12" Ibook G4 W 1.25 Gb Ram, A workable setup for soft samplers? Options

[jofferman]

Hi everyone,

I'm considering to buy a 12" iBook G4 with maximum ram (1.25 GB) and Logic Express as a replacement for my current setup (an aging PC with 512 MB ram and Logic Silver 4.8).

My main worry is whether or not I will get any decent performance out of my software samplers (most importantly Garritan Personal Orchestra) on such a configuration. I don't mind having to freeze a bunch of tracks if I'm working on a big project (which, in my world, means 20+ tracks), but I do need to be able to run at least a handful of tracks in real-time.

Anyone have any experience with iBooks and soft samplers? I searched the forum a bit, but mostly got "PowerBooks are better than iBooks" - which I'm sure is true. Unfortunately, my budget doesn't really allow for a PB at the mo...

(I could get the 12" PB, but then I'd have to cut on the amount of RAM to stay within budget... more RAM is prolly a better idea )

thx,
Jim.

[roque]

my iBook g4, 640 ram, logic pro can handle 15+ exs orchestra tracks (vsl) with no problem.... I stream vsl from a lacie FW when I need better performance. Freezing becomes necessary when mixing heavy (space designers, etc..)

Personally, I thing any apple portable is weak in terms of dsp, but since sample playback demands low cpu (especially turning exs filters off) it's more a hard disk issue... (hitachi 7k60 hd 7200rpm in this case is very adviceable ;-)

Garritan uses kompakt players, which are not so efficient like exs so expect running less tracks...

if u don't need portability and operating from battery go imac g5 (and it's enough portable for taking to the gig!)