Is My G4 1ghz Imac Powerful Enough?, or should i get a tower with a soundcard Options

[neptune]

any advice gratefully received!

[lepetitmartien]

uh… Is to use Office or to surf on the Net?

Fun aside… What do you want to do with? To make a simple 4 track song or mixing a full Film score with dialogs and sounds FX (150-200 tracks)?

[neptune]

sorry - a bit open-ended i know!

I'd like to be able to record elec. guitar, bass, couple of vocal tracks, some synths and my own drum programming. I've been looking at Emagic's Logic Gold production kit as a solution to my needs, as it claims to be a complete solution. Would I be right in thinking it comes with an interface i can use for audio line in, midi and mic? or will i need a preamp and other stuff? (apart from the obvious guitars, mics and midi keyboard). And furthermore, will the package let me programme my own drum loops?

And...can I do all this on my 1GHz iMac, or should I upgrade? I guess I'm gonna need 16-10 tracks max all said and done.

Thanks for your reply. I'm hoping you can help me!

[zelen0]

If you're using Logic Audio 6 with it's Freeze Tracks feature and have a lot of time to burn, you can use almost any G4 with almost any number of tracks.

But if you're working in a real world istuation where you have a deadline, your system may not be able to do full real time mixing of more than 10 tracks or maybe 20 depending on precisely what you're doing with each. If it's just MIDI it might be easier, if it's real time audio processing with virtual synths, I'd say 5-10 tracks of high quality synths.

[neptune]

Thanks for that. It's hobby stuff so no deadlines luckily! I'd say five or six audio tracks tops, the rest midi. What would you advise is best format to mix down onto? can i do it straight onto the same hard drive. or do I need something external?

Thanks again

Gary

[PristineRec]

I have been recording with Pro Tools on a G4 466Mhz, getting as many as 19 tracks with plugins and heavy edits with no problems, so running at 1Ghz should be much better.
I do record to a fast drive that is not my startup drive, though. I have an Ultra 160 SCSI card connecting me to my recording drive, which I know helps out a LOT.
Recording to the startup drive will severely impede how many tracks you can have writing/reading at once.
Add an external Firewire drive at 7200RPM or higher, and you should be good to go!

[neptune]

Excellent,

Thanks all for your help. This is a great site - and a great community. I've got answers in days to things that have puzzled me for months.

Nep.

[stan8]

PristineRec,
How does that work?, is'nt PT in the startup disk's application folder? or is it installed on another drive? I have my project folder on the startup disk, where I get an average of 7-8 moderatly plugged tracks; but I have a second internal HD which I am going to try with the project folder as an experiment. Thanks for the post!

stan

[xingu]

The way it should work is that the application itself (PT, or whatever DAW you're using) should remain on the startup disk. Only the 'project' or 'song' files should be directed/written to the 2nd, non-startup disk - this keeps the startup disk from getting overloaded trying to read/write the project files while running the program at the same time.

BTW, neptune - I have no problem running Logic Audio 6 (Big Box) on a flat panel G4 iMac 700Mhz, typically with 8-12 audio tracks with a few plugs on each. I do have an external 7200 firewire drive...

Also, I'm curious if you'll still be able to buy the Production Kit, as apple is discontinuing Logic Gold. If you can find one, I'd recommend snatching it up, because you should be able to qualify for the upgrade to Logic Pro for $199.

[neptune]

Thanks Xingu,

Ok willdo. But will I need a pre-amp for guitar/mic with the interface that comes with the production kit?

Nep.