What to buy for general recording...

I am finding it hard to tell the difference between the new imac g5 with intel and all that and the powermac g5 tower simply for music recording purposes. What are the pros and cons of each? Or what do you prefer?

My money is of course limited. My so called band records most of our stuff live, so I am not concerned with apple's loops and all that. Basically I'm looking for a lower priced (around$ 2500) mac that can run Logic Express without stopping. For our last recording we used garageband on an ibook g4 and anything too loud or simply too many tracks would shut it down. I hated that. I also use a cheap 4 channel Behringer mixer connected to an imic for my mic inputs. Is this bad? Any advice on mixers, midi clocks, etc...?

I'm not looking for pristine sound, we are not Sting. I prefer the sound a little dirty, as long as the program can handle whatever I'm giving it...

Sorry about this rambling. I've been thinking/researching this for weeks and I cannot get a straight answer.

Please help...

If you are planning to use Logic Express, does it run on the Intel iMac or the MacBook Pro. If it does not then you will be looking at the PowerMac.

there are no really short answers for what you are asking. I've used Mark of the Unicorn's Digital Performer 3 and now 4.6 it's had it's problems but has always been rock solid. You will need a good sound card whatever you use ... microphones etc and a mixer or input stage ie: compressor/ mic pre amps to get you started. and of the later G4's g5's will run this sweet and of course OSX . There's a great forum for recording info and support : http://recording.org/ good luck dude.

Is portability a issue? i have a powermac g5, which i really love, they are beautiful machines, but i hate transporting up to my friends for recording. the powermacs are really made to be stationary. im thinking of investing in a mac book pro for mobile recording and using my G5 as a powerhorse for all my editing and processing. just make sure u have at least 1gig of ram in either. that will run sweet and give you some head room for plug-ins,efx,etc..