Lap Top: recommendation please.

[sham-79]

A MacBook is only $999 on the Apple site. Converted to pounds it is about 640.

I ended all my problems when I converted from PC to Apple. And if i want, I can run Vista on my Mac. But I don't want.

I wouldn't particularly want to use Vista again either, but it's BIOS and hardware not OS that’s caused me problems on my current Dell Studio 1735.

Unfortunately due to the way we get ripped off for things in the UK the actual price of a white MacBook is £870, with only 2G of Ram. As soon as you start upgrading for better music performance it gets much steeper, I think 4G ram and a 64bit OS are minimum requirements if I want to be using it with up to date software for the next 4 years.

Again nothing against Apple, I can’t argue against the quality of their Mac products, except the price for what you get does not fit my budget and future proofing needs. For this reason and this reason alone I'm really in the market for a PC rather than a Mac.

S

[sham-79]

I have a Samsung R580 (Core i3, Windows 7 x64) which seems to run Live 8.2 perfectly.
May be worth checking out?

Thank you for the suggestion, these seem to be between £600 and £700 depending on the spec, much more my budget.

I have a couple of questions if you wouldn't mind answering:

Have you tested its DPC latency, was it a good response with no spiking?
How many tracks and effects have you been able to run on it before you push the CPU to hard?
What external hardware are you using alongside Ableton?

Don't worry if you cant answer it all but the more info the better.

Many thanks
S

[Theo Void]

Mac is where it's at!
Go ahead world. Call me a fag and a fanboy. Whatever! I dropped the dough on a shiny new Macbook about a year ago and it's flawless when it comes to Audio. I run Live 8 and Mass amounts of VST's and up to 24-30 tracks (typically) and I barely ever come close to 50%

I record audio too (guitars, vocals) and even dropped the latency and it still works great!
Plus Macs are just Sexy as hell! Look at any big name Dj performing live and You will see the APple shining through in the darkened club. Just sayin'.

Mine's not even the new Unibody w/ the i5. I have the late 08 white Macbook w/ 4 gb RAM and 2.4 dual core. Trust me. YOU WILL NOT REGRET BUYING A MAC.

I know everyone who’s anyone uses a Mac these days, but I’m a nobody who works mostly locally on small but rewarding projects, which pay but not much, and uses Ableton as my best new weapon in music making. I appreciate the sentiment about how much you love your Mac, and the ever growing part of me that isn’t instinctively repulsed by the cult like status of Apple would love to be using a reliable old MacBook for my work but it’s all about the budget.

I did some personal sums and unfortunately if I spend £1600-2000 (MacBook Pro prices) I’ll need that machine to last me for 6-8 years to make the investment viable, is that even realistic? A £1000 machine would need to last me 4 years to be viable, which does at least stay in the usual extendable warranty for most manufacturers, but is a bog standard MacBook today going to handle software requirements and wear and tear for the next 4 years? Far too many unknowns for the price attached for me.

Surely for the purposes of running Ableton, primed as it is for Lap Top usage, there must be a suitable cheaper alternative that will happily/reliably manage 20-40 tracks of audio and MIDI instruments with 20-40 effects and plug-in’s running at the same time.

Right now if I do spend £1000 it’s likely to be a Rain Livebook dual i5 optimised for music, and easily up-gradable in the future should I need to be.

Has anyone used the Rain Live book? Is it worthy of the investment?

S

Ummmm.....A Rain Livebook is just as expensive as a Mac! Around $1500-$1800.
ANd Wow!! You're financial planning for the future is amazing!
Also, the "cult like status" means absolutely nothing. That's just stupid people saying stupid things. I don't know why that would affect your decision in any way. The new Macbook Pros have i5's in them. And are you sure the Rain Livebook is up-gradable. And when I say up-gradable I mean, is the CPU soldered to the board?

If you put 4-8 GB RAM and an intel i5 in ANY machine, you'll be good to go!

