ProTools on a G4 versus a DAW

[Madcap]

In everyone's opinion, what are some of the 'pros' (no pun intended) and cons of a Mac g4 running pro-tools versus a DAW like the ones Korg & Roland are releasing now? I'm not so concerned with effects & pre-amps, so much as I am with richness & quality of sound. As i'm thinking of 'upgrading' at the moment, I'd -really- appreciate the opportunity to get some incite. :)

- Thanks!
Madcap

[Mtn Fever]

Thanks to the engineers at Sweetwater, I'm in the process of expanding from a Yamaha 4416 into the "mac mode". I'll keep the 4416 as the center piece, and use the mac with Digital Performer software to add another 24 channels and also for easy editing. Most of our studio applications will still be done on the basic 16 channels of the 4416. The mix down capabilities and ease of use of the 4416 make it to valuable a piece to discard. Plus it's just so much more fun to watch real motorized faders move by themselves than just a cartoon on a computer screen. We may eventually go with a portable mixing/control surface unit but for now we think things will be working out great. (Mtn. Fever Studios)

[tortoise]

I prefer a well-integrated combination of physical mixing surfaces and a DAW. It is pretty tedious to manage a large number of tracks with just a computer.

I personally use Logic Platinum on a dual processor G4, but fly tracks in and out of it to my Ramsa/Panasonic DA7mkII via lightpipe. I also have a Peavey PC1600x MIDI fader box and the MIDI fader layer on the DA7 which I can use to control tracks inside Logic Audio. Overall, I am very pleased with this arrangement, as it does exactly what I need it to do. I have to say, though, that the DA7 is one of the few digital mixers one the market that actually allowed me to get good integration between my DAW tracks and my external mixing capabilities. The MIDI implementation on this digital mixer is good, and more importantly, it has the interfacing bandwidth and routing flexibility to keep me from bottlenecking without having to sacrifice a bunch of input or output channels.