12" G4 ibook & MBox. anyone using this setup?

[Justin_M]

Greetings Mac users, I'm a windows user thinking of going to the dark side and need some advice. I use Pro Tools for producing and remixing electronic music. I am running a 001 on a pretty powerfull windows machine but as you probably know there are not very many RTAS plugins for windows machines, especially soft-synths. I want to be able to program and record to audio soft-synths and use Reason at the same time. also to be able to record away from home, mostly vocal or guitar tracks. most if not all of my heavy PCU intensive work will be done on my 001 Machine. Will an new G4 ibook 800 with 612mb of RAM a firewire hard drive and a MBox work for what i need it for?

[O.G. Killa]

Hi!

I was in the same boat a few months ago. I have a PC/Mbox at home. I am lucky to be able to work in professional studios with HD/TDM systems on Macs a lot so I am very familiar with using Protools on a mac (actually, the Mac keyboard shortcuts are second nature to me...I always have to stop and think for a minute when on PC cuz the Command and Ctrl keys are reversed for most shortcuts). But I am a very big fan of WinTel computers.

If you're not used to using a mac, that'll be the biggest problem for you. But other than that It works really well!!!

I have a G4 800MHz iBook with 640MB RAM, MBox, FW hard drive, Live, Reason, Stylus, Atmosphere, Trilogy, Sampletank 2 (hate it, going to buy Mach 5 soon). As a production tool it's great. I cna have Reason, Live, SampleTank, Stylus and Trilogy open all at the same time...when I start opening more than a couple Spectrasonic Synths the computer comes to a crawl and I start getting the "exceeding Maximum CPU useage" messages.

I have noticed it is somewhat slower than my PC...but at the same time, I have more tools to work with. I'm very happy with it. I've actually mixed a couple of songs on it too. Not bad but I had to use Audiosuite versions of a lot of the plugins instead of using them realtime. The other thing I had to do is bounce my softsynths to audio tracks to free up processing power.

but just as a portable writing and production tool it works great!

[Justin_M]

your right about learning my way around on a mac. the apple store in the mall offers free classes, that should make the transition easier. well your responce is what i was hoping to hear. i only have one more question for you or any other mac/pc users out there. how well does the mac/pc compatability work w/ PT? i mean (if i create the new sesion w/ the mac/pc compatability box checked) can you just save a session from one system (Mac or PC) to a CD Rom and throw it into the other system and open it up with out problems(asuming i have the same plugins on each computer, which i won't but i know to bounce those down w/ audiosuit plugz), or do you have to "bounce to disk" every channel to a .WAV or .AIFF and start a new sesion on the other computer and "insert audio to track" and piece the sesion back together? did i loose you? i think i lost myself with that question. i'm sure you get what i'm asking. anyway thanks for your input and if anyone else has an opinion on the subject i welcome all advice from all you mac headz.

[Rock_Artist]

Compatibility is great. just remember that now we have VST2RTAS on both. Mac & PC so actually PC laptops offer more power and almost any plugin available as VST got all the plugins you can think off on the PC side.

[Dale-c]

I'll chime in on here as well. I use an Mbox with a G3 700 iBook so it isn't quite up to what you are looking at but I have been very happy with since I upgraded it it 640 MB of RAM.
I too used to use a PC but the Mac was not hard for me to learn as they are more streamlined, cleaner and IMHO just a much more friendly OS.
As for session compatibility, it is flawless in my experience. The one thing you want to watch for is that you burn a CD to a format that can handle the lenght of the files names in your session. Otherwise it may cause you some hassle.

[Justin_M]

VST2RTAS ? This is the first i've heard of PT being compatable w/ VST Plugins. so your saying that windows users have more soft-synths to choose from now? what version (6.?.?) of PT supports VST2? i concidered getting a pc laptop and using cubase on it for the VSTi's and bouncing then to audio and importing them to PT but from my experience, even though the novation bass station and moog modular V sounded great, cubase had a huge, i mean unreasonably huge latency problem with there soft synths. i hope PT dosn't have the same problem. does it? i'm still very tempted to go to the ibook over a windows laptop. i've always wanted to learn the mac format. it's always been a money issue to me but from my understanding, a ibook will be just as good as one of those new centrino PC's for the money (or close enough). i'm affraid if i don't get a mac this time i'll never do it. also on day i would like to experment w/ logic. i've heard that emagic has great soft synths.

