Beginner on Powerbook Options

YES ONLY MIDI SEQUENCING. ON A POWERBOOK WITH NO USB PORT. BUT I WANT TO DO VOCALS to put with THE MIDI SEQUENCER TRACKS AND SINCE the seuencer HAS AUDIO CAPABILITY (it is Metro 5 by Cakewalk.) I FIGURE I CAN SOMEHOW DO THIS. Thanks Abbie NOW WHAT DO I DO? I HAVE NO SOUNDCARD and cannot afford it. I will never record a Live band or real instruments and I do not want to. So CAN'T I RUN THE MICROPHONE RIGHT INTO MY COMPUTER? IT HAS AN EXTERNAL MIC 1/8' INPUT. BUT HOW WILL MY SINGER HEAR THE OUTPUT FROM THE COMPUTER? CAN IT DO BOTH SIMULTANEOUSLY? I LIKE Musoman's idea for ROUTING THE MIC THRU A MIXER so I CAN BOOST THE LINE LEVEL AND EQ IT A LITTLE. And THEN SEND THE SOUND OF MY MIDI TRACKS OUT OF THE COMPUTER OUTPUT INTO THE MIXER TO MONITOR BOTH AND IT SENDS MY MIDI TRACKS OUTPUT INTO MY BOOM BOX I CAN TAPE RECORD BOTH ON THERE AFTER THE VOCALS ARE RECORDED ONTO THE SEQUENCER'S AUDIO PART. BUT IS THIS AT ALL FEASIBLE WITHOUT A SOUNDCARD OR (usb) IMIC.

[abbie]

Someone out there give me a cyber-slap if I am wrong, but to the best of my knowledge you can't do any audio without a sound card. The fact that you have audio jacks on your computer implies that there should be a sound card, however, unless someone took it out!!!???

No. They are not jacks, it's a 1/8' external microphone input and 1/8' macintosh sound output. Used to hook up little external speakers. Can I use these to record vocals and onto my MIDI tracks? And to run the sound out to a mixer going to my boom box to taperecord everything? WITHOUT A SOUNDCARD!! I WANT NO OTHER AUDIO BUT A VOCAL.

anyone??

[abbie]

They are too jacks! 'Synthetic' if you are out there help me on this one - sounds like James is getting tired of my opinion! Speaking of which, it is my opinion that you won't getting anything but beeps (if that) out of your little external speakers unless you already have a sound card in which case the answer is 'yes' - you should be able to record your vocals on your computer and mix it, if you choose, onto another recording device such as a boombox without having to upgrade your sound card.

Finally found it! I see now that almost all the info for a powerbook owner is online at the Apple website and is not in the manuals that come with the thing.

http://gemma.apple.com/techpubs/mac/Sound/...d/Sound-18.html

You are correct Abbie and thank YOU,I get frustrated with all this I just wanna play music! LOL.
But you win they ARE jacks. Inputs or jacks if you want to call it that, and it is indeed on there because there is a sound manager and sound card inside all G3'S no matter which one you have.

It is a much better one in G4's with FIREWRE and USB ports and the imic and all but even without those things I can run an external mic right into the powerbook and it will record those vocals. YEA!

And it will convert analog to digital. Now how my singer will hear the midi tracks I don't know I haven't read yet or figured that out yet, (perhaps a mixer is needed) but I need to run my tracks out of the computer into the boom box TO PUMP BASS, EQ BALANCE AND RECORD ONTO HIGH BIAS CASSETTES. But I will need a Radioshack extension cord with stereo line inputs BUT (big 'but' here) BUT it has to have a 1/4'' jack on the other end to run out of the powerbook 1/8' output. Like i said earlier i have the 1/8 to 1/4 adaptors so no problem there if i can find a cord like that; stereo outs and 1/4' input plug on the other end.

My built-in sound manager even lets me boost and eq the mic signal before converting it into digital. Mac's are actually always superior to pc's for multimedia and music applications.
I should have realized I mght be o.k. without anything costly needed. Since I am atleast talking G3 here folks. LOL. Just get me a midiman serial (printer port) interface and I'm jammin'! :-)

I still like Musoman's idea of getting a small mixer to monitor and eq and route things the way I want.... to record the mic in and sound out WITH A LITTLE MIXER AS A GO BETWEEN, just helps each path both ways, to record the vocals in, and to record it all out onto the boom box.

[abbie]

James, Things are looking up here, sounds like you are almost where you need to be. Here are some random thoughts:

The cables (1/8' to stereo rca) are a standard and cheap item at Radio Shack. You, of course will need two cables.

You will need a mixer to monitor your midi instruments (unless you choose to record them on your hard drive).

The vocalist will have headphones plugged into the mixer which will allow him to hear himself as well as the midi instruments while he is recording.

As far as the mixer is concerned, a simple four track should be enough depending on the number of midi instruments you use and whether they are stereo instruments as well (on second thought you may need an 8 track). As far as the iMic is concerned, my retailer told me that it does not significantly improve the recording quality compared to the audio inputs that you already have though it was mentioned earlier in this stream that it does. As for myself I use the audio inputs on my iMac (also a G3) which I feel gives excellent sound quality but then it is possible that different Macs have varying digital/analogue conversion capabilities.

Bonne chance...