Hi All,

First post... yay for me!

I just recently entered the mac arena by purchasing a dual-USB ibook G3 900MHz with 364Mb RAM and a DVD drive reader. I thought it was a bargin, but that is beside the point. I got the laptop primarily with the intention of running older software versions (G3 compatible versions) on it. So far I am looking at the following software:

Ableton Live 4
Reason 2.0/2.5

Unfortunately it is rather hard to come by copies of this older software as both Ableton and Propellerheads no longer offer the older versions of their software. So I was wondering if anyone has had any luck running Reason 3.0 or Ableton 5 on a G3 processor?

I understand that both Ableton 5 and Reason 3.0 do not list the G3 as a compatible processor, does this mean that the software won't run at all or will just run doggedly slow?

Also, does anyone know if Logic is worth looking at for music creation/recording. I am looking for Reason-like functionality and also Line-In live recording (like ableton). Does Logic provide this?

If anyone has any information as to where in Australia I can still purchase the older versions of said software I would be most interested to hear it.

Thanks Everyone.

EDIT: Does this belong in software section? I figured it was hardware specific info... if not can mods please move to software. Thanks.

Coincidentially, I run both those programs, but not on a g3 im afraid, to give you an idea roughly, if you intend to rewire reason into ableton? expect a bit of slowdowns


I get an ample performance from the g4 1.67ghz, i guess this isn't helping :\

i mean reason 3 min requirements from memory was a 300mhz g3 equivalent or something like that?

The system requirements for both Reason 3 and Ableton Live 5 are surprisingly low and your iBook 900Mhz will have no problems running either - of course, max out your 'book with RAM and a fast external firewire hard disk to help things along.

JB

shit i forgot to mention the ram, yes byrd!


as well as that, if you do get latency with the soundcard inside the ibook, consider perhaps getting an external firewire audio interface, i.e. m-audio firewire audiophile

Thanks for the tips guys. It is good to hear that there is some chance that Reason 3 might run on my rig. I am looking at audio cards now. Not alot of $$$ to spend though... was looking at a simple iMic and then using audio out->iMic-in for recording audio... I guess I better look for a cheap firewire card.

Performance isn't really too much of a concern. I tend not to overload reason too much, and even if I do I don't re-wire into ableton, I just mix down to save CPU cycles (this is all on my PC of course). Its not for live music. Its just a hobby of mine.

Thanks again.

I'm surprised that no-one has mentioned that Ableton Live 5 is quite a dog as far as CPU efficiency goes. If you want to use a lot of VSTs and effects inside Live, you are going to have problems. I have problems with any more then 6-7 tracks running VSTs (very simple ones at that) with an average of 2 effects per track. This is on the iBook in my sig.

You may have better luck if you aren't doing your VST work in Live - Reason is much more CPU efficient in my (albeit limited) experience with it.

As others have said, the first thing you should do is max out the RAM.

If you are used to mixing down and freezing your tracks, you should get by with Ableton 5. I find it frustrating because I like the flexibility that is removed when you freeze a track - but that's just me.

I'm seriously looking forward to running Live 6 on a multi-core machine! (Live 5 doesn't take advantage of multiple CPU cores)

I may consider upgrading the powerbook next year if it gets worse for me with slowdowns

Live 5 is running well so far. I am not really doing anything CPU intensive so it seems to handle itself quite well. I am looking at getting the additional RAM for this thing, but first I have to get an Airport card, or a USB wifi card.

Thanks for the help. I will keep everyone updated on the progress with Reason 3 on this machine.

Good to hear.

Just be wary of 'arrangement lag' in Live 5 - when you start making complicated arrangements in arrangement view and you have lots of tracks playing, sometimes the GUI will start to become very sluggish. L5 seems to be able to actually do quite a bit more work before glitches occur, but the GUI thing is quite disconcerting when it first happens to you.

I don't mean to make L5 sound bad, since I love it and it's the only piece of audio software I've ever bought outright, it's just that it has some performance issues that I think users should be aware of.

OK. I got ableton and reason running OK. I only use Ableton for live tracking of vocals over my reason songs, so I am not overloading ableton at all. I guess if I started making larger arrangements in ableton then it would get a bit top-heavy and die, but for now the G3 ibook is holding its own.

On a side note, I also managed to get MIDI Over Lan working from my PC to my ibook. The ibook has some problems staying in sync AND playing reason samples at the same time (drums are the worst) but other than that I can do some pretty kool things with my setup now.

Thanks for all the help everyone. I am now a stable mac users and I don't think I will go back again.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(forgie @ Sep 10 2006, 09:46 PM) [snapback]212580[/snapback]</div>me too! i'll keep that in mind once i get time to really get stuck into it!!! cheers!


If that's the case, and its quite serious, I may have to upgrade to a mbp :\