Powerbook And Logic Express Options

[samplamatic]

Hi all,

I am just about to purchase a 15 inch G4 powerbook 1.5ghz and intend to run Logic Express.

Would anyone be able to tell me how many tracks of audio I could expect to run smoothly if:

- no plug ins are being used
- recorded at 16 bit quality

Cheers

[arvidtp]

dunno, but I expect all 48 that it lets you have. It had better with a 1.5 GHz and no plugs. But maybe at that point it depends more on hard drive speed than processor speed. good luck.

[kolo]

To run the mac as a straight up multitrack tape deck is cool. I had so much stress on my system running virtual inst. that I finally just got a few midi rack pieces and wow, what a difference. I don't know exactly how many you will get but probably plenty. But for a small additional cost you must buy an external firewire drive dedicated to audio.

[robomark29]

Even with a dual 1 gighz G4 I still shy away from softsynths. Frankly when good hardware synths available for not much more, why bother? Plus you get some really great interfaces with the better synths like the Access Virus C. Plus they have resale value, where as legally you can't even sell most software.

Mark

[bogh]

If your're not using any effects or soft-synths, the limit wil be your hard drive speed. Playing audio alone hardly uses any processor power.
I use a 12" 1Ghz Powerbook with Logic Platinum 6, and have recently completed a project with about 20 tracks of 16bit audio running from the Powerbooks internal 4200rpm hard drive. The hard drive was at about 60% (with occasional peaks above that), so there was probably room for a few additional tracks, but if you want 48 tracks, you'll probably need an external firewire/usb hard drive.

[gdoubleyou]

Should be no problem playing back 48 tracks, disk speed is the primary factor for track count.

After testing 60 audio tracks on my ancient G4/400 I became bored.

I also have a 12-inch 1GHz Powerbook, I've been able to use up to 16 soft-synths in a song, using the "Freeze" function to free up CPU.

I've yet to max it out.

[gollumis]

hello, i am thinking about getting the mbox wich comes with protools le. my concern is track count, i have a g4 400mhz with 648 of ram. could somebody give me some advice on this. if protools doesn't have a good track count, which program does? thanks

[gdoubleyou]

PTLE has 32 tracks max, you will need more RAM for OSX. Straight audio tracks without processing you will be able to get all 32 tracks.

Mileage will vary depending on what type of plugins you use. You might want to look into CPU upgrade card for your G4 if you use alot of plugs.