Help Me Get The Best Setup For Me.. Thanks Options

[shaneblyth]

I am totally new to Macs so new I have not bought one yet but want to in the next little while purely for Music.
I have a really good Keyboard Midi Synth, and a proffessional Mixer, PA, and Mics as well as an electric guitar and base.
I am a one man band who wants to record on this equipment using a MAC.. I dont expect to be selling my stuff but who knows one day

Can people suggest what is a good system to buy ?
and what about additional hardware ? I intend to be recoding only 1 audio track at a time so what should I use to interface with my external gear and MIDI . what spec of MAC would you suggest ?
and what would you recommend for software and why..

I know it is a big ask but you would be helping a soon to be EX PC user get into some good gear and systems finally where i can hopefully create some good quality Music.

Cheers I appreciate your time and input

Shane

[gingau]

external firewire drives are recommended for audio as the speed is faster than the mac internal. I don't know what speed the new G5's have. (7200rpm is what you want).

You can plug the mixer output directly into the mac with the right adapter (radioshack has them all), and then select "built in audio in the AudioMIDI setup. It's a stereo input, but you only have to record enable one channel at a time if you want.

You could get away with no midi interface by just playing the synth through the mixer and recording it that way You lose the nice midi editing capablities, but even with the interface you will have to play the midi track back through the synth and mixer to get it into audio state (either before or during the final mixdown).