Mac And Audio Noob, dual g4 vs single g5 ??? Options

[Devlfrmhvn]

First off, sorry if this is posted somewhere else i looked arround and coudint find a real answer to my question.
Ok so here we go, im looking at buying my first mac. and i have done quite a bit of price shopping and what i have come up with is this... for about the same price i can get into a single 1.6 g5 or a dual 1.25 g4... So in your opinion what would be the better macine for me to buy? Im planning on building a small studio in my home down the road and for now i will be using a either a Digi 002 or a TDM settup with a 888 i/o i havent exactly decided on what system i want to go with... either way i wlll be in a Pro Tools enviroment for school and for my home recording use.

Also my parents are buying me this machine for school and to use there after, and well im a broke ass college student as it is, so i will be keeping this machine for quite a few years.

So... what would be the better machine for me? And please dont tell me to get a dual g5 because its not financialy possible.

I am also aware that both fo these will need more ram.
Thanks again for your advice

This post has been edited by Devlfrmhvn: Mon 26 Apr 2004, 00:23

[hahaworld]

Hi, Devlfrmhvn.

First, I'm partial to the single 1.6 processor, but it's a matter of opinion. The dual processors don't have all the bugs worked out yet (again, this is only my opinion. Someone else would say the dual processors are fine. The technology is still too new for me to believe that, though).

Second, if your parents are buying this for you, you're not a broke ass college student. If you're in college in the United States, you're not broke. There is no such thing as a broke college student in this country. The whole "broke college student" cliché is tired beyond belief. If most college students are broke, how come Starbucks Coffee houses are springing up on campuses across the nation? To meet some genuinely broke college students, you have to go somewhere like Cambodia.

Anyway, I'll get off my soapbox and encourage you to go for the single processor, which will work fine with your Digi 002 or TDM setup for many, many years to come.

Sincerely,
hahaworld

[Devlfrmhvn]

Well i am pretty much broke "in my mind that is"..... I sold alot of things i own to pay for school, Berklee isint cheap to say the least... but it is the best music school in the nation... the more i read the macihnes are pretty comparable for what i want to use them for. I think im gonna go for the g5 for the sheer fact that the 64bit will become quite usefull in the next year or two, Apple is already making thier new os that will be intended for 64bit.

Thanks for the response, and keep them coming please... all of your opinions are very valid in my decision.

[rickenbacker]

Personally, I'd go for the dual G4. It should be more than powerful enough to run any kind of recording session and the price will probably be sweet enough to leave your parents some cash to pay for extra RAM etc (NB: get as much RAM as possible).

I have a PowerMac G4 1GHz dual MDD model, running Logic Pro. I don't have many problems with tracking audio or running a dozen plug-in soft synths simultaneously (stuff like Albino 2, Atmosphere, Stylus, Trilogy, V-Station, Tera 2 etc). If it does start to stutter, I can just freeze a few tracks in Logic and the CPU hit drops right down.

The only thing you might need to do is build a little soundproof housing around the G4 - those MDD PowerMacs can be noisy.

[msteach]

I've got a G5 single with 1G of ram (2 would be better) and it's a nice set up. If you want to go a tad cheaper check out monitors that aren't Apple. Costco had a nice 19" flat monitor that should work for a bit less than the Apple monitors. Don't forget to get some external storage for later on.