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]

Baghun: OK, Pro Tools X isn't out yet, but it's due in January. Live 2.0 isn't out either, but it's due out this month (which seeing as it's the 12th already must mean pretty darned soon).

Good suggestions from Hamish, though I'd shrink from calling Logic a "basic sequencer". An "incredibly powerful, complicated sequencer" perhaps. Even the leaner Silver edition is more than many people ever need. Logic is excellent, but Live is very easy to use, particularly if you want kids to use it, and is set to gain some important new features in v.2.

Goldmike: Melodyne is very cool, but very expensive. I'm lucky enough to have a copy, too, and it's fantastic. But maybe too much for musicteacher's needs.