Ableton Forum

so i have a 800mhz g3 ibook, which i'll be shortly maxing out to 640mb ram. i'm really excited about the possibility of using live 2.0 to do laptop-based dj sets that include live remix work, as well as incorporating my own prduction into the mix. what kind of potential does my hardware platform have for meeting these goals? any experience doing so with an equivalent, or even less powerful setup?

thanks in advance for any thoughts,

charles

that the one i'm using and i get by alright. it's not screamin' and there are compromises sometimes, but it works for me. i'll be adding another one to the setup shortly which will be off the hizzle for shizzle.

to get the most out of it, i suggest os 9 and using an external box for reverb. that will help you get the most bang for your buck. there's a bunch of posts in these forums that deal with improving the performance on a mac, definately want to check them out. lotsa good stuff.

hope it all goes well,

k

hi. i produce a bunch of weird ambient noise works on my ibook600 with 384 ram (osX) and i can do really beefy layered tracks, but there are the compromises, but in my case i wouldnt actually call it a compromise...just a different way of working. thing is that i will usually have 3 or 4 tracks in live, then i'll bounce the tracks down and then drop the mastered 2 track back into live for another round of layering and effects manipulation. so, my ibook is kinda like a hi-tech layering device. i have also played live with it numerous times with a wacom tablet controlling live. i also do tones of graphic design (procreate painter7) and film work (imovie 2), so i feel as if i got my munnies worth.

Hi,

I am thinking of buying an iBook G3 800 or 900 MHz. I currently use an iMac G3 400 MHz, 528 mb RAM and it gives me about 8 tracks of audio with roughly 8 effects (not the reverb though...). How much do your iBook's give you in terms of tracks/effects?

I think the iMac and iBook have similar spec because they both have 512K L2 cache. However, on the iMac the L2 cache is 'backside' where as on the iBook the L2 cache is 'on the chip'...not sure if this makes a difference? The imac has an IDE Hard drive but I'm not sure what speed it does compared to the iBook's IDE Ultra ATA hard drive..anyone know?

Basically, what I want to know is....are the new iBooks better/worse/the same as my aging iMac DV SE 400 MHz 528 Ram?...when using LIVE.

BIG Thanks for any help offered....

Akroyd

i-Book G3 (30 GB) 800 MHz vs. Powerbook G4 (40GB) 867MHz

In last month's issue of Sound on Sound (MAC OS X issue),
i found an audio test for performance.

Summary: The powerbook's 40GB Toshiba drive has exactly the same specifications as the 30 GB IBM drive in the iBook (12ms average seek time, 4200 rpm spin speed, ATA100 interface), but the powerbook is connected to the rest of the computer via a motherboard w/ a 133 MHz buss speed, compared w/ 100MHz (iBook).

I own a i-Book because by saving $400 -i put it towards software.
But a Powerbook also has dual-monitor support, and with 96kHz sample-rate... advantages are evident with plug-ins. Especially in LOGIC, which is optimised for the G4's Velocity Engine.

I didn't know all this until if found the article. thanks.

Hao Do

i still use my g3 400 for doing stuff with live (PA's and full tracks), you have to be very careful with resources as they run out pretty quickly, but then 75% of my new album was done with it! I have a PC in the studio though

yours is 800 though so i think you should be ok with it

i use that same iBook 800 with 640 megs of ram. it runs great! i also use a M-Audio Quattro card with it. this is a USB card.
i have to becareful about the amount of effects that i use and not go crazy but i have so far had no problems with it.