A Good Note Book (Laptop) for Producing.

[Ma$oN]

I am a young music producer just starting out and am looking for a good laptop. I was wondering if you could help me out. It would help to have a list of things that I should get put into the note book thanks...

 

[TachyonFresh]

i was in this same sitaution a while back so i'll try to help u out as best as i can

the most important thing i can say right now is......WAIT UNTIL DUAL CORE MOBILE PROCESSORS COME OUT IN A FEW YEARS.......i say this becuase most of the laptops right now are just insufficient for music production.....i wanted to get a laptop as well so i could carry taht shit around, but i ended up just upgrading my old computer.......

give a bit more info on exactly waht you'll be doing with the laptop

 

[Agent Smith]

i agree that in a couple years, laptop users will be pissed that they bought laptops BUT...by todays standards, apple powerbooks are dope. sleek and powerful. also, theres this company called alienware that just came out with a laptop specifically for making music (not sure on the details but i saw it in remix magazine not too long ago). why laptop as opposed to desktop though? portability?

 

[TachyonFresh]

i was gonna mention aleinware but the thing with them is that their shit is too fucking expensive

 

[Agent Smith]

good point

 

[KENWOP]

power book rite now would be the way to go if you got the cheddy

 

[Scholar]

or anything with a centrino Technology, i have tested and seen test with them those(1.7ghz) out performed a P4 2.4 ghz with HT so if a laptop is what you need go,Sony,Toshiba,or HP great for music production and if you get the EMU joint for laptopsit takes more of theload off of the CPU.if you go mac power book... hope this helps

 

[kojo]

or anything with a centrino Technology, i have tested and seen test with them those(1.7ghz) out performed a P4 2.4 ghz with HT so if a laptop is what you need go,Sony,Toshiba,or HP great for music production and if you get the EMU joint for laptopsit takes more of theload off of the CPU.if you go mac power book... hope this helps

YUP, i got a centrino laptop, i love it. everything runs real smooth.

 

[BluPHI!!!]

YUP, i got a centrino laptop, i love it. everything runs real smooth.

Hey guys,

Im seriously considering going all software and get a labtop but im afraid of:

1) Unknown labtop crashes
2) software to hardware incompatibility

And any other possible problem that could occur...........

Could you please put me on to anything that I should watch out for b4 purchasing a windows based labtop with 512ram/1.6 ghz/30 gb/cd-r/dvd drive/ 2 usb connects????

Please holla back..................

 

[classic]

frat ive beeen tryin to get at you for a mintue on MSN. Anyway a labtop setup is iffy becasue you need a VERY powerful computer to handle the load of processing. Labtops tend to be weaker then desktops becasue of motherboard capacities etc. Also laptops lack expanabilitity which means they become outdated quicklyANd with laptops you have to check the fronside bus specs.

your definaly gonna want more then 512mb of ram. also whats the ram expandable to??

Alot of laptops will say have have a 2GB processer or whatever but they only have a frontside bus of 800mghz so this means at top speed your laptop will only run at 800mghz. You have to check your motherboard specs and really know whats going down espically if u plan on using this as ur main production center

Honestly if ur going into the laptop production game a mac may be a better fit. Again it just depends on who u ask

Get at me

class..

 

[Agent Smith]

and with hardware/software compatibility, you shouldnt have to worry...im not sure exactly what type of hardware youre talking about (midi/audio interfaces) but check it...if youre going to run pro tools as your daw, it comes with hardware. cubase comes with the presonus boxes etc. and with the non pro tools stuff you can mix and match interfaces pretty extensively...besst thing to do is to give the guy at your music shop a price range and which daw you use or want to use and he'll direct you from there.

 

[BluPHI!!!]

frat ive beeen tryin to get at you for a mintue on MSN. Anyway a labtop setup is iffy becasue you need a VERY powerful computer to handle the load of processing. Labtops tend to be weaker then desktops becasue of motherboard capacities etc. Also laptops lack expanabilitity which means they become outdated quicklyANd with laptops you have to check the fronside bus specs.

your definaly gonna want more then 512mb of ram. also whats the ram expandable to??

