Should I buy a Thinkpad? Time sensitive

[skamunista]

Hi all-
So i'm new to ableton, electronic sound making (I play trumpet, guitar, keys, know basic music theory but not frequencies, harmonics, compressors, mastering, electronic stuff, etc). First i got a used oxygen keyboard, then a korg nanopad, and i've successfully made some basic electro beats and even songs in live lite. I'm really loving it and the freedom it gives me to compose outside my band.

Until last year I was always a windows/linux user. Since last summer i've been mostly using a big imac, which is nice and all, but i have the chance before mid-august to get a pretty heavy discount on a lenovo through this student advantage card. I'm using a hand-me-down laptop as a backup, and truthfully I could use a new laptop.

Question: Should I get a thinkpad this month? I'm a student and broke, but i could justify buying a laptop if it were going to help with both school and music. Supposedly i have a 40% discount, so that's a lot. On my discount website they are giving a base price of 572.98 for a t420 base system which includes only a 14" display, 2gb ram and an intel core i3... i don't even know how good that is, but i do hear that thinkpads are one of the best non-Macbook Pro audio production laptops.

for comparison's sake, the W series start at 1,104, which is basically out of my price range.$

Could i make do with the T420 base system? What should I really be looking for? For me the answer can't just be the highest end stuff right now, but i want something that give me the freedom to work on my ableton skills a bit more in the winter months and i could use a laptop anyways. Again, for now i just have a 2-octave keyboard controller and a korg nanopad which i've modded to make the buttons more responsive. they serve me well for the limited capacity of live lite (and my beginner's skill), so i'm really looking for something that will help me get to the next level--the one where i decide to keep going with this and buy an apc40 or the full version.

sorry for the rambling email. thanks for any advice you can give.

[MIDIpanic]

I say go for it! I’ve been using a T61p machine for several years and it still runs everything I need: Ableton, Reason, Komplete 7 (including large Kontakt libraries like Electri6ity, Alicia’s Keys,….), Omnisphere, RME Babyface and UFX, multiple controllers, etc.. Second 500 GB 7200 RPM HDD in the UltraBay. I use the ThinkPad a lot for live performances and it is rock solid.

The 420 specs blow my machine out of the water. I’m sure you would be happy with it. At a minimum, configure it with Win 7 64 bit, the fastest processor you can afford and as much RAM as you can afford. USB 2.0 is plenty of pipe for the foreseeable future for pro audio.

[H20nly]

Do it. happy T500 owner here. i can't relay a better message than MIDIpanic does above, but i can say that my Thinkpad is solid and i totally agree with his encouragement fwiw.

[skamunista]

thanks for the encouragement. what are the main bottlenecks? is the sound card ok? i'm not really up to date on intel stuff anymore i3/5/7? it seems to just be 2.5/2.6/2.7 Ghz...

can i please have a hierarchy of upgrades like
1. ram
2. processor
3. and so forth?

[matthews]

Ram
Hard Drive
Processor
Graphics Card (you won't be able to swap this)

Your also going to want an audio interface eventually.

[H20nly]

the internal sound card works for edits and such just fine. i've used mine with Live on an airplane, but if you're planning on doing any serious recording etc and external interface is still crucial.

get the 64 bit Windows 7

8 gigs of RAM and the fastest processor you can afford... you can't go wrong.

when i got my T500 Windows 7 was not yet released (but i got a free upgrade when it was) it was Vista so i asked for the XP downgrade ... i wasn't sure how much of a pain in the ass 64 bit was going to be at the time so i ordered it with the 32 bit OS. looking back i wish i hadn't. 64 bit will let you use more RAM and any processor pushing or past the 3 GHz mark with 2 or more cores is going to kick ass, especially with that much RAM available.

i wouldn't bother with the graphics card unless you are making movies or playing games on it.

