Another Darn Beginner...., Recent convert to Mac requests help! Options

[timski]

I bought a Mac last year and have just decided to get back into music recording. I used to use Cubasis with the E-Mu APS and Wavelab on my PC (going back a few years this is) but would like advice on the simplest, best value and least bulky set-up. I am not hoping to record very complex, amazing sounding tunes, just be able to put my ideas down as smoothly as possible. Roughly 6-10 channels of audio and 4-6 channels of MIDI.

I have a Powerbook G4 (40GB HD, 256MB RAM) which has the latest Firewire and 2xUSB2.0. Most of my recording will be audio - guitars and basses, vocals, analog keyboards (Rhodes Stage Piano, Wurli 200, Hammond B200), a variety of other real instruments (mandolin, violin, accordion, hand percussion) and possibly sampling some of my old vinyl but I will need MIDI to access other sounds, drum beats, etc. I also have a Studiologic SL-161 master keyboard (MIDI connections only).

My main questions are:
What's the best way to connect everything up? Can I easily connect the master keyboard into a USB port? If so, what's a good device to use?
Should I use a separate input for the audio interface or can I get away with using the audio-in port on my Powerbook?
I currently just have garageband (so cheap I couldn't resist!) Could I just use this or should I really get some 'proper' recording software?
Is it OK to run all of this alongside all the other apps I frequently use or do I really need to have a computer dedicated to music only? And how much HD space and RAM should I leave free?

It's been at least three years since I really did much recording and things seemed to have moved on a huge amount since then.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!!
Thanks

[Dave_W]

Hi timski

It really does depend on your budget!

I'm running a pwrbook with a Metric Halo ULN2 interface. I've just been working on a project that was recorded in Logic on my Pro Tools rig, and edited on the powerbook during a flight. The quality of the ULN2 is fantastic, I now use it to mixdown to in the studio, and master from it.

If can get away with 2 inputs I would recommend the ULN2, if not then they have other interfaces with 8 I/O.

Regarding software I can only recommend Logic Audio, the LE version should do what you need.

I would also recommend a USB to MIDI interface to handle that side of things, again it depends on how many ports you need.

My pwrbook is configured with practically every app under the sun, as it's essentially my office machine, and yet under OSX I don't have any of the nightmares I had under OS9 regarding app conflicts. The project I've just been editing was running approx 50 tracks of audio with loads of plugins, and I still had mail running in the background <g>.

I would recommend getting an external firewire drive to run the audio from, simply to save thrashing your internal drive. As for RAM 512mb would be better, but with 6-10 channels of audio 256mb should be more than enough.

I hope that helps !

Dave