Soft synth newbie would like some help

[antofants]

I've been recording audio for a while but never messed around with soft synth or virtual instrument stuff and would like to begin to do so. I have a dual 533 mac still hitting DP3 on OS9. I'm considering doing both upgrades to OSX and DP5 in the near future. However, since my audio puter is only a dual 533 processor, I didn't know how well it would deal with soft synths and audio recording at the same time. So, I also have a Dell at my disposal with a 755 processor. I know that there is a way to incorporate both the mac and dell together, but I'm not certain how and would appreciate some insight. Will I have to purchase another audio interface for the dell or will the sound card within (factory) work.
Also, how does the entire soft synth thing work. Will I have to get a sampler program like mach5 and then also purchase different instruments or do the different instruments just work on there own (does that make sense). I'm just not certain how/where to dive in and what direction to go. I also have a VERY limited budget to work on, so I can't afford top shelf anything.
Thanks in advance for advice and insight.

 

[Tizzo]

do you have a midi interface as well? I'm also not familiar with DP, what type of plugins do they have? Most softsynths are either AU or VST files that are opened as a plugin within your audio software. Some even open stand alone like some of the native instruments synths. I've never worked on computers like yours so I'm not sure how they'd react to both midi and audio at the same time, probably not well.

One Idea that may work is using one computer for audio and the other for midi. You'd have to buy a midi interface for the dell with the ability of connecting the two computers with some sort of clock source via SPDIF/Coaxial/ADAT.

Your best bet may just to dive in and use trial and error.