Help Me Get The Best Setup For Me.. Thanks Options

[shaneblyth]

I am totally new to Macs so new I have not bought one yet but want to in the next little while purely for Music.
I have a really good Keyboard Midi Synth, and a proffessional Mixer, PA, and Mics as well as an electric guitar and base.
I am a one man band who wants to record on this equipment using a MAC.. I dont expect to be selling my stuff but who knows one day

Can people suggest what is a good system to buy ?
and what about additional hardware ? I intend to be recoding only 1 audio track at a time so what should I use to interface with my external gear and MIDI . what spec of MAC would you suggest ?
and what would you recommend for software and why..

I know it is a big ask but you would be helping a soon to be EX PC user get into some good gear and systems finally where i can hopefully create some good quality Music.

Cheers I appreciate your time and input

Shane

[kaboombahchuck]

Here is my 2 cents worth.
First you will need to come up with just how much money your are willing to spend.
For example, expect to spend about $3000 on the mac. That will get you a decent G5 with moniter and 1 gig of ram. Jam it with ram, that is important.

Any external hardware should be MOTU. Trust me on this... No fuss, no problems, rock on.

Guessing on your expectations here is what I would do..

Hook the mixer directly into the mac... Depending on your mixer, direct audio in, or optical audio in (optimal). Some folks will claim that the stock sound card in the mac aint gonna cut it, but I have no complaints.

Get a MOTU fast lane midi interface for the Keyboard Midi Synth (unless the keyboard is USB already).

Personally I like Metro 6 for multi track audio and midi recording. This program will do it all. Simple or complicated.. Plus the support is insurpassible.. There are several different levels that can be had, and you can demo them..

Trust me on this.. This setup will give you the least amount of headaches!

[gingau]

I would certainly encourage anyone who could to get the latest, fastest Mac possible, but I would say the Metro/MOTU combo should work fine on a G3, and definately a G4 if you want to save money.

Also the M-box with ProTools LE (digidesign) is worth looking into. I find it's audio setup straightforward and flexible, though the MIDI end is serviceable, but a bit clumsy. Also very G4 friendly.

These systems will also work fine on a powerbook.
And yes, stuff it with RAM

[shaneblyth]

Here is my 2 cents worth.
First you will need to come up with just how much money your are willing to spend.
For example, expect to spend about $3000 on the mac. That will get you a decent G5 with moniter and 1 gig of ram. Jam it with ram, that is important.

Any external hardware should be MOTU. Trust me on this... No fuss, no problems, rock on.

Guessing on your expectations here is what I would do..

Hook the mixer directly into the mac... Depending on your mixer, direct audio in, or optical audio in (optimal). Some folks will claim that the stock sound card in the mac aint gonna cut it, but I have no complaints.

Get a MOTU fast lane midi interface for the Keyboard Midi Synth (unless the keyboard is USB already).

Personally I like Metro 6 for multi track audio and midi recording. This program will do it all. Simple or complicated.. Plus the support is insurpassible.. There are several different levels that can be had, and you can demo them..

Trust me on this.. This setup will give you the least amount of headaches!

I am going to buy new and will get at least a G4 I may wait for the G5 Imacs as I dont like the laptops too much also it seems that it is a good idea to use an external firewire hard drive ?

My mixer is a Behringer Eurorack MX802A and has no optical things on it but is a good quality low noise unit I have some Shure Mics the best ones and want to do an audio track at a time.
So you think I can simply plug the mixer straight into the MAC audio in and it is OK sounds good to me as I was a little worried about using a device that was USB and audio as I think there would be Latency issues surely.
I am not familiar with the Motu device is this a midi only device? the Keyboard is a Yamaha unit with midi ins and outs and no USB but a single floppy disc as well..
I have been reading like mad and like the look of Tracktion but will check out Maestro I want a nice not to complicated software that I can convert the midi to audio easy enough... Basically I want something that doesnt get in the way as I want to create rather than spend hours setting the software up and I am more likley to use Live instruments mixed with a few midi sounds

Thanks for your input

Shane

[gingau]

external firewire drives are recommended for audio as the speed is faster than the mac internal. I don't know what speed the new G5's have. (7200rpm is what you want).

You can plug the mixer output directly into the mac with the right adapter (radioshack has them all), and then select "built in audio in the AudioMIDI setup. It's a stereo input, but you only have to record enable one channel at a time if you want.

You could get away with no midi interface by just playing the synth through the mixer and recording it that way You lose the nice midi editing capablities, but even with the interface you will have to play the midi track back through the synth and mixer to get it into audio state (either before or during the final mixdown).

