Lo-tech Music-maker, low cpu low ram workstation? Options

[Mr. Jason E. Lec...]

I recently acquired an older iBook G4 for simple on-the-go email and web things. It's running 10.4, 1.33 GHz PPC processor, with only 256 MB RAM. I've been wanting to do some basic music stuff on the bus ride to/from work, but i haven't successfully found a program that runs smoothly. i don't need it to do a lot. and i'm remembering the days before i switched to mac, having a crappy pc with a 500MHz processor, and only like 64 MB of ram, and easily running ReBirth and a couple other programs.

i mainly want a couple drums and synths to work with. i actually got rebirth from the website, but for some reason this iBook's previous owner apparently deleted anything to do with Classic OS, so i don't have os9 on here to run rebirth in. and i don't have the install discs. (i'm not complaining because the iBook was free)

is there anything that could be suggested for me? either a way for me to "re-get" Classic onto my iBook or some sort of os9 emulator.... OR a similar light CPU light on RAM program.

This community has been a huge help to me over the past few years! so i'm sure you guys will have plenty of ideas for me.

[midiwife]

Hi there,

I'd suggest Propellerheads Reason - Rebirth's big brother.

I have a 1GHz Powerbook with 2GB RAM and Reason works fine. It's got a light CPU footprint which is why I also routinely use it rewired to other programs like Cubase on my newer machine.

Plus it's not that expensive.

Otherwise, for a free program you could try Reaper. Reason has all it's own sound modules though but won't let you record long chunks of audio.

Have fun. Free computers are always worth a bit of work!