about to buy a mac (ibook?)..need help!!! suggestions!, need help with what sound cards, computer, etc to get Options

[radiohead]

hello. I am very serious about getting into electronic music and recording. I bought the whole sampler/recording studio thing but then realized to sell all that and get a computer. It seems the best way. So im thinking of buying an ibook, one of the new ones..they come with 500 and 600 G3 processor. SO, i am wondering if this would work. Ive heard the powerbooks and powermacs are great..but they are so expensive.. it looks like the cheaper yet powerful looking new ibooks are pretty d*amn good. So would these work to make music On? I play guitar, keyboards, bass, and sing...and would like to put all of this onto the computer along with using sampling and electronic styles. So..i am a beginner in this whole mac music thing..and have no idea where to begin. I know that i would like to use logic audio -used by radiohead(probably..maybe cubase..whichever would be easier or better for use). And i dont know what kind of soundcard i need..or if using protools is what i want to use along with those programs. Basically..i would like to be able to sample, sequence and record onto some sort of mac computer. If anyone could make some recommendations on what i should do while still being as economical as possible it would be greatly appreciated. i also assume i need some way to connect my keyboard to the computer as well. alright. thanks so much to anyone who reads this and can help. thanks again. justin

[Jussi]

Hello Justin
mac is good to start making music.
in the first hand you dont need any soundgard at all, but if you are working with lots of audio I think you better have one (I have lexicon core 2). Your hard disk drive must be large, because audio takes lot of space (over 30GB at least) and it should be as fast as you can afford to.
Then you need a midi interface to work with your computer (one midi in and one midi out seems to be enough for you if you have only one keyboard).
then you need sequencer to work with your mac. I use cubase and I do like it a lot. But somebody might say that protools is better (if you works with lot of audio and very little midi information) and somebody says that logic is best and so on. They are all good but I´m used to cubase.
If you want to use sampler, you have to buy a software sampler (maybe halion from steinberg, steinberg makes also cubase so they works quite good together).
The big problem at the end is of course money!
If you have
mac+display
core 2
cubase
halion
midi interface
it will coast about, maybe, .... 4500 €
Thats quite alot, but then you only have to do is one big hit all over the world and after that you can (maybe) pay all your hard- and software : )

[abbie]

One could also buy a used iMac whose internal sound card is excellent (600$), a midi usb interface (100$), ProTools Free, VSamp for sampling software (35$ I think), Sonic Workx basic for basic editing (free) - total cost 735$. Major drawback with this setup is only having two inputs which is not a problem if you are doing home recording. Make sure you have lots of RAM. If you need more than 8 tracks of audio, add a few hundred dollars more for non-freebie recording software such as Cubase.

[nathanan]

hi, i'm using the ibook 500 with logic, the ibook does not have any audio in, except the built-in mic. so, i use the emi2/6 for audio and mt4 for midi. logic is a great software but i suggest you wait until jan. when version 5 comes out. in the mean time, you might want to get protools free, free download, to play around with. nathanan