g4 or imac???

[stratman]

I'm thinking of trying out mac for my audio recording. At the present time I am using a PC which I am pretty happy with. Just want to see what is all the hype about the industry standard mac audio recording is all about. I already have a MOTU 828 and plenty of firewire HD spaces. I also am in a budget so I am going for the least expensive mac I can get. I was wondering if a G4 450mhz be sufficient enough to record 24 audio trks? How about G3 imacs? Can they give me a good quality recording. Any comments or help would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[charger]

If you're happy with what you have, why switch? The only difference between PC and Mac for your hardware is that you can use Digital Performer, which I wouldn't go so far as to call "the industry standard Mac audio recording." If you use Cubase or something similar, the apps are the same, the audio engine is the same, etc...

Anyway, I would consider a G4-450 to be underpowered nowadays, and far too obsolete to make it the cornerstone of your studio. A G3 iMac is not worth the time to discuss. I would aim for at least a 733 or 800 if you're buying a G4, and remember, that's still going to be pretty underpowered when you start talking plugin count and higher track counts. I have a G4-933, and I consider it to be a fairly slow machine (compared to the current crop of budget PCs and even the cheapest new G4 Macs)... It doesn't matter a whole lot to me since I use dedicated audio DSP hardware, so the processor isn't presenting a bottleneck... but that is not the case for most systems.

 

[Aleeyen]

24 Tracks on a G4, no prob

Sure, you'll get your 24 tracks on a G4. Heck, you'll get 24 tracks on a G3 350. The only things that might prevent this is 24 bit resolution and the number of plugins you assign.

MAC is the way to go in my opinion. But as long as you are happy with your current setup, why change? Hey, if it ain't broke...