[markbbb]

I was thinking of upgrading my old PowerWave 604/150 to use as an audio recording system. Any thoughts on equipment, upgrades and apps? Thanks for the help.

Mark

[iPaul UK]

Hurray!

[ 12-05-2001: Message edited by: iPaul UK ]

[markbbb]

You can't help, eh? Bah. Is it really that big?

[ 12-02-2001: Message edited by: markbbb ]

[markbbb]

Besides, your British "joke" is wasted on 99% of us Americans.

[markbbb]

I always thought the british were polite.

[Cipher13]

Please ditch the sig... stay within the size constrictions of 120*35 pixels, <10K and no animation or Flash.

What kind of audio work do you do?

Will it be professional, or just a hobby kinda thing?

How much RAM does it have?

[markbbb]

Originally posted by Cipher13:
<STRONG>Please ditch the sig... stay within the size constrictions of 120*35 pixels, &lt;10K and no animation or Flash.

Consider it ditched.

What kind of audio work do you do?

Record guitar and vocals. Need drum sequencing (and maybe but not necessary synth sequencing)

Will it be professional, or just a hobby kinda thing?

Hobby, but I am pro (or used to be)

How much RAM does it have?
</STRONG>

I will upgrade to max as soon as I decide to actually use it. I also own a 466Mhz iBook and a 400Mhz iMac DV but with the PCI slots I though the PowerWave would be more expandable and useful as a recording studio. Should I just ditch it and get a used G3 tower or what? I am a landscaper and have the winter off so I just think it would be great to record some music again...but I only have 3 months to get this thing rolling. Thanks for the help.

[druber]

Been looking into this a lot myself. Your HD will be a big factor in this as far as seek time. CPU will be a serious bottleneck if you want to add any fx in real-time. A sound card is probably the best way to go for getting a good signal, with a low-end (but reportedly decent) card starting around $100. Everyone seems to give audio-over-USB a big thumbs down, and audio via firewire is expensive (~$800). There's a lot out there. I'd advise looking through the forums at harmony-central.com. If you want to record on your Mac and money's a big issue, it's kind of a rough go. If you've got some money to put into it, yeah I'd say go G3/G4 w/PCI. Or maybe take the easy way out and get a digital 4-track, something like the Boss BR532
And that's my four cents.

[markbbb]

Originally posted by druber:
<STRONG>Or maybe take the easy way out and get a digital 4-track, something like the Boss BR532
And that's my four cents.</STRONG>

Ahhh...that sounds lots easier...what do you think of
this? But, I would love to use the Mac but screw it. I will just get the recorder...maybe.

[druber]

Oh, if you've got the cash for it, Zoom away! There are actually quite a number of HD-based multitracks out there. I'd suggest you call Sweetwater and just talk to someone about what's out there and what you need. They know their stuff.

Hey, can I come over and play?

[iPaul UK]

Thats better eh! Ok.. So back to being a kind and helpful tea drinking Brit.. With a 150MHz CPU.. If you can get your hands on a copy of Cubase VST 3.5, It should run like a champ on your machine. You should even be able to use some half decent bundled plugins with it too. I know this cos I used this software on my old 8200 (120MHz) and it worked well.. Where as updating to Cubase 4.1 slowed everything down so much, that is was basically unusable for anything other than Midi sequencing. Forget about using fancy sound cards on your machine too. (Things like the FireWire MOTU 828 would obviously require a PCi FireWire card, And also MOTU insists that the minimum CPU spec is a 300MHz G3) However, something like an Emagic AudioWerk2 card should work fine. And these are dirt cheap right now too. Also, Most OS's including 8.5 and higher, might slow your machine down too much. Try 8.1 or 7.6 maybe?

See, I'm not so evil really..