[gingau]

ooh, here's something I read in a post down a few in this forum (Please Help Me Take The Plunge!). Same type of question as yours

"Digidesign does not recommend using a FireWire drive on the G5, but instead, a second internal Serial ATA drive. Use the external FireWire drive for backup." (charlzz)

[shaneblyth]

ooh, here's something I read in a post down a few in this forum (Please Help Me Take The Plunge!). Same type of question as yours

"Digidesign does not recommend using a FireWire drive on the G5, but instead, a second internal Serial ATA drive. Use the external FireWire drive for backup." (charlzz)

would be interesting to know what is the most important in order
Ram Size
CPU Grunt ... single or duel
Hard drive speed/separation from OS.

I mean if you have say a 1ghz G4 with 1 gig of RAM and an external firewaire hard drive
is it gonna be better than say a fast G4/5 with say 512 ram and no external drive.

where is the cross over point ?

if I could say grab a 1.25ghz single processor G4 then slap plenty of RAM and another drive external or otherwise and keep the audio puirely on the other drive is that gonna be a better deal than the single drive and fast CPU ? and maybe a little less ram.

there must be someone who can give us an intelligent answer on this one... I fdont intend to use heaps of audio tracks or try to record more than one audio track at a time. I dont think I would consider anything less than the G4 1.25GHz with 512 ram but really 768 or whatever it is .

How much price difference is there between the option for a G5 over a G4 and sticking with a 1.25 G4 and adding another driver internal or external firewire..

Ok enough ramblings from me

[arvidtp]

be cautious of the Mbox - while quick and easy, it is not a great interface (high latency, non-standard driver, sometimes buggy) and Pro TOols LE on OS X is a serious problem. I find it very CPU inefficient, slow, buggy and limiting. Also not great for composition. If it just worked and did what it claims to do, it would be fine. But it is the instability that bugs me (no pun intended).

On the other hand, I just bought Logic Pro, and I am loving it, besides the frustration of learning new software (and logic is more complex than PT) it is like a whole other world (like a new double powered music computer!) - so much more CPU efficient, flexible and with the added bonus of being able to Jack in other software like MaxMSP. The soft instruments and effects (particularly space designer) are impressive to say the least. And all this is still with the Mbox as a primary audio interface (switching to built-in to play soft-instruments for lower latency). Logic must be great with a nice one like the MOTU 828. Wow. cool.

[gingau]

would be interesting to know what is the most important in order
Ram Size
CPU Grunt ... single or duel
Hard drive speed/separation from OS.

I mean if you have say a 1ghz G4 with 1 gig of RAM and an external firewaire hard drive
is it gonna be better than say a fast G4/5 with say 512 ram and no external drive.
where is the cross over point ?

Here's my take on it
RAM - smoother ride
CPU - faster ride (but is not noticable on all software)
external - depends on the software, but usually recomended.

Certainly for your needs a G4 will do everything you ask of it, and is $600 - $1600 cheaper than the G5's
you could max the ram on the 4 for about $800 (http://dealram.com/), although I wouln't be surprised if 1G of ram will be sufficient for you.

I don't think you will see much speed dif between the two models or even with a dual proc for what you want to do, so, yes, it is better in that you get the same work done for cheaper.

This post has been edited by gingau: Sat 17 Jul 2004, 14:56

[shaneblyth]

would be interesting to know what is the most important in order
Ram Size
CPU Grunt ... single or duel
Hard drive speed/separation from OS.

I mean if you have say a 1ghz G4 with 1 gig of RAM and an external firewaire hard drive
is it gonna be better than say a fast G4/5 with say 512 ram and no external drive.
where is the cross over point ?

Here's my take on it
RAM - smoother ride
CPU - faster ride (but is not noticable on all software)
external - depends on the software, but usually recomended.

Certainly for your needs a G4 will do everything you ask of it, and is $600 - $1600 cheaper than the G5's
you could max the ram on the 4 for about $800 (http://dealram.com/), although I wouln't be surprised if 1G of ram will be sufficient for you.

I don't think you will see much speed dif between the two models or even with a dual proc for what you want to do, so, yes, it is better in that you get the same work done for cheaper.

cool so max the ram out and keep a fast G4 then and what about the need for another drive .. if so what do you recommend ? I have not settled on a notebook style unit for portability or maybe an imac or similar which do u think is a better one to go for... how portable are imacs? if i had to move it once very 3-6 months total I assume it is easy enough to do but i doubt I would have to but who knows

cheers again