Ibook, Dude is this worth it?

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
tomzy
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Ibook, Dude is this worth it?

Post by tomzy » Mon Jan 09, 2006 11:28 am

YO sup all,

Just wanna ask whether is anyone else using or performing with Ableton Live 5 on an ibook G4 933. Planning to get 1 but second hand so i can spend my other cash on controllers or upgrades. all opinions are welcome ere.

futureproof
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Post by futureproof » Mon Jan 09, 2006 11:39 am

you sure want a mac? How much is it? Have you researched what kind of laptop PC you can get for the same money?

Im not trying to start some mac/pc flame war here. Im just hoping that your choosing mac for the right reasons thats all.
"THE biggest differences between Live 3 & 4 are the things that Live 4 have that are missing in Live 3"

-some dude on KVR.

thx1138
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Post by thx1138 » Mon Jan 09, 2006 11:43 am

I use a 800mhz with 1G of ram, I can run 2 vst's, 4 eq4's, 2 beat repeats and trigger 3 full length tracks for DJ use at the same time. For live work/own material I can get away with most stuff just not too many audio effects 8)
Macbook Pro C2D2.5 17"/4G/OSX.5.6/Live8.12/Brain/Bla bla bla bla

tomzy
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Post by tomzy » Mon Jan 09, 2006 12:05 pm

futureproof wrote:you sure want a mac? How much is it? Have you researched what kind of laptop PC you can get for the same money?
well actually i'm more of a pc pro than mac but i can operate both. Just that i got an offer for this ibook g4 933 mhz 640 ram but lame basic hard drive for a very affordable price. so i decide to spend my cash on upgrading the hard drive n add more rams n stuff. but my worries are the cpu power wondering whether a g4 933mhz is enough or not.
Im not trying to start some mac/pc flame war here. Im just hoping that your choosing mac for the right reasons thats all.
well dont have to start a mac vs pc flame war here. just wanna ask if there's any ole school ibook users out there.
thx1138 wrote:I use a 800mhz with 1G of ram, I can run 2 vst's, 4 eq4's, 2 beat repeats and trigger 3 full length tracks for DJ use at the same time. For live work/own material I can get away with most stuff just not too many audio effects
anyways i will use around 6 audio tracks. 6 eq4s, 6 phaser, 6 erosion, 2 beat repeats and possible more plugins tho. btw thx1138 what's your hard drive speed ?

hoffman2k
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Post by hoffman2k » Mon Jan 09, 2006 12:12 pm

Just hold on...
In 29 hours, there will probably be new ibooks :wink:

suburbanbather
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Post by suburbanbather » Mon Jan 09, 2006 12:23 pm

hoffman2k wrote:Just hold on...
In 29 hours, there will probably be new ibooks :wink:
But how long will we have to hold on for our softwares to catch up with the new ibooks?

I just bought a G4 powerbook about a month ago knowing that better Apple laptops will be available soon. But again how long till Ableton and Native Instruments update their programs. And also the fact that its known to be a bad idea(not always, but a good rule of thumb) to buy first generation computers when it comes to processor intensive work such as audio.

swishniak
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hold on...

Post by swishniak » Mon Jan 09, 2006 12:26 pm

yeah - tomorrow is the yearly apple expo and rumours are theyre going to unveil then new ibooks with intel chips that should be faster and cheaper ... which means there would also be a ton of cheap g4 ibooks on ebay in the coming weeks too.. yeah, mac.

tomzy
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Re: hold on...

Post by tomzy » Mon Jan 09, 2006 12:29 pm

swishniak wrote:yeah - tomorrow is the yearly apple expo and rumours are theyre going to unveil then new ibooks with intel chips that should be faster and cheaper ... which means there would also be a ton of cheap g4 ibooks on ebay in the coming weeks too.. yeah, mac.
yeah that's a reason why that person is selling it lol... btw swishniak ya using an ibook too?