[fatdaddy]

Go for it, using a new Al 12 power book with Mbox and 002 as well as a P4 2.5 windows machine and Mirror door dual 1.25 G4, great for a rig on the go though I am spoiled by the gas my 2 desktop machines have (have to audio suite on the lap top).You can use it to do remote stuff and go back to the big machine for hevy edits and plugins. Get MAcOpener for your PC and you can switch back and forth seamlessly with a fire wire drive without having to burn CDS or DVDs other than to back up your data. Logic is a great program but is a lot to get your head around.

[Justin_M]

MacOpener.... where do i get it? thats pretty sweet that you can do that. now does that work in reverse? is it possible to save a sesion on my firewire HD with the PC and open the sesions up on my Mac? by the way, my thanks to everyone for all the input on this subject.

[Justin_M]

well i'm sold. i'm going to the dark side.... now the $500 quetion we have all pondered......... is it worth the extra cash to go with the 12" powerbook instead of the 12" ibook? how much more will i get from the powerbook?

[O.G. Killa]

sorry it took me so long to get back to you, but seems like everyone else has pretty much answered you're questions.

To answer your last question about an iBook or a Powerbook....that's a tricky one. It depends on how you are going to use it. Looking back I wish I had bought the Powerbook but I do like the fact that I had more money to buy plugins. But you see, I don't really use my PC for protools very much now that I have the laptop.

There are two main differences between the iBook and the Powerbook. First, the Powerbook can have upto 1.25GB or RAM where the iBook can only have upto 640MB. Second, The iBook has 256KB of L2 cache, whereas the PowerBook has a 512KB of L2 cache. Cache is very important for anything that is processor intensive. The more cache you have, the quicker your processor will appear to be in certain circumstances.

There are other smaller differences like the PBs can have DVD-R drives whereas the iBs can only have CDR drives. The iBooks only have firewire400 instead of firewire800 that comes with some PBs. Also, Apple's 12" PB is a 1GHz G4 now. So that boost in speed might be a good thing.

If you are just going to use this computer as a remote recording tool then you may only need an iBook. If you are going to be using a lot of softsynths and plugins you may want to opt for the larger L2 cache and more RAM available with the PB.

The other thing to remember is the difference between the PB and the iBook (if they were at the same speed, 800MHz) isn't going to be night and day...it will be a subtle difference. You might be able to have one or two more Softsynths going at one time, or be able to have a couple more effects plugins before you hit the limit. The L2 Cache would probably make an 800MHz PB about 5% faster, if that. The Additional RAM, well...it gives you that much more space to play with. The Fact that the 12" PB has a 1GHz processor instead of an 800MHz processor...well, that's gonna give you some more kick too (I'm guessing about 20% more).

I am happy with my iBook and I can do a lot with it. As a writing tool it's been great! But I've mixed two songs on it and I had to break up the processing into Rhythm Section and Vocals. I would go through and apply EQ, Compression, Delays, etc.. to the rhythm section. And once I did that I would pretty much be at my max...I would then have to save all the settings for each plugin and write them as AudioSuite Plugins. Then I would move on and start working on the vocals (same thing) and then I would usually hit my max before finishing. So I would use audiosuite plugins on the BackGround vocals and then leave the lead vocals using RTAS. It also depends on what plugins you're using...I always ending up having Autotune, BF's LA2A, and Waves' Ren. Reverb going in each song. So between those three alone I am usually at around 40-50% CPU usage.

One suggestion I'd make, I can't remember if I said this in my original post or not...Get the bluetooth option installed if you can. I did and then bought the apple Bluetooth Keyboard and Mouse. Well worth the investment.

Anyway, good luck!