Hello all,

I have decided to kick the PC habit and migrate to a mac for my audio work. The trouble is the macs are rather expensive. Yes, yes i know you get a lot more stablility, compatablility etc with a mac but unfortunately my back manager does not see things my way.

I am looking to buy a refurbished titanium powerbook g4/500 wit a 10 GB hard drive and 128 MB RAM. Are these specs too low to run say digital performer? Do you recommend a used laptop to sequence midi and record audio with? Spce is an issue with me so i try and save it where i can.

I appreciate your input

How much do you intend to spend? If you go for the Tibook G4, you'll probably need to add some more RAM and a bigger/faster drive. Consider a new iBook G4. New is new!

I am not really willing to spend over $1000. I know that is not much in the mac world but that is all i have to invest. Can you get an iBook for that price?

In the U.S. you can. The machine has a G4 800 MHz, 30 GB HD, and 256 MB RAM. In Europe you have to pay just a bit more (worth saving for).

Would you mind giving me some links to websites that sell iBooks for that price? The apple store is a dead end so far.
I really appreciate your help.

Supposing you're in the US, for used Macs try www.powerbookguy.com, www.smalldog.com or www.powermax.com (sell new too); for new stuff try www.macmall.com, www.maczone.com, or, for an extended list http://hotdeals.apple.com/ (on the right of the page). The rest is up to you. Nice hunting

Thanks for the help!
It is difficult figuring out all this stuff especially for a long time windoze user. One last question... if i buy the titanium powerbook and connect a motu 828 an extra firewire drive to it, wil this be enough to handle audio? I guess I am trying to find out if a 500 MHz laptop will keep up with all that processing.

Hello there,
I think that your set up is good enough to record and playback audio without any problems, as usual (and it is a cliche I know) it all depends on what you want to do.In theory a Powerbook g4, 500 MHz working with a Motu 828 should not give you any problems for an average project.I would recommend a couple of things though, firstly max out the amount of RAM (you said you had 128 MB of RAM, 256 MB of RAM it is the minimum required, check out the system requirements for DP 3 and DP 4 here, http://www.motu.com/english/software/dp/dp....html).Secondly I would try to get an external Firewire hardrive running at 7200 r.p.m. to record and playback your audio from there.

If you do this couple of things you have a good recording setup, but bear in mind what you want to do with it as well.If you want to record 8 tracks simultaneously at say 24 bit, 96 Khz while playing back 12 tracks with plug-ins and reverbs all over the place surely it will not handle it!!!!

I hope it helps!!!

Thanks your majesty!

You have settled my worries. I have gone ahead and ordered the machine. It should be here in a week or so. I will then max out the RAM as you suggested- I will not be able to get DP4 staight away but I plan on using pro tools free to seqnce midi and audiodesk for recording audio tracks. I will certainly let you know how things work out.

Thanks for your help.

ssagala,

Hey let me know how it goes. I'm having terrible problems finding an audio interface that works with my TiBook 500 on Panther. The M-Audio firewire 410 is not working. Works under Jag, though. You might want to run Jaguar if you can't get it all working in Panther. I'm selling my 410 and waiting until I hear SOMEONE having success on a first-gen TiBook with ANY audio interface at all under Panther. So far, I can't find anyone. Other machines, no problem. But not the first-gen (400/500 MHz) TiBooks.