What Mac would you get if you're in my shoes?

[dfusion]

All this talking about Mac has gotten me all worked up to get one but not I'm not sure which one is for me. My funds are limited so I'm looking at the low-end. However I'm just a hobbyist who sits down one or two nights a week to write some tunes. Nothing major. I just like to get it out of my system and hopefully get a song finished by the weekend.

Everything I do these days is done in Reason although the one set of software synths I love are the Spectrasonics programs. Right now I'm using Reason 2.5 on my Dell P4/2.4. I don't own Pro Tools LE (use it at another studio on occasion, but at home I master with T-Racks) although I'm cool with getting an Mbox or possibly (gasp!) a 002R. I've already got a couple external Iomega 7200 RPM USB 2.0 hard drives to store my audio and projects. So.....the only thing missing is Mac and like I said I'm trying to keep the budget low + I don't want to buy way more than I need. My PC will remain for 'business' use.

Not sure how much juice I'd get out of a G4 14" iBook but the one thing that blows is the limited amount of RAM. Next in the lineup is a 17" iMac. Decent display, 1.25Ghz of power, 1GB ram, seems adequate and on ebay they are no more than the cost of a new G4 iBook. Lastly, a lowly eMac. I say lowly because the 16" CRT viewable display might feel somewhat cheezy compared to the iBook or flat panel iMac, but under the hood it seems decent for someone like me and its cheap.

Help me, help me.. and thank you for whatever responses I get out of this!

[JFreak]

if the 17" imac fits your budget, just go for it. i have 1.25ghz powerbook and it has reasonable power for everything i need, so i guess the imac should be comparable or even faster. wide display is an asset in protools editing/mixing, so that's why i wouldn't suggest an emac for you. however, if the emac fits into budget and imac doesn't, then buy emac. be sure you buy enough memory (1gig will be fine) and don't try to save few bucks here - good quality memory makes the system far more stable compared to cheap pieces of crap.

sell those usb hard drives and buy firewire hard drive instead if you plan to actually use the external drive in protools. i guess it's ok as a storage space.

[mindnoise]

Next in the lineup is a 17" iMac. Decent display, 1.25Ghz of power, 1GB ram,

Hi, I would say this is an adequate choice for a "low cost" system. IF you can live with the MBOX limitations get it add a midi interface and a audio USB-Hub from Griffin tech. or other companies.

there are cheaper ways but unless you want a deep dive into the Mac hardware world I´d say stay with the above.

besides listen to JFreak.

best

[dfusion]

IF you can live with the MBOX limitations

Contrary to popular belief, I find it more practical to write music entirely within Reason and then export to Pro Tools for a mix session. I'm not doing this for any purpose other than work flow. It just so happens that this conserves CPU and helps make the G4 decision a bit easier. I think the two main 'limitations' of Mbox would be recording vocals (which I do not do currently and if I get that far I hope to invest more) and USB latency within Reason. An Echo Mia gives 5ms latency but I hear the Mbox is 11ms. As for a Midi interface I'm already set as I'm using a USB midi controller that is Windows/OS X compatible.

[Tweak Head]

I'm in a similar position. Currently using a Dell laptop (P4, 2.4mHz, 1 GB RAM, 60g HDD) with PTLE and MBox. The Dell is a nice machine but because it's our general purpose home machine all the other stuff on it slows it down and I don't want to have to go in and change all the settings each time I want to make some music.

Looking to get a music-specific machine and use the Dell for internet, etc. Most of what I do will be with Reason, plus some audio samples and small amounts of audio recorded through the MBox. I'd like to have about 20 tracks and a few plugins, including reverb, amplitube (which are a problem right now...)

What sort of Mac would I need to have similar performance to the Dell? On Ebay a dual 1.25 G4 is around GBP1000, which is about my budget.

Is the dual going to be much better than the single processor?
Is 512 meg RAM enough?

Thanks for your advice.

David

[mindnoise]

1.Is the dual going to be much better than the single processor?
2.Is 512 meg RAM enough?

Thanks for your advice.

David

A 1.25GHz DP is a fine choice!

1. yes in OSX
2. Yes, but 1GB will make thing much smoother and snappier, faster only in a way of user expierience and system response but not in the way of more plugs or track counts. But it´s worth it.
So teh correct answer is No.

best

[nerd513]

g5 1.6 or dual.

[Lucky]

FYI, you can get 1152 MBs of RAM in a iBook G4. There is also a great screen hack to allow screen spanning (not just mirroring). This 14" iBook is a great computer for the price. I have an 002R on my Dual G5 but the mBox is great with the iBook.

[RadioMoo]

I have a lowly eMac. The 17" CRT screen is great: lots of viewable space, good resolution and it's not hard on my eyes (and it can be adjusted).

I use an Mbox mostly for voiceover and commercial work. It sounds very good (not "high end").

From my experience, 512 MB RAM is a good minimum, and so is the 700mHz processor, but if I had it to do again (and I will!), I'd get the 1GB processor. I'd also consider an additional 512 MB RAM: I was working on the audio of a QuickTime Movie the other day, with the movie open in the Pro Tools session because I had to trim a little to get them to sync up--SLOW! I usually don't see the Spinning Beachball much, but ol' Mac met its match that day!

You're looking at a total investment--including the Mbox--of about $1400US. I could go on about every little trick your eMac will do (I'm constantly impressed, and consider it a great investment), but you sound pretty knowledgable already.

[Dale-c]

FYI, you can get 1152 MBs of RAM in a iBook G4. There is also a great screen hack to allow screen spanning (not just mirroring). This 14" iBook is a great computer for the price. I have an 002R on my Dual G5 but the mBox is great with the iBook.

That is cool, I didn't realize you coulod put a 1 GB DIMM in a iBook G4. I use the spanning hack on my iBook G3 and it works well. Actually, all new Macs have this feature.