
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There was M Audio Revolution pci cards but I guess they aren't cheap.
You can try one of those 1-2dollars usb soundcards I guess they work on osx
You can try one of those 1-2dollars usb soundcards I guess they work on osx
I've read about the usb cards all over the web. But, there's a problem here. The G4 has usb 1.1 ports. I want to be sure that an usb solution would work. I might give him a pci usb 2.0 controller that i have if the usb card is the only solution.
PCI USB2.0 - less than 10 dollars, search on ebay for nec usb pci.Bought one from china zero problems.
UBS SoundCard - 1-5dollars, grab the cheapest one that has the "jacks" that you need.
But I guess it should work fine on 1.1 usb
There is a huge musicstore in Germany, that is the biggest in Europe and sells Europe-wide. Thomann.de Here you can get a firewire-Interface, even if there are no available in Romania. They have call-center people that speak different languages, so if you want advice from that, you might as well right an email or phone them.
I got A Presonus Firepod (later FP10, now Firstudio, I think). Look into the products of Presonus. Firewire Audio-Interfaces are costier anyway, but this brand makes a good mixture of price and quality (low latency, which you will have a Problem with USB).
He can sell the Mixer on Ebay, because you will mix the audio tracks in audactity, Logic Studio, Cubase or Reason in the software. If it is a good Mixer, you can also connect it in between the Mac and the Audio-Interface, but that can produce further latency.
I got A Presonus Firepod (later FP10, now Firstudio, I think). Look into the products of Presonus. Firewire Audio-Interfaces are costier anyway, but this brand makes a good mixture of price and quality (low latency, which you will have a Problem with USB).
He can sell the Mixer on Ebay, because you will mix the audio tracks in audactity, Logic Studio, Cubase or Reason in the software. If it is a good Mixer, you can also connect it in between the Mac and the Audio-Interface, but that can produce further latency.
Latency is not a problem. My friend doesn't need the mixer for everyday tasks. He uses it to connect a microphone and god knows what else he uses for recording. As i said before, he just needs "audio in". No fancy low latency petabyte sampling gizmos. Plain and old audio input so that he can edit his recording sessions on the Mac.
Yeah. Get this: neither the Quicksilver, nor its predecessor "digital audio" came with audio input by default.
There's a nice thread at Apple support communities detailing this:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2516787?start=0&tstart=0
Incidentally, Griffin still sells the iMic
http://store.griffintechnology.com/imic-623
but you can also get the on eBay, starting as low as 0,99 $
Naturally, you can also try any compatible device.
RGDS,
I recently tested a USB-to "7.1" audio adapter for "PC" on an iMAC G3 (with defective audio) and it worked fine.
This one: http://www.amazon.com/Channel-Exter...941339&sr=8-55&keywords=USB+7.1+audio+adapter
There are multiple that look the same way. (Changed the link, since "second on the list is not specific ebough and changes over time). 1,50-3,00USD
But I can't tell you anything about quality, since it just had to deliver clear sound to a midrange compact Hi-Fi music system, with connected boxes.
This one: http://www.amazon.com/Channel-Exter...941339&sr=8-55&keywords=USB+7.1+audio+adapter
There are multiple that look the same way. (Changed the link, since "second on the list is not specific ebough and changes over time). 1,50-3,00USD
But I can't tell you anything about quality, since it just had to deliver clear sound to a midrange compact Hi-Fi music system, with connected boxes.
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if you want to connect some hifi speakers i would take a look to the Behringer UCA 202. i have two of them and the work great with the powerpcs.
I'm using the Griffin iMic since 2004 (bought it to serve me with my iBook G3 back in these days) and it still works. Griffin updated the externals to be white plastic. My version still has the greyish-translucent design matching the design of the PowerMac G4. I think they do not changed the internals, so it should work fine. Maybe you find the old version on ebay.
I have the Griffin one, two. I somehow doubt they used better internals than in cheap PC-adapters. I once had the case that it produce hizzing. Also for some reason I can use the in as out and the out as in as well (I use the out as out and the in as in on my G3, though
)PS: made the link in my before post more specific.
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I have the Griffin one, two. I somehow doubt they used better internals than in cheap PC-adapters. I once had the case that it produce hizzing. Also for some reason I can use the in as out and the out as in as well (I use the out as out and the in as in on my G3, though
My G3 iBook had no line-in. As a reson, I recorded some old vinyl records with the iMic. No hum or buzzing. Quality was reasonable high. Maybe you created a ground loop accidentally. I remember that my Ethernet-cable created a ground loop and that I always recorded without it.
Thanks for that hint! If I ever happen to have that hizzing again, I will check that. Btw., back then I too used it for vinyl as well music cassette copying...