Newbie Tearing Hair Out!, Focusrite saffire - cubase le Options

[Foxyphil]

Set up. emac G4 1.25 Ghz, 512 ram. 80Gb hard drive.

I intend to max out on ram soon, plus get a Carrrilon (may be U K make) firewire drive, 300 Gb.

Whats driving me crazy is the abysmal performance of my midi 0audio system. At 24bit 96 hz I get ONE track of midi before keyboard fails to impact on midi recorder. At 24 - 44 hz, that goes up to a staggering TWO tracks. Quite a lot of glitches too. I know my mac set up is far from leading -edge, but this performance is ridiculous.

My question is, could it be that the Saffire itself, or cubase le itself, is defective. If so, Id better contact distributor, but I anticipate a rough ride. I know that people have been recording at high resolution for years before G5 s were on the market. G4 s used to be the benchmark.! If Im missing something obvious, pls let me now. I think I have conservative buffer settings - although get no latency at all. At the moment, the saffire s best use is as a high end pre amp for itunes, not what I had in mind . HELP!!!

Many thanks in advance Phil