Sheehan

Best Route For My Money: A Small Novel

Hey guys, let me start off by introducing myself. My name is Joe, I'm a drummer, an amateur audio engineer, and I love music. I used to play in a pop/punk rock band but we broke up and I sold most of my recording gear (If you could have even called it that). I have since 'graduated', if you will, to a more satisfying funk/soul/jazz flavored band, and consequently re-ignited my passion for recording, mixing, and producing music. With my past in a rock band came experience with tracking and mixing but I want to do things differently than a laptop, a few mics and an 8 channel firewire this time.

Let me cut to the chase. I recently came across a Digidesign 882 I/O and PCI card on Craigslist. I wondered what it was that made an 8 channel i/o so cheap? ($100). I downloaded the manual from the archive on digidesign.com and read up. Now I get it! It's old! Despite its age, the specifications and capabilities look like the right level for my purpose. The catch was, however, being the PCI noob that I am, that I didn't know I needed a desktop computer to make it happen. oops.

My dad has owned macs since the dawn of time and currently uses a G4 400mhz with almost 2gb of ram and 100gb HD space. We've been telling him to get a new computer for what seems like years now, and he's finally getting the message. He told me that once he does I could use/cannibalize his computer to build a studio machine. With that said, I was concerned that the processor speed wasn't going to cut it with a ProTools rig, so I set out to craigslist once again. I found a G4 with dual 500mhz processors and no HD being sold for $130 something. I talked him down to $100 and the computer is mine as soon as I can get there to pick it up! As soon as I get it I plan on cleaning the HD's from my dad's old G4, removing those, and the RAM and putting them in the Dual 500 machine. I have a Mackie 1604 board, KRK RP8 monitors, several good mics, a few sets of cans, and other assorted studio goodies to go with this set up. All in all, the new G4 dual, and the 882 will run me right around $200.

Now, with most of my saga in a nutshell told, it's time to ask (almost after the fact it seems) if this path is the best one for me. So far, I have invested no money, no computers have been picked apart, and no money has exchanged hands. I just felt like since I have never really entered the realm of PCI interfaces, and have somewhat limited (but competent) knowledge of ProTools and Digidesign, it would be best to get some opinions and advice from people who definitely know what they're talking about. At this point it would probably be good to mention that I'm not looking to record a platinum album, just have a solid, clean, clear, expandable set up that will work for me and track my funk band with few issues.

So, I'm sorry for the novel, here goes:

-Would the Franken-computer I mentioned above track, mix/edit, and over all function properly? (G4 dual 500mhz, 2+gb RAM, 2 HD's: 20gb, 80gb) Before you say no, could you tell me why or what I would need to do to make it work?

-Is the PCI interface system too complicated for someone like me to figure out? Before you say yes, could you tell me why and what I would need to do to figure it out?

-Is this set up too ancient to take me very far into the future of recording and music? (To be clear, I know that a lot of studios/engineers still use G4's and older OS's and versions of PT very competently. I'd likely be running OSX 10.4 with PT TDM 6.4 (+updates)


I think that's all that I have for now, and I look forward to any advice you can give me. If you think this would be better suited in the digidesign subforum, moderators, please move it as you see fit.



Thank you for your help, I appreciate the opportunity.

Joe Sheehan