I'm on a strict budget of $5000.00. is the new g4 ibook 14'' good enough to run mbox on? Or should i just get the 12'' powerbook?

I make hip-hop music so i really use vocal tracks on protoolsLE. no midi required

We use a G4 power book with the mbox and it works great long as you have a seperate external HD youll be cool a 12" or 14" book makes no difference however the screen is your interface to the whole creation process so bigger the better

LOL

Why is the external HD neccessary with this set up? (I have the powerbook and I'm thinking about getting the Mbox)

If you want to record audio you ll be get a lot more tracks running on your machine with a seperate drive that just the way it is All the manufacturers these days will sight this as a fundamental! Drives are cheap these days ,make sure that the drive runs @ 7200 RPM which most do these days LOL

yep... a good 7200rpm external drive is recommended for almost any music recording system whether on ibook PB G4 or a desktop model. Actually, some pros opt for 10,000rpm drives for the ultimate performance.

you may be able to get by using internal drives but your track count may suffer and audio recoridngs could become degraded with artifacts from not being able to keep up with demands

speaking to your question, I really don't think there's likely to be much difference between a 933 iBook and a the 12" pbook.

And i've never heard anybody describe a $5k budget as strict either!

Fast spindle speeds are a bonus, however there are other options. The 15" pbooks (and several pc laptops which are geared towards audio) offer 5400 rpm drives. Also, a friend of mine just got a 7200rpm _internal laptop drive for his 867mhz tibook.

I think if I was on a tight budget of $5000 I'd get a dual 1.8ghz G5, a Motu 828 mk II (never been fond of usb soundcards) and an iBook G4 933. What are we up to now? $4500? okay, so throw in some reference monitors and a halfway decent condenser mic and I'm done shopping.

oh, and save a few hundred bucks for a Jerker from Ikea- no home studio is complete without a Jerker!