Should I buy an Apple laptop?

Shit, I was enjoying the 'stacks' function on the new Apple OS (Leopard?) but I accidentally dragged them off the dock and they disappeared.

Then I tried to get them back on, and I ended up dragging the 'documents' folder *into* the trash and now it's gone.

Also whenever I download something it turns up as a disk image, where should I put it then?

You probably mean the "downloads" folder. Any folder can have "stacks". Just drag it back onto the right side of the dock.

I am trying to convince my wife we should get an Apple laptop to work on musical endeavors (her website, my idle musical ideas, etc).

- Which machines should I be looking at if my parameters are "better-than-decent"?
- How much, realistically, should I expect to spend for a better-than-decent machine?
- How useful is the out-of-the-box software? What should I consider upgrading and what's the cost for that?
- Anyone have experiencing adding a Mac to a Window-based network? How complicated is that to manage?

are you sure you need a laptop? you can save a lot of $ if not

if you do need one, you'll probably also want some kind of upgraded audio interface if you want to record music onto it. i haven't looked at laptops in a few years, though.

I R FatNicK spends an awful lot of time making his music using Logic on a 6-month old Mac Mini (w/maxed RAM) with no complaints, all runs swimmingly

Laptops, look at macbook and macbook pro, a bit more power in the latter and bigger screens which is useful for music however the macbook should be adequate. You may wish to choose the faster hard drive option if working with music.

Budget up to 2 grand (dollars) but could be a lot less, possibly budget for a controller keyboard/audio interface.

Garage band is an ok place to start but you will probably outgrow it quickly. Next place to go is software that gets bundled with a keyboard or audio interface. Eventually you'll want to buy full software.

Easy peasy.

Take a look at novation and m-audio for good usb controller keyboards some with built in audio interfaces.

Budget for a decent large diaphram mike, stand and pop shield too.

Yeah, we may be using this to record some of J's audition material as well so the whole microphone/audio interface issue is a good one to remember.

How portable are non-laptop Macs these days? Which ones should I be looking at if I'm expanding the scope?

(I mean, I know what various iMac variants look like etc, I'm asking more about the practicality of shuffling them around to places.)

USB and firewire interfaces are so good nowadays that there is not much need for expansion slots, you can get firewire dsp processors as well. So an iMac would be a good option. Pretty portable for location recording, obviously not as easy as a laptop but there are case manufacturers who make cases for the iMac.

iMac has bigger screen, better processor and better HD than laptop so if you are not looking to move it often, go with the iMac.

Same price scale?

More or less.

take a look at the 2.6Ghz 20" iMac, maybe a TASCAM Fire one interface or focusrite Saffire, you play keyboard so you can use that as a controller over midi. Maybe consider getting logic express which is $199 with a new Mac, Maybe a Rode NT1-A Mic (although you may want to take the wife down to test out Mics), stand, pop shield

All is missing from that is some good headphones or a pair of active monitors and you are set

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/FireOne/
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/Saffire/
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/NT1A/

Look out for computer, Mic and interface bundle deals.

or you could get a mac mini for a fraction of the price

Dan should buy IR Fatnick and his Mac Mini as a recording slave, are you selling DG?

well he can have fatnick for free but i think he likes his mini

Is there an advantage to going with an iMac rather than a Mac Mini? Either way, what issues can I expect to run into regarding expandability?

well the mini is a bugger to upgrade admittedly but they both have the same 4gb ram cap these days IIRC

oh and the imac has a fw800 port that the mini doesn't which may make a difference to some of these fw devices (probably not though)

you could just go crazy and get a mac pro and pwn us all

http://www.harmony-central.com/articles/reviews/firebox/

A 6-pin FireWire port supplies the needed juice, but if you're stuck with a 4-pin port, you can use the included AC adapter for power.

hmm probably an imac or macbook pro then

mini has a 2 gb ram cap I think

^^^ yeah i checked :(

you could just go crazy and get a mac pro and pwn us all

Not quite.

yr not one of those guys that pops up on mac forums with an oct-core thingy with like 32gb of ram or something are you?

Not that bad, no. Dual-core 2.66 Ghz Mac Pro, 5GB RAM. Also I'm still not touching 10.5 yet.

unhealthy

http://att.macrumors.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=115655&d=1210680329

(not mine, i have a measly macbook)

Is there an advantage to going with an iMac rather than a Mac Mini? Either way, what issues can I expect to run into regarding expandability?

http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/#Mac_mini
http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/#iMac

haha ok

Must do more research and convince the wife that she needs one to further her singing career...

iMac best for apt living

if you have a mac pro does it look like this when you open time machine?

http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/geekend/images/84573main_warpsped.jpg

^^^ tuomas + vast seas of mystery

In all honesty, doing high-or-even-decent quality recording or mixing on a computer is an expensive proposition, regardless of whether you use a Mac or a PC, especially if you are to be recording vocals. It could very well be that the biggest expense you have is the microphone(s) (and it certainly is the case for even middling studios). Other necessary components are an ADC (at least $500 for a decent one), amps, monitors, interfaces, and so on. You can reduce the costs somewhat by using a combo ADC/DAC w/good headphones (at the cost of a great mix, perhaps) and borrowing mics from friends. Fundamentally, though, you are going to be spending money, and the Mac isn't going to be yr cost center.

