Ibook G4 Suitable For Logic And Garageband?, Is a mac laptop powerful enough? Options

[Anderz]

Hi everyone,

I'm a complete newbie to using macs, let alone using them to record multitracked music.

I am used to using windows PC's running Sonar or Cakewalk Home Studio but have gotten tired with blue screens and numerous compatibility problems that windows machines typically suffer from!

I recently saw the light and purchased an iBook G4 1.2Ghz with 256mb RAM and 30GB HDD and was wondering if it would be powerful enough to run Logic 'properly' with real time effects, multiple 'real' instrument recordings etc? I have a MIDI setup at home which works fine with the laptop in garageband using an Edirol USB UM MIDI input device.

Also I see it has no line in and was wondering what you guys would recommend as a decent quality, low latency USB sound input device?

Any help would be really appreciated!

Many thanks,

Anders

[hydra]

I have that exact same iBook model and I record multitrack music (the most tracks recording live at once is 8, since I'm using a MOTU 828) and it works fine! Most of my things don't break the 24/30 track barrier, so I can't speak for that. Even when I was using the stock 256MB RAM, which I've since upgraded. When it comes to virtual instruments, it depends on what you're using. My main program is Tracktion and it seems to be written well enough so the CPU load doesn't start to get too bad when running, say, a Mellotron VST synth.

As for USB, I haven't tried any with my new iBook, I highly recommend holding out for some kind of Firewire-based device. There's an M-Audio one that's fairly affordable. I tried using USB three years ago with a PowerBook and had all kinds of problems.