[XPM]

Do you actually need It to be portable? If not, build a desktop! I just put a shot hot pc together for £600.

[sham-79]

Do you actually need It to be portable? If not, build a desktop! I just put a shot hot pc together for £600.

Sadly for me it absolutely needs to be portable as I will be using it to teach and perform with away from home...still jealous of what you have though!

[sham-79]

Ummmm.....A Rain Livebook is just as expensive as a Mac! Around $1500-$1800.
ANd Wow!! You're financial planning for the future is amazing!
Also, the "cult like status" means absolutely nothing. That's just stupid people saying stupid things. I don't know why that would affect your decision in any way. The new Macbook Pros have i5's in them. And are you sure the Rain Livebook is up-gradable. And when I say up-gradable I mean, is the CPU soldered to the board?

If you put 4-8 GB RAM and an intel i5 in ANY machine, you'll be good to go!

Alright, no need to take the pee just because I’m poor enough to watch the pennies... but there must be a considerable price differential between what you can get a Mac for in the states and what I can get one for in the UK. I can get an i5 4Gb Rain 15''or ADK 17'' for just under and just over £1000 respectively but Mbps with the same fire power and a 15 inch screen or larger start at approximately £1600. If I could find one or you could tell me where I could find one for £1000 or less I'd go Apple believe me, but I just don't earn enough back through music to spend over £1500 and keep paying the bills right now.

I hear what you say about putting 4-8 Gb and an i5 in any machine, but that is where the mobile PC platform is less reliable, with the wrong BIOS and/or hardware configuration real time audio can be screwed regardless of the on paper spec of the machine, its exactly why I’m looking for a new one now…and no I don’t really earn enough to spend £1000 either but it seems it might be my only to keep working with music so right now.

PS. Sorry if I came over unnecessarily prickly about Apple before, It wasn't supposed to be serious. Your opinion is still appreciated.

Peace

[wascal]

http://www.techradar.com/reviews/pc-mac ... ?artc_pg=2

Got one of these for £530 around xmas. i5 450 processor, 3gb ram, not that heavy, pretty sturdy brushed aluminium lid and it takes a regular 35 channel pounding from my ableton sets without kicking up a fuss. I disabled the acpi battery setting when I got it, and always turn off wifi when doing anything audio critical - it runs like a dream.

[Theo Void]

No dude. You weren't prickly at all and I'm sorry if I came across like an asshole. I was genuinely amazed at your financial plannng! I don't think 2 days into the future, financially speaking, let alone 4-8 years. That's is incredible. Then again, I consider music making ne of the TOP priorities in my life. I'd go nuts w/o it. It's my primary income and my therapy.

Look on Apple's refurb site. You can sometimes get awesome deals there. Also, I don't kniw if you have Craigslist in the UK but I check it everyday here in the states because I find all kinds of great deals. People are always selling Macbooks on Craigslist. Check it out dude.

I'm about to drop $150 on a VST PLug-In as we speak. I'm ordering it right after I write this post. Music Production is an expensive hobby. But for me, totally worth every penny!

Good luck. I hope you find what your looking for.

[Theo Void]

DUDE!!! Check this out. NewEgg is having a 48-hr sale!!

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 146840-L0B

[sham-79]

DUDE!!! Check this out. NewEgg is having a 48-hr sale!!

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 146840-L0B

My God! The price drop on that Lenovo was amazing, unfortunately all sold out before I even got a look in, I'd probably have to pay a massive import tax to get it shipped anyway.

Thanks for the Mac hunting tips, I'll see if I can find the UK equivelents.

S

[sham-79]

http://www.techradar.com/reviews/pc-mac ... ?artc_pg=2

Got one of these for £530 around xmas. i5 450 processor, 3gb ram, not that heavy, pretty sturdy brushed aluminium lid and it takes a regular 35 channel pounding from my ableton sets without kicking up a fuss. I disabled the acpi battery setting when I got it, and always turn off wifi when doing anything audio critical - it runs like a dream.

