Hi,
I'm a student and I would like to get a computer for continuing DAW work and study, mostly electronic-type music (ie. no major band/live multi i/o recording.) My ultimate dream of course is to make something that sounds vaguely reminiscent of 'Pretty Hate Machine' era stuff, so would the G5 give me a noticeable advantage to this end? Is the PB fine for this (its portability would be really nice as a student! But I need a comp with some longevity [2-4 years] too!...)??

Sorry to make this too longwinded, so please feel free to skip the details of my situation if you like!
[...but (to explain) I am sitting on the fence between a 17"PB G4 and a PM G5 dual. I have sold all my former hardware in the hopes of using just a comp and a Virus, (possibly also a Micron or MC505) to make music, but is it stupid to think that the G5's power will be wasted for what I want to do? I have had terrible experiences with Reaktor so far so I don't want to use softsynths in OSX anyway, so would there really be that much of a reason to choose the G5DP over the G4, given the later's portability? Also, I may have access to a PTLE/G5 system for parts of the summer anyway for mastering/ect. though not during the school year so maybe that is a factor also.]

What do you think, for doing 'normal' work in Logic 6 is the Powerbook's performance noticeably laggy? Is it fine to record and sequence with a couple of hardware synths? What about the need for a secondary disk to record on, is that a problem (given I will probably get a FW Audio-interface?)? What about live performance, especially with Live4, is it 'up to par'? Experiences, opinions?!? I am going a bit crazy being unable to decide...

This post has been edited by Metalflkk: Thu 17 Feb 2005, 06:04

My Man, you must have a G5...get any G5 over a PB or older Dual G4, I have had both, you will need a single or dual G5, a min of 1 GB RAM, get 2-4 if possible, the stock 160 GB HDD and a 200-300 external HDD. I have an external Dual Layer Burner also as a backup to the superdrive...it rips an 8 gig DVD in 17min...the IOMEGA...not the superdrive...SD=SLOW !!

Logic 6 is OVER !! Get the Express 7 if you can't get the Big Daddy. At least you will have the new GUI that is going to make your life much easier...might as well get used to it...Also get Komplete 2 for the finest soft synths on the market....I have spent the last 18 months perfecting my system, I have it loaded and I can tell you that you WILL be very disappointed if you go with anything less than $3000-4000 of just hardware !! You'll be mixing your masterpiece, and it will crap out guaranteed if you don't have at least a G5 w/1 GB RAM...and 160 HDD...if you do any serious video, get a dual, don't settle for less...wait if you have to. I couldn't even mix 8 tracks of audio w/plugins on an eMac(G4 vers) w/DP4.12 ...get a G5 Sing or Dual, MANDATORY !

Hi If I were you I would get all the CPU power you can afford, it will not be wasted doing Digital Audio work.
If you get a Pwerbook, you will get the portability and there is a lot you can do with the addition of some external Portable hardware.
However you will eventually find yourself kicking yourself when you start get out of CPU resources messages or clicks and scratches in your recording s etc.
Reaktor is an amazing piece of software but extremely sensitive to its environment (Installation, how it is used ETC). It is really meant for designing softsynths. You can get a version of Reaktor that will allow you to access all the Reaktor synths, but you will not be able to edit the synths themselves. You will be able t oedit the sounds created on those synths so that is not an issue. The upside is, you will save a ton of CPU power, as now you will only be using Reaktor for its synths, not its ability to create synths.

Powerbooks are great for getting ideas together, and if you are doind stuff that is relatively non CPU intensive they are a great tool t ohave.
But if you are planning on doing some serious editing, using some serious EFX (Software based not hardware external devices), you will need all the juice you can get.
I have a Dual 2.5 Ghz G5 and Although I was only goofing around, I managed to overload the CPU, on my Powerbook, I would never have even got to that many tracks and Plug ins period.

Believe me Minehead has definitely got it right, right on the Money

Your Message basically
"What do you think, for doing 'normal' work in Logic 6 is the Powerbook's performance noticeably laggy? Is it fine to record and sequence with a couple of hardware synths? What about the need for a secondary disk to record on, is that a problem (given I will probably get a FW Audio-interface?)? What about live performance, especially with Live4, is it 'up to par'? Experiences, opinions?!? I am going a bit crazy being unable to decide"

If you are only going to use the Powerbook for the above, you might get away with it. I would keep the tracck count as low as possible and pay a lot of attention to track priority as this can give you more virtual tracks yet not radically increase your CPU demands.

The decisions is really yours to make of course and of course price is a majot factor.

You can use a Powerbook to do what you describe, but in the end like most of us you will end up wanting all the CPU power you can afford.

On Softsynths belive it or not, I have a Pro Tools HD system with all the bells and whistles, running on a G4 dual 1.25. a G5 as described that does the same type of audio work (Similar that is) using nothing but softsynths and it works great. The G4 has Hardsynths and that also works great.

The Powerbook I have is OK, but I would never be really happy using it to produce a qulaity end product. It just does not have the juice, but it is great for doing basic recording and sequencing to external synths and Efx units. Of course by the time you have got all the external units plugged in, you have no more portability.

If you can try some demos of softsynths and other DAW software on a Desktop unit and a Powerbook if you can, you will see what I mean about CPU power.

I know this will cause a lot of folks to jump up and say well I do finje on my Laptop, so do I, but for a lot of EFX, Tracks and High qulaity recording, I really need all the cpu power I can get, and that is also one of the reasons I use PTHD hardware as that is like having dedicated t omusic only cpu power that is expandable ( Expensive, worth it?? ) well I can still use an older G4, but with the G5 I know I will simply run out of CPU Power eventually and the only way to get more, will be t obuy a more Powerful G whatever. The game never ends. Sorry if this is long winded but having tried to get both portability and DAW Power in the past, I have almost always been disappointed in the Portability solution, and ended up getting a desktop anyway

It is a tough decision these days and as I say if you really can limit yourself to what you describe, pay a lot of attention to the way you set up tracks, FX etc, yes a Powerbook will work, but it will run out of juice pretty quickly.
Hell we used to do a lot of this stuff on Mac Pluses, mind you that was sequencing only, no Digital Audio worth talking about.

DAW=CPU Power + Fast HD's Firewire is great, it takes away a lot of SCSI headaches. You will need at least on External or second internal drive, + Money (A real drag, but some folks have done amazing stuff with Old ??Obsolete?? hardware). But it is a whole lot easier to use a dual G5 out of the Box.

One thing t ocheck for sure is that Logic 6 will actually work on either of the platforms you are thinking of, and I am certain that Logic requires you use at least 2 Drives

I sure hop this ramble of thoughts helps you make a good decision, remember a lot of people nowadays never hear anything of higher quality than an MP3 file.
Stuart

This post has been edited by Stuarta: Sat 19 Feb 2005, 02:21