Newbie question: mac Cube suitability?

[dchipkin]

I'm a long-time mac user but new to music recording/sequencing. I want to connect my Alesis QS 8 keyboard (midi) to my mac Cube (G4, 500mhz - 512mb RAM, CD-RW, OS 10.1.5) using Metro SE (for starters)and see where I go. I seem to recall that the Cube has limited expansion capabilities. Does anyone know if the limitations of the Cube will hinder what I can do with this setup? I'm wondering if I will need to upgrade my mac or the OS (I'm thinking of going to Panther).

[Scoot]

Your cube is very similar spec'ed to my G4 450 Tower with 768MB.

I find Metro good in Jaguar. 10.2.6.

I find it more stable than 9 although I think 9 is quicker when you start pushing the machine to it's limits with multiple tracks or effects.....but OSX is my preferred system to use metro in.


The only big limit is having everything on one hard disk.

If you were to connect a firewire drive to the cube and spit your audio tracks to it, things would be greatly improved.

A cube with Metro SE should be fine and even better in 10.3


scoot.

[dchipkin]

Thanks Scoot. I'm glad to hear you are comfortably running Metro on your system. I can easily attach another HD. That's a good suggestion - and I'm upgrading to Panther.

Do you or does anyone else know if the setup requires installation of a sound card in the mac? - or is that already part of the G4 architecture? - because I'm pretty sure I can only add memory to a Cube - no expansion slots.

[Scoot]

Looking at
http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/p ... _cube.html

There is no sound in or sound out......the cube must have lost them to save on space.

The cheapest method would be an iMic or similar working on a USB port or higher end options on USB (www.audiomidi.com would be worth a look) or going with something on the other firewire port.

In the meantime you can checkout the midi side of things in metro by importing midi tracks, changing instruments in quicktime instrument and then moving onto soundfonts or 3rd party sound alternatives.


scoot.

[dchipkin]

Okay. Well I picked up an iMic at MacWorld last year, so I can go with that for starters.

I'm not sure I understand your paragraph:
<<In the meantime you can checkout the midi side of things in metro by importing midi tracks, changing instruments in quicktime instrument and then moving onto soundfonts or 3rd party sound alternatives.>>

I think I understand you to be saying that the iMic is for audio inputs, but that for midi input, I can for example connect my Alesis kb via MIDI interface (I have a FastLane-USB/MOTU) and play around with Metro etc., etc.

[Scoot]

You got it.