Hello All. This is my first post to your wonderfully helpful forums and I figure you'd be of great assistance. I recently purchased a full set up of DJ equipment consisting of 2 Numark Direct Drive Turntables and a simple Gemini 2 channel mixer. I am looking to buy a new computer in January. I am in the market for a mac and am looking at the laptops. The Powerbooks are out of my price range (under $1500) and I figure I will look into the iBooks. Does anyone have any suggestions as to what kind of set up I can get to record mixes from my DJ equipment onto a decent mac laptop?
I dont know if any of this makes much sense, but if anyone can make sense of it and reply I would appreciate it greatly.

-Jay

PS: I also would like to be able to burn DVDs since I also do video editing, but the DVD burner can probably wait until April as I can ask for it as a B-Day gift

What you need is (a) a Mac and (b) an audio interface. There are plenty of the latter available - search the Getting Started forums here for people asking a similar question (ie what interface should I buy? and so forth).

If all you want to do is record a stereo signal to your Mac, a USB interface should be OK. Edirol do some reasonably priced, simple solutions (I like the UA-5, but it's not cheap) or you could try the Tascam US-122 (also pretty good and quite cheap). If you want to get into audio multitrack recording and maybe Midi, too, that's a whole different ball game.

Accept that quality costs a certain amount of money, whatever you end up choosing. A lot of people try the Griffin iMic ($35) as their first audio-in solution, but usually end up frustrated and disappointed. Make the jump to $100+ and you'll get a much more substantial solution.

A new G4 iBook will be more than enough Mac for your recording needs. I think you might get some audio editing software bundled with new Macs, too, these days - it might be Sound Studio. If it is, that'll be OK for editing your set. Beyond this, there is a plethora of music software available - check the Getting Started forums for more leads.

Finally, the NAMM show in January should see a load of new products announced that you might be interested in - keep an eye on the News section here around that time.

Any more specific questions, ask again.