g4 os x 10.5.8 music software advice

[kemp76]

Hi,
A friend of mine recently gave me his old powermac g4 running osx 10.5.8 - I am new to this forum and hope someone can help.

I would like to use this computer for music sequencing and have tried to find some freeware tracker / sequencer software. However it seems as though there is relatively little software available for this combination of processor and os. I cant find any music software that will install and run.

Can anyone provide some advice? Should i consider downgrading the os to something older that has a wider range of compatible applications?

Yours hopefully,
James

 

[Raz0rEdge]

Welcome to Mac-Forums

OS X 10.5.8 (Leopard) was the last version of OS X that worked with both PowerPC and Intel-based Macs and as such had support for a much wider array of applications than what is able to be run on the newer versions of OS X..

If you can tell us which applications you did come across, that will not only give us an idea of what you've already searched for, but also members who are into music sequencing can suggest older versions of the application or something..

I don't believe downgrading to Tiger would yield you anything more, but until we know which specific applications you are looking at, we can't be certain..

 

[chas_m]

It's gonna be difficult to find ANY software for a nearly decade-old machine running a deprecated OS. Your best bet is to find someone who used to use sequencing software back in those days and still has the old software lying around.

 

[kemp76]

Hi,
Thanks for the replies.

I have searched the net and found several sources of freeware. One which I had hoped would provide a solution - something for me to play with at least - was Macintosh Music Software: Free (Hitsquad Music Software)

This seems to have a number of interesting freeware apps.

Yeah, I know the hardware is antiquated, but the funny thing is that I viewed my new hardware as an upgrade. I still have my 'old' 256mb P3 PC running win2k and Linux, and now I have acquired a spanking 2gig 2x 1.25gHz G4 mac. But it really seems as though this hardware is better, and the OS is better, but there is very little software available for it. I can find loads of apps on the hitsquad website, and they look like they ought to be compatible, but they don't install.

My last failed attempt was to install JackBeats. This required PortAudio. To get PortAudio to install I need a C Compiler. So I installed XCODE3 (1gb+ download). And in the end the PortAudio compilation runs but bombs out with some parameters not found / defined.

I'd love to be able to just install something and use it. Or have I got too used to using windows boxes ?

My G4 is 11 years old, and was top of the range when new. My old PC, well it's 12 years since I bought it second hand, and was out of date at the time, and was never top of the range - but on the surface it seems as though it's much more flexible. Please can you help me by pointing out what I am missing.