Which Mac for music?

Hi, I'm new here and a bit of a novice so please don't castrate me for asking redundant and inane questions!

So here it is: In 2007 I want to start getting into music production and I'm currently learning digital piano and learning to read music etc. By Oct I want to be enrolled in a college music production course and obviously am in need of a computer for that and I've already decided that I'll be getting a mac notebook for this since I'm told they're more practical for music production and everyone who has one swears that once you go mac you never go back.

Now, what I'm wondering is would it be a better idea for me to save up and get a top of the range new model, like a macbook pro or would an older model like a g4 be just as good for my needs since obviously they're less expensive and money is a slight issue. Are all the softwares etc available on the older models and is the power/memory etc strong enough?

As I said, sorry if these questions are stupid but I really have no clue. Does anyone have any tips? Thanks a lot.

powermac g4 should be good for music lots of recording studios use them

cheers for that - i'll look into the g4 for def.

Ya a g4 powerbook 15" 1.3ghz and 1 gig of ram sould be good, I just got 1 off ebay 4 $880, that's a good price

Weird Al uses a MacBook Pro with ProTools.

His name is also Weird Al :headphone

only thing is that ppc will no longer have apps being made for it in about 5 years.

notebook- macbook with basic specs. gig of RAM

desktop- imac basic specs with a gig of RAM

I find the macbook to be a very decent computer to record with as well. It has a duel core processor just like the macbook pros. Since you're using it for music production the lack of a dedicated graphics card shouldn't slow you down at all. I use my macbook (1st gen.) and it works great.

Also, I'd suggest looking at refurb. Both the refurb macbook pro's and macbooks are priced very competitively.

Good luck with your purchase.

The Macbook will be perfect for your needs, especially if you buy it with one gig of RAM. I wouldn't buy PPC, because I'm sure the next version of Mac OS X will take advantage of the latest Intel processors--and the Macbook has a great 64-bit Core 2 Duo processor.