Making Music With A New Ibook, Looking for setup help Options

[musicteacher]

I am a public school music teacher who is thinking about getting a new iBook to use as a portable music making tool. Here's what I would like to do with it:

1. Sequence backing tracks in various musical styles for my students to play along with in class. I'd want to burn these backing tracks onto cd and bring them into the classroom so my kids can jam to a calypso-style "This Land Is Your Land" or whatever. What would be good software to do this with an iBook?

2. Record my own music and my students music either live or track by track - what is the best way to get sound into an iBook?

3. Begin to explore the world of software synths. Which ones are easy to use and can interact well with the software/hardware used for the above two items?

I hope that's clear enough. I'd appreciate any suggestions. If there's anyone answering who lives in the NYC area and can help me in person with this I'd be really grateful. Thank you for supporting public education.

[rickenbacker]

Logic 5.x, Cubase SX, Pro Tools, Bias Deck & Peak, Storm 2.0, Reason 2.0 and Live 2.0 all run on OS X (10.2 preferred). Digital Performer is the only "major" sequencer yet to transfer to OS X.

There is also an OS X-specific Midi-only sequencing application called Intuem, which is OK and pretty cheap, though it has had teething troubles. With software, you generally get what you pay for.

Older soft synths like the Native Instrument collection do not run on OS X yet. There is also the issue of VST vs Audio Units for plug-ins in OS X: Logic only allows Audio Units, Cubase only VST. Thus, when you make a choice about your sequencer, you're making a choice about your future plug-in options.

Audio Units are the preferred choice for Mac musicians on OS X, being based at system-level and thus more efficient than VST, but there is good stuff appearing for VST in OS X. Storm 2.0, for instance, is VST-based, so could plug-in to Cubase but not Logic.

ReWire is another concern: Logic 5 in OS X still doesn't support it, Cubase does. So if you have Reason 2.0 for the synths, you can hook it up to Cubase or Live, say, for the multitrack sequencing and audio recording.

A good budget system (relatively speaking, as it always is with computers) would be Reason 2.0 and Live 2.0 and hook them up via ReWire. That way you get Midi and audio recording, plus an excellent collection of soft synths in Reason and Live's creative, flexible approach to recording/remixing.

Alternatively, Storm is a good cheap option, with Logic Platinum the best there is, IMHO. In most sequencers you get a few free synths and FX, too, so you can get started straight away.

Personally, I use Reason, Live, Storm and Logic on a 600MHz iBook, all in OS X. My interface is an Edirol UA-700, via USB, which I bought because of the onboard FX and guitar amp / microphone modelling sections, which are really great. It's also got every kind of connection you could ever need.

I've tried most of the interfaces around (under £500, anyway) and I like the Edirol stuff a lot. The UA-5 is another great solution if you don't need the extra FX: it has all the connections of the UA-700. The only drawback is the OS X drivers are still being worked out - for the most part the Beta driver works fine, but I'd still like them to finish the job!

FireWire is faster and some people will tell you USB is too slow for music, but if you're only recording a couple of tracks at a time, USB is fine. It's only a problem if you try to record and playback something like 8+ sources at once - miking up a live orchestra, say. For 2-in, 2-out recording, USB is fine.

Hope that helps and doesn't make the matter even more complicated!