Laptops

[techno_7]

Hello again guys,

As the time is going here at the boarding school, i have found that i need a laptop for making music, i simply cannot control my geeky needs to twist the malstr?m knobs or possibly give wavestation a spin.

But i found that i have no knowledge of which specs are "good" for making music. I know i need a somewhat big harddisk, alot of RAM and a somewhat speedy processor, but which laptops of good quality and affordability can provide this?

I've had a look at the Apple MacBook, but as i'm a Windows user, i'm not sure i want to convert :lol: I've also checked out laptops by the company "Frost" but they seem rather expensive (most of them are 3000 dollars and above).

Have anyone bought a laptop for making music recently? Is it good? And how much do you think i should give for a laptop that?s good for Reason and possible some Cubase too? My budget is about anything up to 3000 dollars.

Thanks in advance :)

Regards,

T7

[Drammy]

Don't forget you'll need a external "soundcard" too!

[Timo]

Don't forget you'll need a external "soundcard" too!

And even that is steeped in further wonder and confusion. Most new lappies these days have PCI-ExpressCard slots instead of the former PCMCIA Cardbus slots. And I don't as yet know of any ExpressCard soundcards yet! (I had to go for an external firewire one with mine).

Of course there could be the ASIO4ALL drivers for the internal soundcard, but I can't say how they measure up as I've never used them before. I guess you'd not be that bothered about an external soundcard if you're using Reason and a load of samples anyway, and using headphones to mix on (laptop speakers are naturally fucking crap due to their compact size, like a very cheap AM radio).

[techno_7]

Thanks for your advice, i have got a USB soundcard that i think will work just fine for what i need, and a USB midi controller so that won't be a problem.

Still no reccomendations for an actual laptop? Should i just look beyond brands and wether they are dedicated to audio or not, and just look at the specs?

[djencode]

if you don't already have a TI (not sure what virus you have) you should upgrade or invest in one, as it can function as a sound card and a midi interface

i have used this functionality on several occasions and can attest that it is quite good and quite cool :)

[jasedee]

Mac...without a doubt! If you're paranoid about the windoze transition, well, you could use windoze on the mac, but wtf would you want to ;)

Seriously, get the mac, you'll love it

:)

[techno_7]

I have heard alot of good things about Mac's and that MacBook sure does look sexy :D If i do get a Mac, i'd surely create a Windows partition on it, just to make sure i can run most Windows-only programs. Does it work well?

I'm tempted, but i'm still not sure. Have anyone tried this PC for music making?

[Drammy]

Do you work mostly with MIDI or Audio?

If you work with Audio then it would be better if you could get your PC from home to the school - the HDs on a laptop are slower than those in a desktop so the audio bottlenecks much faster than with the faster RPM HDs

If you use Audio I would recommend trying to find a laptop with 7,200 RPM HDs although I am not sure if they exist... Failing that you may want to look into Firewire external HDs...

[techno_7]

I use MIDI and computer synthesizers the most. Is a Mac good for this?