Need Advice On Buying My First Mac!, help a newbie out..... Options

[astralweeks]

hello all,

i'm about to dive into the wonderful world of apple computers for 2 things: audio and video. I have used (and built) PC's for years, but i'm ready to get semi-professional with my productions and there is really no way to do that without using a mac. BUT: i know little about Mac's in general, let alone the specific things i need for audio applications.

i've been checking out different power mac systems, and as of right now a g5 is out of the question, so i'm looking at g4. should i get a dual processor? or a faster single processor? exactly what speed CPU should i be looking at when i go to buy a system? my friend has a dual 1 ghz g4 he wants to sell me: how solid would this system be for my needs?

i've messed around with recording on PC's before, so i know more ram = better, faster HDD = better, etc....i'm just wondering if the transition to mac will be an easy and productive one.

if anyone could help me out i'd really appreciate it!

[shaneblyth]

I changed 6 months ago and it is not too painful.. you will find some frustrating things no doubt only because you will be use to doing things a certain way.
I bought a Powerbook with a gig of ram and have been very happy, just bought a Mac Mini to replace my Dell Optiplex 2.4GHZ and am happy with it too.
You probably need to be a little more specific as to what you actually intend to do with the audio and video
I have 8000 photos and a DVI camcorder that I use to make DVD's for me at home and both do a good job.
Just grab plenty of ram and use things like Monolingual to remove 1 gig of extra language files you dont need !
learn to repair permissions from the disk utilities and maybe even grab macaroni for auto maintenece that will satisfy you
"PC" ned to optimise.. not that this is actually that necessary.
www.osxaudio.com is a good place to visit too o a search there for optimising OSX there was a great thread there about it with all the tricks.
One thing you will enjoyt is the easy life and those dam flashy apps that make you go Ohh..
enjoy your new Mac which ever one you get

[astralweeks]

You probably need to be a little more specific as to what you actually intend to do with the audio and video

Hey: thanks for the reply. as for what i want my new system to do: be able to handle a multitude of tracks in mixing/mastering for standard rock band style stuff, probably using some sort of interface. as for video, i have a miniDV cam which i am just learning the ropes of so standard editing stuff for that as well.

[shaneblyth]

the minidv will be wonderful I love ilife apps that come with new Macs including my mini.. Imovie and iDVD are fantastic at muching about with video files... i just dump my movie clips straight thru the firewire port to the app and then arrange the clips as i like and use some of the iDVD themes and make a DVD video my firends can throw in an DVD player complete with animated menus and slide shows, pictures or multiple movies whatever you like it is rediculasly easy to do and very very pro looking.
as for the audio you say multiple tracks of audio.
do you mean you want to record mulitple tracks at once?
maybe say 8 audio tracks or midi tracks in at the same time? or do you mean you want to simply playback lots of tracks?
I'll tell you my setup
Motif ES7 keyboard, I have an Mlan fireiwre card in the Motif ES itself
I plug the firewirte cable into my Macmini and the Motif then passes and midi to my DAW (digital perfromer 4.52) and as the Motif has A/D inputs on the back I can plug in a guitar or Mic or whatever and run it thru the inbuilt Motif ES effects such as compression, reverb, chorus , various amp simulators etc etc .. a bunch of DSP effects anyway... then it all drops down thru the firewire cable to my Macmini all without leaving the digital domain.. very neat and very clean system and only 1 little wire.. so I can laydown lots of midi or audio (you can send any of the motif sounds or drums arps in real time in either Midi or the actual audio itself to your DAW)
you can actually send 8 stereo audio tracks from the Motif ES sequencer all at once in realtime.
sure is a neat system... there are lots of other interfaces of course.
I dont like softsynths cause they take alot of power out of your system

[astralweeks]

as for the audio you say multiple tracks of audio.
do you mean you want to record mulitple tracks at once?
maybe say 8 audio tracks or midi tracks in at the same time? or do you mean you want to simply playback lots of tracks?

thanks again for the long and informative response

what i want to do is record at least 4 audio tracks at once, and be able to play back 24-ish. basically just a good demo situation for a rock band.