Christian:
Thanks for the answer.
Tim:
I thought of the MacBooks because they are relatively inexpensive and accomodate 4GB of RAM whereas the current Mac Mini is limited to 2GB of RAM. So the two Macbooks might double as mobile system as well being slaves in the studio. First thing is to obtain a MacPro and see what can be done with it - - I'm waiting a bit until some of the kinks are worked out with firmware updates and OS 10.5.2. Perhaps by then there will be new Mac Minis or some other solution.