ReverendShank
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Post by ReverendShank » Mon Jan 09, 2006 12:29 pm

I would whole heartedly endorse the purchase. I run 2 macs (PowerBook G4 1.5ghz w/2gb ram & an old iBook G3 600mhz 384mb w/ an army of m-audio controllers; oxygen8, ozonic, trigger finger, uc-33, radium49, mobilepre, and a uno running to some Roland gear), and have never had a problem. OSX combined w/ the arch. of a PowerPC chip, tends to be the deadly duo for comp. audio. Check e-bay and compare the prices on systems just to be sure, but I switched from PC 2yrs ago and have not looked back. No driver problems, no blue screens, no 3 finger salutes or viruses. If you can put up with no or very little freeware, mac is the way to go. Take into consideration that a mac has no problem powering 2 or more usb items, and a firewire device w/o the need for ac adapt. or 4-6pin converters. Also if you ever want to move to protools, you do not want to be using an average PC. In short, you get what you pay for.
RevShank

futureproof
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Post by futureproof » Mon Jan 09, 2006 12:32 pm

tomzy wrote:Just that i got an offer for this ibook g4 933 mhz 640 ram but lame basic hard drive for a very affordable price.
If you can get it real cheap then I think it'll be worth it for the "starbucks factor" alone. Not to mention some of the mac only apps that seem pretty cool...metasynth, audio finder etc..
"THE biggest differences between Live 3 & 4 are the things that Live 4 have that are missing in Live 3"

-some dude on KVR.

tomzy
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Joined: Mon Jan 09, 2006 11:19 am

Post by tomzy » Mon Jan 09, 2006 12:38 pm

futureproof wrote:
tomzy wrote:Just that i got an offer for this ibook g4 933 mhz 640 ram but lame basic hard drive for a very affordable price.
If you can get it real cheap then I think it'll be worth it for the "starbucks factor" alone. Not to mention some of the mac only apps that seem pretty cool...metasynth, audio finder etc..
hmm.. cheap cause if compare to buying a new pc base laptop i could upgrade the ram to 1g and hd to at least a 5400rpm ones. not to mention i wont be using much for production work mainly djing around and possible performing dj set with it.
Last edited by tomzy on Mon Jan 09, 2006 12:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.

forgie
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Post by forgie » Mon Jan 09, 2006 12:38 pm

I'm running a 1.33G iBook... i can run about 6-7 VSTS and about 20 effects (this is a real guestimate, not by any means scientific here).

Live 4 was way more CPU efficient in my limited experience. Which sucks in a way, cos I jumped on board the Live bandwagon a month or two ago, so I only own 5, not 4.

iBooks are great for cheap laptops, only concerns are the 'G4 logic board problem' which plagued a few a iBooks a few years back. The older ones have better keyboards then the new ones btw. They have the best build quality for the money, hands down. Cheap PC laptops are... well I wouldn't want to rely on a cheap PC laptop in any kind of Live situation.

And to ReverendShank... I use a LOT of Mac freeware. From networking utilities to video encoders, to whatever. One of the differences between Mac and PC freeware is that I've NEVER had a piece of mac freeware do anything bad to my system. The worst that has happened is an app that didn't do what it promised. I wish I could say the same about PC freeware. Yikes. Plus if you're a nerd you can compile most linux/unix utilities/apps in OSX. Sorry, I digress from the OT.

Seriously though, the OP should wait til the intel xBooks (i/power/intel/whatever) are announced, then you can leverage more value out of your purchase.

tomzy
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Post by tomzy » Mon Jan 09, 2006 12:45 pm

forgie wrote: iBooks are great for cheap laptops, only concerns are the 'G4 logic board problem' which plagued a few a iBooks a few years back. The older ones have better keyboards then the new ones btw. They have the best build quality for the money, hands down. Cheap PC laptops are... well I wouldn't want to rely on a cheap PC laptop in any kind of Live situation.
yup a friend of mine used to have a keyboard problem with their new ibooks. but i do agree with ya that i wouldnt want to purchase a cheap pc laptop neither.

hoffman2k
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Post by hoffman2k » Mon Jan 09, 2006 12:47 pm

yeah. There's the point. The sooner there are new macs. The cheaper the current ones will get.

If you look well. you could find one of the latest Powerbooks for a bargain....

swishniak
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Post by swishniak » Mon Jan 09, 2006 1:08 pm

ive been using my g3 ibook for about 3 years now. . the only major problem with it now is that most new software needs the g4.

my machine also had the whole logic board nightmare - which actually wasnt much of a nightmare at all - just took 3 weeks to replace and apple paid for everything.

i think if i was more of nerd / more tech. competent, i would spare myself the money and get a pc laptop - but just dont have the know-how or patience to set up my own linux system etc.

in the meantime im trying to get some linux stuff compilied for osx - and plan on upgrading to one of the new machines when theyre cheap enough.

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