I'd just like some advice on what to do here. I have a mac g4 tower which only has 20 gigs hard drive space right now (ill get more), and I'm wondering what to do. Should i sell it used and get something better (which I'd rather not), or just get some basic stuff to get started. I want the basic pro tools le, and the mbox setup, its all I can afford right now, plus I'll be working with a studio with pro-tools. I was thinking of going on e-bay for used equipment although I know this is a risk. I got that mac tower on ebay and its been working fine ever since. (about 2 years ago). I basically just want a couple mics, since I'll just be able to use 2 at a time, and to be able to record simple but good sounding stuff. Right now I only have garageband 3, and at my house here we have a couple shure mics (sm58, 57) that I use, and I have acoustic guitars, amps here also. I also use a midi keyboard for software sounds. I want to just be able to record things like acoustic guitar and vocals, electric guitar, etc. just using 2 mics at a time. Just want some advice.

What processor do you have in the G4? ..Ram?

It's a powerpc g4, the processor is 1.2 ghz,
ram is 512 mb , bus speed 100 mhz, and although i dont know if this helps, the L2 cache is 256kb, and the L3 is 2 mb.

The Mac will be fast enough for basic tracking and some moderate mixes. I'd get some more ram ...it's cheap nowadays ...and make use of your firewire port. For starters, look into some Presonus products such as the Firebox, Firepod etc... they will get you a couple basic channels for fairly cheap. All depends on your budget when it come to the program, but I'm partial to Logic ...Logic express is cheap enough and powerful enough to get you what you need.

As far as mics ...all comes down to how much you want to spend. I'd suggest starting with one decent condenser. The 57 will get some of the basics done, 'cept maybe vocals... at least for what sounds like to be some mellow acoustic stuff.

Great. Thanks for the advice, I'll look into that.

ok I'm looking at the firebox now, and it is the same price as an mbox 2 would cost me, and they both come with DAW software that I could use. I'd say pro-tools would be a better idea since I'm working with that at school, and I've used it and already like it. So im basically wondering why you'd suggest the firebox when its the same price and features as buying a m-box 2 new would cost.

It's personal taste, but I just trust a presonus product over the mbox. Plus PT that comes with it is hardly pro tools ..it's a very limited version with pretty crappy midi editing capabilities. There are other programs out there that can outperform it for around the same price.

hmm yeah that sounds smart. I do like using midi right now but I only have garageband. I haven't really used anything like reason. Is the pro tools midi editing stuff anything like garageband?
I like some stuff I can do with garageband but it doesnt seem that great for it.

hi.
If you choose to go with Pro Tools, please ensure you check very carefully the compatibility page at the digidesign website. If you are running garageband 3 then I am assuming you have your Mac OS quite up to date. Pro Tools is very choosy about the version of the OS !!

One thing with Pro Tools is that you do get some pretty tasty plug ins and extras if you buy the m-box and ignition packs. They will probably require a better computer to run though!

Reason is a pretty cool program. I found the MIDI editing reasonably OK with this, and I'm pretty much a midiot!

Hope you end up with something you're happy with

T

Digi Compatibility Page

thanks a lot for that link. Although could you or anyone tell me how much disk space pro tools le would take? or even cubase or any other program you might yourself use? Right now I only have a shitty 20 gigs on my hard drive.

no idea really, but 20 gigs would cover most installs.

You will need another drive to record your audio to though. That is pretty much mandatory!

T