glimmertwins

Helping A Misguided Pc Convert

Hi everyone! I will be glad to soon count myself as a Mac convert after a lifetime of PC use. I remember the day I converted from the commodore 64/128 - now I am on the verge of another breakthrough. So I have heard lots of great things about the G4s and now the G5s are out. I have made up my mind that I want to try my hand at G4 in a laptop solution. So when I look to purchase one, I am a little confused with so many choices.

Here is what I plan on using this laptop for.: I don't need the top of the line gear. I need something portable and that allows me flexibility in recording whether it be multitracking or use of plug-ins for live use. Ideally, I would like to use a plug in or two at a time to trigger samples(love the M-tron plug-in) in a live setting plus and I want the ability to put demos together of mostly live recorded tracks (ie with Mics - not too much MIDI) with basic effects plug-ins applied later(reverb compression, etc..). For home use, more than likely nothing more than 20-25 tracks and only a handful of plug-ins working to simulate studio rack gear. For live use, more than likely nothing more than 2 or 3 plug-ins opened at any one time so I can switch to to active keyboard samples (reason samples also).

So I look on ebay at used Powerbooks thinking if I am careful, I can pull a good deal but there are so many choices. Combo Drive v Super Drive, 1Ghz v 867 mhz v ?Mhz, L2 cache? I am not a rich man so I really can't afford to go straight to Mac and purchase from them, but there seems to be a new Apple update on lets say the powerbook line or the ibook line every 6 months or so....So what would be a good computer had I purchased a new G4 Powerbook 6-8 months ago? What about a year ago? How do these new G4 iBooks compare to the powerbooks now - how about 8 months ago, a year ago? Refurbished units? What should I watch out for? Where are good places to purchase used Macs?

I guess the question I am asking is what would the knowledgeable Macmusic citizen do if they had my needs and needed a portable Mac solution(I travel a lot). Thanks for all your help - all advice is greatly appreciated. I expect you will hear more of these types of posts in the near future as my PC buddies realize what I have just realized - there is no substitue for reliability in music recording and performance. Thanks!!!