Just Starting, what do I need Options

[bigred169]

Hello I just bought a used mac g4 with nothing else. Can anyone tell me what I need to get started (recording). Do I need some sort of interface and adapter? What is the best product and or the cheapest..... I have a mixing board and lots of instruments.
I am also curious if there is anyone from red deer on this site?
Thanks and yes I am very new to this.

[coldharbour]

Which G4 model you have?

To fully utilize your machine you'll need an audio interface and probably a MIDI interface as well depending if you have MIDI instruments.

There's a lot of options depending on your needs, please elaborate what kind of stuff you'll be doing, how many inputs you need etc. Do you have any recording software on your Mac?

[bigred169]

I only have regular intruments and I have not yet plugged the mac in to see what is on it. I Bought it from a guy used and I know I will have to buy quite a bit of stuff for it. G4's don't have garageband do they? I am assuming I will have to buy rcording software and an interface but do you kknow what I should go with? I would like to have the capability to record live with four members so it woould be a lot of inputs.

[dixiechicken]

I can recommend the things I use myself.

Motu 828 firewire interface aka soundcard.
(8 analog ins/outs + adat sync + spdif in/out etc etc)

Check it out at http://www.motu.com/
or alternatively their Traveler box - a bus powered firewire box.

The 828 MK-II has one midi in & out I believe
(I have the MK-I without midi ins/outs)

I also have the MTP-AV usb midi interface with 8 midi ins/outs
SMTP time code etc etc.

I also have Digital Performer-4.6 an awesome DAW as my tool of choice.

If you by the Motu interfaces you'll get AudioDesk for free. Which is like
Digital Performer ´WITHOUT any midi capabilities - strictly digital audio.

And yes - if you like AudioDesk you can upgrade from AD to DP - thats
what I did. In sweden where I live this will set you back about 3.000 us
dollars == 22.000:- swedish crowns. (Interfaces + DP )

Cheers: Dixiechicken

[fishboisfo]

G4's are great - pick up iLife-- that will have Garageband on the disk, and it's pretty inexpensive. I pretty much anymore use Live 4.0 -- it updates to Live 5 in July -- for everything anymore. It is by far and away the most awesome audio software on the market today, and perhaps a bit under rated. You can sequence, sound design, as well as record in MIDI and AUDIO sources. It also allows a huge amount of flexibility with editing, plug in, and mastering and now renders at 32bits -- as opposed to just 16 or 24.
And, if you have Reason, it is rewireable as master or slave.
((and no, I don't even work for Ableton ))
Good luck !!

[don says mac]

my advice, which i'm sure most will agree is, start with garageband & as much RAM as possible (1 gig would be pretty good)... get a big monitor (19") or 2 smaller ones... and of course, make sure you has OSX 10.3 or 10.4...

from there there are many ways to get the sound into your mac... although i've never used it, i have only heard great things about MOTU... all that would get you ready for pretty good quality recordings, and give you the option to edit... I'd advise you to upgrade to another program (such as Ableton Live as mentioned earlier) once you've 'outgrown' Garageband.