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

[shaneblyth]

ooh, here's something I read in a post down a few in this forum (Please Help Me Take The Plunge!). Same type of question as yours

"Digidesign does not recommend using a FireWire drive on the G5, but instead, a second internal Serial ATA drive. Use the external FireWire drive for backup." (charlzz)

would be interesting to know what is the most important in order
Ram Size
CPU Grunt ... single or duel
Hard drive speed/separation from OS.

I mean if you have say a 1ghz G4 with 1 gig of RAM and an external firewaire hard drive
is it gonna be better than say a fast G4/5 with say 512 ram and no external drive.

where is the cross over point ?

if I could say grab a 1.25ghz single processor G4 then slap plenty of RAM and another drive external or otherwise and keep the audio puirely on the other drive is that gonna be a better deal than the single drive and fast CPU ? and maybe a little less ram.

there must be someone who can give us an intelligent answer on this one... I fdont intend to use heaps of audio tracks or try to record more than one audio track at a time. I dont think I would consider anything less than the G4 1.25GHz with 512 ram but really 768 or whatever it is .

How much price difference is there between the option for a G5 over a G4 and sticking with a 1.25 G4 and adding another driver internal or external firewire..

Ok enough ramblings from me