Thanks for the recommendation; I forgot Packard-Bell even existed. What external hardware do you use with it? Have you run a DPC Latency check?

I only ask because although my problem is in my Laptop, it's spiking in the background (to around 5000 micro seconds) every 5 seconds regardless of the connections and use acpi setting, in terms of audible pips and drop outs these only become apparent when i'm using an external ASIO device. I can use Live quite happily with the Lap top in isolation (up to about 30 tracks and 20-30 effects)but the added latency involved when using an ASIO device, and I’ve tried a few different ones, is 'breaking the camels back' so to speak and makes the pc useless for recoding and live use.

S

[wascal]

http://www.techradar.com/reviews/pc-mac ... ?artc_pg=2

Got one of these for £530 around xmas. i5 450 processor, 3gb ram, not that heavy, pretty sturdy brushed aluminium lid and it takes a regular 35 channel pounding from my ableton sets without kicking up a fuss. I disabled the acpi battery setting when I got it, and always turn off wifi when doing anything audio critical - it runs like a dream.

Thanks for the recommendation; I forgot Packard-Bell even existed. What external hardware do you use with it? Have you run a DPC Latency check?

I only ask because although my problem is in my Laptop, it's spiking in the background (to around 5000 micro seconds) every 5 seconds regardless of the connections and use acpi setting, in terms of audible pips and drop outs these only become apparent when i'm using an external ASIO device. I can use Live quite happily with the Lap top in isolation (up to about 30 tracks and 20-30 effects)but the added latency involved when using an ASIO device, and I’ve tried a few different ones, is 'breaking the camels back' so to speak and makes the pc useless for recoding and live use.

S

Out of the box it was giving a 2000ish dpc spike every 20 seconds. Disabling ACPI battery and turning off wifi got rid of this. I'm using a crusty old Behringer BCD3000, a Launchpad and a NanoKontrol with it, at pretty low latency and no issues.

[sham-79]

http://www.techradar.com/reviews/pc-mac ... ?artc_pg=2

Got one of these for £530 around xmas. i5 450 processor, 3gb ram, not that heavy, pretty sturdy brushed aluminium lid and it takes a regular 35 channel pounding from my ableton sets without kicking up a fuss. I disabled the acpi battery setting when I got it, and always turn off wifi when doing anything audio critical - it runs like a dream.

Thanks for the recommendation; I forgot Packard-Bell even existed. What external hardware do you use with it? Have you run a DPC Latency check?

I only ask because although my problem is in my Laptop, it's spiking in the background (to around 5000 micro seconds) every 5 seconds regardless of the connections and use acpi setting, in terms of audible pips and drop outs these only become apparent when i'm using an external ASIO device. I can use Live quite happily with the Lap top in isolation (up to about 30 tracks and 20-30 effects)but the added latency involved when using an ASIO device, and I’ve tried a few different ones, is 'breaking the camels back' so to speak and makes the pc useless for recoding and live use.

S

Out of the box it was giving a 2000ish dpc spike every 20 seconds. Disabling ACPI battery and turning off wifi got rid of this. I'm using a crusty old Behringer BCD3000, a Launchpad and a NanoKontrol with it, at pretty low latency and no issues.

Your choice is sounding better and better, it might just save me £450.

Are you still able to use it for your main computer or have you had to dedicate it for music use. In other words are you able to use the WiFi when you need to and has switching the ACPI battery function off affected other functions in your machine? ... I’m aware from other forums that this sometimes does strange things, such as disable DVD eject commands.

S

[wascal]

Nope, it works fine for me, even runs games like halflife2, trackmania etc quite well which isn't bad for a pc with no dedicated GPU.

[ze2be]

Lenovo Thinkpad is the PC worlds Mac Book Pro.

I got it almost 50% cheaper then the stores in my euro country: got a friend in the states to send it over. The dollar was low compared to my local currency. But its still possible to do great deals this way.