Big time hesitation, what would you buy as a musician in my place?

[pionata]

Hi,
Im about to upgrade my "music studio" from windows to mac.
I do have a ibook but its not as powerfull to run samplers.

What is realy important for me is raw power and graphics, and I have a budjet around 2500$ US (3000$ can).

When I mean graphics, I mean screen size is REALY important as I run huge scores 17"x11" along with a sampler. Thats why I'm fearing the imac screen 20" might be too small for me.
But just in bang for the bucks, and long term investment, wich would you get in those?:


1) Get a Imac g5, 500 gig, 1.5 ram (2700$ can including taxes), Then get external soundcard. Good up-to-date bang for the price but screw the screen and everything else when its upgrade time to intel.

2)Get my dream monitor 23" cinema (1550$ can including taxes), and a discontinued dual 1.42 G4 (from 1200 to 1500 depending on shiping) from some stores in the us (Have to pay shiping to canada). I Could keep the screen for many years so I would be loosing less in the swith to intel. I would also be able to keep my old PCI delta 410 soundcard.
Down side is that I would also have to buy a new graphic card for the G4 since the 9000 kinda suck.

Ok, so what do I buy?

Thanks... Then I'll have to get a Ipod some day lol

 

[FFTT]

Your budget limitations may force you to buy your system piece by piece.
For BIG audio files, you probably should set your sights on a new dual core
PowerMac.

That may sound expensive, but it's well worth the difference in price.

The 23" ACD's are pretty, but you'll be better off saving some of that expense buying a Dell 2405 24" display.

You'll also need to budget for a good F/W interface, multi-track recording software...ProTools M-Powered, Logic or Cubase, cables, mikes, extra storage etc.

The M-Audio F/W 410 is a good place to start unless you'll be recording
live drums or a full band requiring more simultanious inputs.

Buying the computer is the easy part.
Buying all the additional gear is what costs so much.

I'm going through this too right now and it all adds up quickly.

 

[pionata]

Thx for the reply, I've fallen in love with the apple displays (and I dont think im the only one lol) so I wont be buying another brand of monitor for sure.

I do not requires most of the gears you mention as I mostly write scores and have it play through a sampler (so there is no interface involved beside the soundcard), then it eventualy get played by musicians (well so far it did). I do need to know how well a dual 1.42 can handle Kontakt 2 with a fair ammount of instruments (10-20)from the Vienna Symphonic Library.

I wanted to invest a small ammount on the mac becose of the near intel upgrade... but the imac g5 also tempted me. If I would get the Imac g5 I could eventualy get the audiofire 8 from echo.

I'll go take a look at the dell monitor again...

Edit: Just looked, seems since I get the student discount on the apple and not the dell its realy not worth it for me; the 24" dell is listed at 1199 us, while apple's 23" is at 1350$ can wich is near the same price.

 

[PCheese]

From your original post, I get the feeling that the second option (separate display and all) is better for you. I wouldn't want to waste an existing sound card...

However, I'm a bit wary of the cinema displays because the iMac supposedly has a display with better specs... I doubt they'll update the displays anytime soon, but something's not quite right to me.

I have no experience with the music software you mentioned.

 

[pionata]

Yeah, I was kinda thinking about getting a 23" with apple care, then send it back complaining about the green tint on the sides... If done after the monitor switch, It is possible to get a new revision... (sarcastic, or maybe not)

Another thing is I need a new screen ASAP becose im in the middle of my thesis redaction and spend all days in front of the computer and will until june.

This is driving me nuts...

 

[FFTT]

I think you need to buy a system to cover your ACD under your AppleCare warranty.

You probably won't get Tiger with that used G4.

I'd either save for a new G5 PowerMac or try to get by with
a 20" iMac G5

The Dell 24" is very well thought of by many Mac users.
You should still be able to get one for around $800US shipped.
That leaves you much more to put towards a better CPU.

And you'll love the 24" Dell display.