You Honest Opinion..., Advice Options

[dgerbs]

Hi, I have been a mac user for some time and my G4 brutally died recently. There is a h/w issue on the logic board and I am about to buy an ibook 800 mhz, 14", 512 ram for making music. I really want to stick with the mac but I had many problems with my G4 400 and would like to get your advice to make sure I make the right choice in my next setup.

My plan is to use the ibook to make electronic music using Logic, the EXS sampler, some soft synths, with some h/w synths. I also have Kontact but so far have had many CPU issues when loading multiple instruments. I want to make this next setup work well and be able to creat music w/o too many CPU issues and I would like your advice, especially those who have an ibook and have a fairly smooth setup. I am at the point where I want to focus on creating and not troubleshooting.

So, with an ibook and logic...what soft synths, soft samplers would you use? Any preferable soundcard to record sounds into it? It will obviously come with OSX, so how has that been with the software mentioned, what has our experience been with OSX and your setup?

This thread will hopefully lead to many unanswered questions and I thank you in advance!

Best,

Dan

[rickenbacker]

My honest opinion? Don't get an iBook. It's a G3 processor and no matter how fast it is, a G4 is always a better option - particularly for music software that involves so many complicated calculations to run smoothly. Plus virtually every music app (Logic, for one) is optimised for the G4 chip and the Altivec Velocity Engine. Try looking for a good condition, reasonably specc'ed second-hand PowerBook - a 667 or an 800, maybe. That'll keep you going for some years to come.

With a G3, you'll run into more CPU issues. I know I have. As for OS X, I have no problems with it. Running Cubase SX, Reason, Live, Melodyne and various plugs and it works smoothly for me (well, most of the time).

There'll be loads of new synths coming to OS X this year - all the Native Instrument stuff, new Steinberg synths, plus other cool apps like Stylus Atmosphere. With Logic, you have the option to buy all their very nice but very expensive compatible products, like the ES2 etc. Don't forget Reason 2.5, just released. Got the beta yesterday - nice.