[MIDIpanic]

A couple of suggestions:

Unless you are using large sample libraries, 4 GB will suffice for now; especially since Live is still 32 bit and will use at most only 3-3.5 GB before you start getting “out of memory” warnings. The extra 4 GB to get to 8 gigs will cost you an additional $150-200 if purchased from Lenovo. RAM can be upgraded later easily and cheaply once Live releases a 64 bit version and if you want to load large sample libraries into memory.

Put most of your money toward the fastest processor you can afford and a 500 GB, 7200 RPM HDD (you can upgrade to a solid state drive (SSD) later once the prices come down and sizes increase). The biggest choke point will be the CPU. As you add instruments and effects, it puts increasing strain on the CPU, which will eventually cause audible artifacts in the audio stream. All of the second generation Intel “Core” processors (i3, i5 & i7) have at least 2 cores and hyper-threading (meaning you will see at least 4 virtual “cores” on your machine). The i5 and i7 series add “boost” technology and larger caches. Some of the higher end i7 processors have 4 cores (8 with hyper-threading); but the T420 does not offer the quad core CPU’s as an option (only the T520 machines). However, any of the newer CPU’s offered on the T420 would bury my old T61p Core 2 Duo!

After that, maybe a higher resolution screen, a camera, a 9 cell battery and pay for a longer warranty.

Ditto on a USB interface. The Win 7 WMA drivers are definitely improving. But you will get much lower latency and fewer artifacts with ASIO drivers. I highly recommend the RME Babyface: USB powered; fits in any laptop case; XLR inputs and outputs; and the software mixer (TotalMix) is incredible. But the Babyface is pricey (~$750 street).

[starving student]

A couple of suggestions:

Unless you are using large sample libraries, 4 GB will suffice for now; especially since Live is still 32 bit and will use at most only 3-3.5 GB before you start getting “out of memory” warnings. The extra 4 GB to get to 8 gigs will cost you an additional $150-200 if purchased from Lenovo. RAM can be upgraded later easily and cheaply once Live releases a 64 bit version and if you want to load large sample libraries into memory.

Put most of your money toward the fastest processor you can afford and a 500 GB, 7200 RPM HDD (you can upgrade to a solid state drive (SSD) later once the prices come down and sizes increase). The biggest choke point will be the CPU. As you add instruments and effects, it puts increasing strain on the CPU, which will eventually cause audible artifacts in the audio stream. All of the second generation Intel “Core” processors (i3, i5 & i7) have at least 2 cores and hyper-threading (meaning you will see at least 4 virtual “cores” on your machine). The i5 and i7 series add “boost” technology and larger caches. Some of the higher end i7 processors have 4 cores (8 with hyper-threading); but the T420 does not offer the quad core CPU’s as an option (only the T520 machines). However, any of the newer CPU’s offered on the T420 would bury my old T61p Core 2 Duo!

After that, maybe a higher resolution screen, a camera, a 9 cell battery and pay for a longer warranty.

Ditto on a USB interface. The Win 7 WMA drivers are definitely improving. But you will get much lower latency and fewer artifacts with ASIO drivers. I highly recommend the RME Babyface: USB powered; fits in any laptop case; XLR inputs and outputs; and the software mixer (TotalMix) is incredible. But the Babyface is pricey (~$750 street).

I've got an old blackbook core 2 duo 2.0ghz, only 2gigs of ram, are you saying that the duo core i7 will bury my laptops performance?

[flowdesigner]

3+ years old thinkpads have TI chipset

I recomend macintosh

[spacecat]

i used to use a t-23 thinkpad.. it was perfect for audio.

dont know about the newer ones...

[skamunista]

3+ years old thinkpads have TI chipset

I recomend macintosh

could you elaborate on the TI chipset? this would likely be my school/lesson planning/audio laptop for a year or two with an upgrade to a mbp when/if i have a stable job/have become confident enough with ableton that i feel like i need the extra power to make what i want. and i'm more into electronic cumbia and other latin percussion stuff (bomba estereo, systema solar, novalima, zzk) than super-layered and complicated techno, though i don't know what that will mean when it comes down to fully developed songs. maybe the same.

[H20nly]

a TI chipset only matters if you're using a firewire audio interface.