Hi Im in my senior year of highschool and for my graduation present my parents are going to buy me some gear for creating music. Ive wanted to create my own electronic music for a long time but could never afford or had a fast enough computer. Since Ill be doing electronic music Ill be dealing with a lot of midi and synthesis. Ive a lot of reserch and have come up with the following

-imac G5, 1gig of ram external hardrive-
-Ni Battery, Reaktor, Kontact
-Korg legacy collection
-Korg Kontrol49 keyboard
-Edirol fa101 or motu 828mkII (dont know if i need the motu for what im doing)

As for my DAW i cant decide. For along time Ive been leaning towards live 4 but Ive been hearing a lot of things about how great more advaced programs like logic and pro tools. I like to have a very capable system but do I really a larger program or would live be okay. At least for now Im going to do everything in the box and eventually buy a console and some hardware. Also would peak be of any use to me. If anybody could give me some adive or opinions that would be great. Thanks

1. Get the second Gig of RAM, make sure outboard is at least 7200 RPM and 250-500 gig. Think about having the 250 gig internal in the IMac -- as mine is half full of samples ikn less than three months....

2. Get Kontakt 2.0 if you can wait -- and Right NOW get Albino 2 for 30 Per cent Off at EW Soundsonline (during NAMM) or:

3. Skip the Korg Legacy - Get some broader Stuff and/Or (FREE)
Synths such as Crystal with 9 LFOs and mucho sound tweeking to work with. I would say the availabilities arer well past ther Korg Legacy unless you are in love with retro sounds and do not want to play with them much.

4.Get (even though bigger in size ) the M-Audio Studio 88 -- under $500 it is awesome at the price!

5. Battery/Reactor should be evaluated against Spectrasonics Stylus RMX before a buy is made...so you can properly purpose your percussion.

Make sure you have superior monitors -- the move to 24 bit gives some wonderful richness not available in the old 16 stuff, but takes more CPU (thus 2 Gig +)

Good luck.

Why not buy Komplete 2 Education if you are a student
or the Komplete2 + Komplete care 2005 bundle

These both contain
# Absynth - Synthesizer with unrivalled sonic potential
# Reaktor 4 - A fusion of Synthesis, Sampling, and Effects
# B4 Organ - The award-winning organ emulation
# FM7 - Radically expanded FM synthesizer
# Pro-53 - The perfect emulation of an analog synth classic
# Kontakt 1.5 - The ultimate sampler
# Kompakt - Features a two gigabyte library Featuring acoustic and electric pianos, basses,and drums
# Intakt - Sampler designed for rhythmic loop playback, manipulation and mayhem.
# Battery - The drum sample expert
# Vokator - The new dimension in vocoding
# Spektral Delay - Unique delay effect

The one bundled with Komplete care 2005 will give you all the paid upgrades released in 2005 for free plus special offers.
This doesn't cost much more than buying Battery, Kontakt and Reaktor separately.

Adding on the RAM, if you plan to use virtual instruments and especially sample players, you'll NEED as much RAM as possible. 1,5 to 2 GB is the minimum for comfort.

Thanks alot Ill definately max out the computer on ram. Any advice on DAWs, logic, live, ProTools. And what interface to pair them up to.

There are already plenty of threads on the pros and cons of the different programs. but it can be summed up as:

- PT, easiest audio manipulation, pro standard, decent MIDI for current use, use of plug-ins others than TDM (needs expensive dedicated hardware), AS or RTAS needs some tricks. Use of a Digidesign interface MANDATORY (only way to be allowed to use PT LE). Digidesign has the nasty habit to lock you on their hardware.
- Logic, certainly the most extensive MIDI out there, steep learning curve, pro result, Audio part is top notch, but PT is easier and faster for layering.
- DP, the "challenger" (in fact they are one of the oldest around) a learning curve, as interface is not Apple standard but easier to grasp than logic, save the MIDI a bit less powerful (you must understand the Environnement in Logic for that) it's on tie with Logic.

Save if you're planning to actually buy a Digidesign interface, I'd choose between Logic and DP. the philosophies are different so you'd better have a look before to buy.