Ableton Forum

I am fairly new to Ableton and thinking of buying a powerbook to use for DJing and some production work. Right now with my student discount I can get a powerbook g4 1.67, 15.2 inch screen 512 ram, 80 gig hardrive with superdrive for $2100. My school ofcouse is totally mac biased and is saying that it is the best deal for my money but I have been a pc user for years. I am slowly becoming more of a fan of macs since starting school but I was wondering if anyone could tell me if I could get a PC note book that would be more for my moneys worth. Any suggestions? Please help.

It depends if you like the style of Apple powerbooks. They're sleek and hip looking. But they're a ripoff. You could get a PC notebook that smokes the powerbook's performance (especially when using Live, which is sluggish on Macs) for probably $1500. If you aren't already hooked on OS X, then I would go with a PC.

I use only Macs and am eternally pissed off at how expensive and underpowered they are. Now with Mactels around the corner, although I am in desperate need of a new laptop or desktop, I can't bring myself to buy one right now. Only reason I don't get a PC is I fucking hate XP. If you don't hate XP, then enjoy price competition in PC hardware, which will never come to MACs because Apple (illegally, in my opinion) ties its hardware to software. I'm waiting for the day that Macs, although they'll always be overpriced, will be somewhat of a better value at least (get more ooomph for that high price).

My thoughts.


Peace,
Dave

Hmmm... looks like this decision is going to be harder than I thought. I hate xp myself compared to tiger but I am all about speed and performance. What's a Mactell? I think you are referring to a next generation mac, maybe?

yea the intel based macs coming next year. but dont bother waiting for those, theyre gona be expensive in the beginning cuz thats how apple likes it. just get yourself that powerbook that you described in your first post. they're really stable. you might wana get an external HD though, if you're planning on using Live on it a lot.

I like my 1.6 gig Pentium M notebook a lot. It's a Fujitsu Lifebook with 512 RAM, great 15inch screen, harddrive and optical drive are nothing special, but 4 USB ports and firewire. With a five-year warranty it was only around 1500 USD. I just looked at that and then looked back at the powerbook I was considering, and I read the Live 4 Performance Test thread on here, and it made my choice pretty easy.

I would love to work in OSX, or in something like the KDE desktop, instead of Win XP. But, you can tweak XP and make it work for you. The XP PowerToys like the virtual desktop manager are cool. I don't know, different people like to work in different environments.

Apple will be releasing the Intel chips into their lower-end machines to start with. We won't see the new chips in the Powerbook line for at least two years, and you can probably tack on another six months to that estimation if Apple's history of meeting release dates is any indication of things to come.

k

I just found a place over on cnet.com that has it for only $1960. That seems like a good enough deal to not pass up.

For 1.5Ghz 15''PB i paid 1800Euro in germany.

The apple computers are tools for profesional audio and video job.
Its like if you want to record vocals or ........you need to get a good mic like neuman U87 or AKG 414.
So APPLE=NEUMAN U87,AKG 414.

In my opinion, Mac has fallen behind the PC market in the performance category. The laptops are where the biggest disparity can be seen. The PowerBook has been relatively unchanged for years.


If you can wait just a little bit longer.... the first companies have started shipping new PC laptops which use desktop AMD Athlon 64 X2 processors. This is AMDs new dual-core chip. One of those laptops could probably outperform a full-blown Mac G5 desktop with two CPUs. (At least for Ableton Live, which can't utilize dual processors yet)

Intel dual-core chips can't be far down the road, either.

I'm buying a PC laptop sometime between now and end of July. But I'm being patient for the new dual-core chips. I really hope to snag one of those boxes soon.

Damn I love 414's... sorry if this is off topic but they never give me trouble...

I bought a Mac after having a Dell laptop, the ibook is much better..

It works, doesnt crash and I feel safe using all the software for it.

With PC's you get a third party soundcard trying to talk to a third party external hard drive, with an specific processor and all controlled by a third party mouse and keyboard.

with an apple its all been made to work with your software.

but the performance issues are apparent... however if your just starting out on Live, you wont notice as much. plus by the time youre really pushing the envelope, the Intel Apples will be out.

Danny boy wrote:but the performance issues are apparent... however if your just starting out on Live, you wont notice as much. plus by the time youre really pushing the envelope, the Intel Apples will be out.

Good advice, I'd add to it that you should definitly think about the 12" powerbook for Live. The 1.67 is only 5% better in Live 4 performance tests, and it costs 500$ more, at a bare minimum, more like 650$ more.......

The macintels could possibly not run much else besides Live 5, or even 6, and third party plug in manufacturers will have to have made an x86 mac version. This could take up to a year, if migration from OS9 to OS X is any indicator. Some software companies took as long as two years to port.

Basically the powerbooks now aren't that fast, so don't spend a lot of money getting the top of the line, when next year the macintels will perform up to three times faster!

DJ VAKIS wrote:For 1.5Ghz 15''PB i paid 1800Euro in germany.

The apple computers are tools for profesional audio and video job.
Its like if you want to record vocals or ........you need to get a good mic like neuman U87 or AKG 414.
So APPLE=NEUMAN U87,AKG 414.

Why does someone always have to post this sort of comment.
Professionalism comes from the proficiency of the end user.
It really has nothing to do with the model laptop you use.
Comparing APPLE to a Neuman U87 for example is useless.
Give a Sure SM58 to a really accomplished singer and a Neuman to someone who cant hold a tune and which one is going to record a better vocal ?
Not every pro-muso uses them either or are you going to tell me that Kraftwerk and SquarePusher aren't "professional" because they use Sony Vaio Notebooks running Xp Pro?
I still maintain you buy the platform with the operating system you are most comfortable with.
The flip side of my Neuman VS Sure 58 analogy is quite simply this.
Raw power does not = better music either.
I wouldn't necessarily see the speed of a Powerbook as a big handycap myself.
It just means you learn to work in more efficient ways and become clever with allocation of CPU resources.
The PC may give you more "raw power" .
Neither platform creates "better music" than the other.
That is up too the efficiency, expertise and professionalism of the end user.

I have a Powerbook G4 1.67ghz 15" lcd screen 100GB hard drive 1GB ram + super drive (u gotta get the superdrive!!!) i also have a Lacie 200GB external hard drive cause i run ableton for dj-ing too.

best shit ever...between $2,500-3,000

Hey DJSK. I started the program that you are in last month...i just bought a 15" G4 Powerbook 1.5GHz 100GB hard drive, 1GB of RAM and a 160GB external Lacie HD. It is on it's way to me as we speak!! I am also purchasing the Digi 002Rack in a few days.... We should meet up at school or something since we seem to be kind of on the same path. Where are you from and when did you start the program? I'm from Columbus, Ohio. I transfered out of BS and CMI so I will be starting MA next month. Peace. Travis

BTW... I have a pretty good grasp on Ableton if you have any questions or just want to throw around some ideas. Peace. T