Hi.

I am newbie in mac world but I have made music with pc for some time.

I am wondering if following laptop is suitable for my use:

Powerbook G4 677 mhz 15" display
Hard disk 40Gb
Memory 512 mb

Software I will use is Cubse with lot of VST insrtruments & effects. (I will use lot of vst samplers with large sample sets.)

I also need USB or firewire audio interface (2 analog in & out, 1 digital in/out, midi in /out) Can you prefer some suitable audio interfaces?

Thanks in advance and best regards, Weggio

I'm running Cubase 5.2 under Mac OS 9 on a G4 500 PB and it runs great.

It's only getting in trouble at about 25 tracks with lots of reverb, compression and EQ.

Cubase SX under OS X runs a little quirky. I don't use it, yet.

What you do need though is an external firewire drive.

When it comes to audiomidi interfaces, I'm very happy with my Tascam US-428. They're said to have a new, smaller one as well.

PB 550 here, and it runs like a baby's bottom (ie verrry smooth).
Get the max amount of RAM (768 is in my machine, and I tend to need it) , and you'll be fine.

I second the fact that you should get a good Firewire ext. HD (LaCie is very good, albeit a bit noisy), and that Tascam does the job quite well (even in OS x), as well as it's baby brother/sister (US-224). Fewer knobs, not that 'hands-on' feeling, but a very good unit indeed.

M-Audio Firewire 410 (no mentioning of that on their own site) looks very promising too, finally a buget Firewire device (it has 2 extra Firewire ports, and I heard you can hook up an HD from that with no problemo).

If you combine that with Novations ReMOTE 25, you'll get a very nice setup indeed...

Forgot to mention, I have 1 GB RAM in my PB.

Hi again and thank you for your great answers.

But now I have one more question

Is it possible to use external monitor like this way? :
On laptops LCD display i keep for example VST mixer & some VST instruments AND
on external monitor some other stuff.

I mean that is it possible to have different "screens" on laptops LCD and external monitor.
Do I need some extra hardware to do this?

best regards, Weggi

Yes! I'm using an external VGA monitor with my PB 500 G4 and it's fantastic. Couldn't work without it.

Hi again!

I'm not sure did you understood my questin properly ?

I know that it is possible to use external monitor, but what i am asking for is:

Is it possible to use both monitors at same time (LCD + external monitor)?
If I want to run movie on laptops LCD and same time edit something in cubase on external monitor.

Thanks in advance, Weg

This post has been edited by weggi: Thu 6 Mar 2003, 17:05

weg,

on a later model powerbook you can have an external monitor as an extended desktop (so you can have two different images or sets of windows on each monitor). In most version of the OS past 8.0 it should be the default setting. If you don't get two different images on yours, then you may need to open your monitors & sound control panel (or monitors on later versions) and deselect the "mirror desktop" check box.



dekon