Trying to be portable and all I'm pretty sure my old powerbook G4 1.67Ghz is the fastest laptop I have but is it fast enough to run anything?

Any vst's (piano's) that work with the ppc? And what software?


OR I'm thinking about getting another laptop but the laptop I'm looking at has a AMD A4-3305M but I was wanting to know if it would be enough for something like alicia's keys

I'm running Pro Tools LE 7.4 on my Emac G4 1.42, and can get five or six instruments at once from IK's Sampletank (or Miroslav/SampleMoog/SampleTron/Sonik Synth), and one or two "larger" instruments from Kontakt before I get prompts about CPU usage.

I added the maximum 2gb of RAM to give me more processing headroom, but if you're only playing piano, you may not need it. Take look at how much ram you have and how much Alicia's Keys uses when loaded to see if you can get there or not. Remember that sustain/soft pedaling will eat up lots of sytem resources, so take that into account too.

You can find older versions of PT on ebay, but you'll need a connected interface to run it, so buy them together if you can. The pianos in ST are a mixed bag, but there are some beauties in the Piano Collection 2, as well as a ton of choices in Sonik Synth.

My go-to for solo piano is still the Steinway Grand that came with Garritan Personal Orchestra for Kontakt, but for most pop/rock/dance tracks, the pianos in IK's stuff are nice! And the CPU hit is WAY low, even on an old PPC.

You can download Sampletank Free from IK's site, and see what you think. It comes with a 500 mb crossection of their libraries that will give you a pretty good idea of what they offer. And it's actually a FULL, working version of ST! Sweet!

KVR/eSoundz: Xenobt

Well NI says Alicia's Keys can only be used on Intel mac's I mean you can do a backdoor way around that but that's asking for problems.

I never updated the memory but I have 1GB installed.

Yeah, I'm up against the intel mac thing myself, and am getting a nicely decked out Mini after xmas. In fact, I bought a bunch of NI stuff during their Summer 1/2 off sale that are still waiting for it!

I've got a whole drive full of Stupid Deals, Krazy Deals, No-Brainers and free stuff from KVRists that I can't even run, but the deals were just too good!

But it sounds like the IK libs may be one of the better (and cheaper) options for you, or maybe see if the MODARTT pianoteq meets your needs. It looks like the latest version will even run on a Power PC with Tiger OS! Here's the demo download link:

http://www.pianoteq.com/try?action=newsletter&op=join&file=p ianoteq_stage_trial_v420.dmg

I just tried it on my machine, and it's sounds pretty good! Just turn the built-in reverb off, it's a CPU HOG!

KVR/eSoundz: Xenobt

I will have to give this a try!

The amigaOS was cloned, and ported to that G4 laptop, is called Morphos.

http://www.morphzone.org/modules/news/
Some good audio apps:

Hd-Rec: (a good lite version is available)
http://www.hd-rec.de/HD-Rec/index.php?site=home

Audio Evolution: (now freeware)
http://www.audio-evolution.com/index.php?option=com_content& view=article&id=3&Itemid=7

Bars&Pipes Pro midi sequencer, (also now freeware)

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/1994_articles/jul94/amiganot es.html

http://bnp.hansfaust.de/download.html#BnPMOS

numerous trackers like Octamed Soundstudio, utilities ffmpeg etc

You might also trade it to a Morphos user looking for one, and get some
value to reinvest.
Cheers

I'm stuck with a 1.2 GHz G4 PowerBook as well.
Got Leopard running on it, now I don't know what to do with it.

It's not even good enough to use as a "portable web surfing solution" as even YouTube videos wrestle it into submission... that's after the 1 GB memory upgrade.

I could run the G4 version of Reaper on it... and then what?

Even tried to sell it on eBay, but no one wants it.

It's pathetic and useless, it's outdated and slow, it's big and white, it's ugly and a nuisance.
But somehow it's just too good to throw away.

You could set it on fire or use it to kill some cockroaches...

Numerology will run as a midi sequencer on older macs. I keep looking on ebay for a cheap working powerbook/ibook but they're either half dead or too expensive.

You can also donate older machines to charity. Goodwill or AMVETS are great places to pass on working gear, and you can take the deduction off your taxes. Make sure to get a receipt! I usually use the highest selling price on Ebay as a guide, and make a screen cap to show the IRS in case of an audit. It's often more than you can sell it for, and no boxing, shipping or dealing with Ediots!

And as I mentioned earlier, you can get a pretty decent audio track and midi track count in Pro Tools 6-7, even on these white elephants. They're what it was supposed to run on a few years back!

Or you can always use them as CD/DVD burners or a plug-in archiving station if you have a Superdrive built in, and not tie up your main rig.

Another friend has turned his old imac into a jukebox for itunes, with a nice fullscreen display of the album art or visualizer as a bonus! Those "tiny" 150 gb drives go a long way with mp3s or AACs!

"I'm not dead yet... I think I'll go for a walk!"

"You're not fooling anyone, ya know."

"I feel happy! I feel happy!" Thud!

KVR/eSoundz: Xenobt

If you want one, you now know where to get one.