Alot of laptops will say have have a 2GB processer or whatever but they only have a frontside bus of 800mghz so this means at top speed your laptop will only run at 800mghz. You have to check your motherboard specs and really know whats going down espically if u plan on using this as ur main production center

Honestly if ur going into the laptop production game a mac may be a better fit. Again it just depends on who u ask

Get at me

class..

Thanx for the info Frat


Please holla at me on my cell after 9pm--I'll pm you with my #

MAB---

 

[trinidad]

laptop

Due while it true that laptops are a bit less powerfull the 800mgz fsb it acctually good cuz the ne chips the have ht all are 800fsb for the most part thats acctually the new ish, as for specs it depends on the progs u plan on running but a definate is to get 1gig ram, on what eva sound prossing is ram consuming, if u gonna run FL Studio, it processor dont have to be a super great one, i used to make beats on fl on a crappy celeron processor and that didnt effect me at all, but regardless if u got the cash go MAC Powerbook, the only thing is that u cant run Fl on it, and definatley get a usb audio interface that will take a load of the cpu, to wrap it up if u gonna use Protools go to the digidesign site and check ther compatability page that will help alot on ur descion

 

[kojo]

well it depends on what u want to do with your laptop. If youre running something like FL , Project5, ableton live, or Reason, then 512 mb is pretty much all you need. hell reason runs fine on my old pentium II lol. some VSTs will eat your CPU/ram when you run multiple instances of them like the korg legacy or Atmosphere but most of the time others wont. as for stability I have windows XP on my laptop and it runs great, no problems yet. as for that setup, 30 GB is kinda low these days for HD space, but you can always buy another one like a usb based one to hold all your samples, mp3s, videos. as for software to hardware incompatibility it varies for each piece of software. they will tell you what works for what, and theres drivers to address these problems. some soundcards like those from emu and m-audio will cause problems, but i think its usually due to user error more than anything else.

The powerbook macs are a great alternative to the centrinos, but they cost more and theres less VST/plugin support,

 

[Donovan]

My Main PC died so I was forced to buy a laptop.

I got an HP zd7058cl.

17" WXGA LCD
2.8Ghz Pentium 4
80GB Hard Drive
512MB Hard Drive

I bought a 250GB Ext. Drive for all my VSTs and Audio.

Used my Dell optical mouse from my old laptop.

Bought a 19" LCD.

So now I got dual screen goin, on a laptop that's faster than my old PC.

I've done 2 dozen FULL songs, as well as almost 100 beats on this laptop, using Cubase SX2 and VSTs out the ass. It never crashes, it never overloads, and never overheats.

$1600 new, they're on ebay for $1000.

You don't need anymore than that, trust me, I've thrown the biggest and baddest programs plugins and vsts at it.

**************
2.8ghz, 512mb ddr, you're on your way.
**************

-Donovan

P.S. I bought a gig stick of ram for this laptop and it didn't fit, so i tweaked my paging files and (try to) keep a gig of c:\ drive space open, and this setup SCREAMS.

 

[BluPHI!!!]

My Main PC died so I was forced to buy a laptop.

I got an HP zd7058cl.

17" WXGA LCD
2.8Ghz Pentium 4
80GB Hard Drive
512MB Hard Drive

I bought a 250GB Ext. Drive for all my VSTs and Audio.

Used my Dell optical mouse from my old laptop.

Bought a 19" LCD.

So now I got dual screen goin, on a laptop that's faster than my old PC.

I've done 2 dozen FULL songs, as well as almost 100 beats on this laptop, using Cubase SX2 and VSTs out the ass. It never crashes, it never overloads, and never overheats.

$1600 new, they're on ebay for $1000.

You don't need anymore than that, trust me, I've thrown the biggest and baddest programs plugins and vsts at it.

**************
2.8ghz, 512mb ddr, you're on your way.
**************

-Donovan

P.S. I bought a gig stick of ram for this laptop and it didn't fit, so i tweaked my paging files and (try to) keep a gig of c:\ drive space open, and this setup SCREAMS.

Thanx soooo much for your input.

It puts me at ease in my purchasing