If you are cool with the fact that yr wallet is gonna get significantly lighter, then one of the first things you need to think about is the software you want to use. One of the nice bennies of Mac is that you can use Logic, which in my opinion is a damned fine piece of software. Another option is Pro Tools, which necessitates an investment of at least $500 (= Logic Studio $) in a Digidesign ADC/DAC, but which is also a great piece of software and is the industry standard for "live" (i.e., not sequenced) music. I'm not very knowledgeable about more MIDI-centric software, but that's apparently not yr central concern here. As far as I'm concerned, the only Mac to use with either software is either a Mac Pro (the best choice) or a MacBook Pro. Both of these have considerably more throughput than their cheaper counterparts, which definitely matters when recording and mixing music.

If you are not cool with spending a lot of cash outta the gate, but just want to get yr feet wet with recording on Mac, then I suggest you get a MacBook, a cheap USB ADC, borrow a Mic, and record on GarageBand, which comes with every new Mac (via iLife). You can probably get some surprisingly good recordings (albeit only 44.1/16) with such a setup, but yr mixes are going to sound amateurish because GB is quite light on mixing resources (no waveform editor, primitive automation, limited plugin capabilities, no buses, almost-nonexistent MIDI, on and on and on). However, GB has a good number of UI elements in common with Logic, so you could get an idea if Logic is for you. Most GB files can be directly imported into Logic 8, if you ever decide to upgrade. Also, you could get involved in the IMM Internet Service Collab project (which seems to be a bit stalled at the moment), and that'd be cool.

Personally, I have a Mac Pro 4-core 3.0GHz with 5G RAM that I use with a MOTU 828mkII ADC & headphones for recording & mixing in Logic 8. It's a bit of overkill, since I use it mostly for roughing out songs for my band: if I wanted to produce pro-quality mixes, I'd have to invest at least a good amp and a pair of nearfields, which might cause my neighbors (I have both upper and lower) to complain. Thus, I don't really put a lot of effort into mixing at my house (I have a friend with an iso room in his basement with good nearfields where I can mix if need be).

One thing worth noting is that Logic 8 is pretty good for both sequencing and recording. The sequence editor in GB is very similar to that of Logic, in fact.

^^^ power user

"one of the things about playing golf is that if you want to be taken seriously you need to spend as much money as possible on everything"

doing high-or-even-decent quality recording or mixing on a computer is an expensive proposition,

truthiest of truth bombs

If a power user is one who has more computer than he needs, I'm guilty as charged.

expensive is a relative concept here esoj. libcrypt seems to mean "low five figures" - I personally believe if you can't get decent-to-very-good recording and mixing out of a USD $4K setup then maybe you just shouldn't be making music, but what do I know.

You can make good music with a $4 cassette recorder you get at Salvation Army as long as you embrace the aesthetic.

you're absolutely right tom. i have the additional requirements of needing a buttload of inputs as i mostly record three or more piece bands playing together. but if you need only two inputs at once you're laughing for that sort of cash

that's a very good point. if they're playing together, though, my instinct would be to mix down to two channels on an analog rig using headphones like it were live. I realize that is also a terrifically stupid/horribly imperfect solution.

I think you guys need to reread 2nd-to-last paragraph above.

Dan, you may wish to budget for one of these:

http://www.seelectronics.com/rf.html

I'm going to get a Macbook (probably not Pro). I was thinking about just going to the Apple store and picking the best deal among their refurbs. Anybody have a better recommendation -- ebay, craigslist, etc?

Apple refurb is best 'cause you can get fresh Applecare onnit.

hey, is this a good deal or just an okay deal? it would be for my gf, who is starting grad school and just needs something stable (won't be doing much besides writing papers, youtube, and itunes).

15 inch Apple PowerBook G4 laptop -- $350.00

1.5 GHz, 1 GB DDR SDRAM, Superdrive (burns DVDs and CDs), 40 GB hard drive, beautiful condition, good battery life, never needed a repair. Comes with Mac OS X Tiger 10.4.11, power cord, and original install discs.

It'll do ok, but it is a bit of a dead end, being a G4. It better have word etc. loaded on it because you'll have a hard time finding software for it. If it were $200 I'd be more inclined but it seems a lot for something 4-5 years old.