Best laptop for Ableton Live - on stage performance

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
H20nly
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Re: Best laptop for Ableton Live - on stage performance

Post by H20nly » Thu Apr 05, 2012 9:16 pm

bambowlett wrote:in the end I went for a Y570.
Last edited by H20nly on Tue Apr 16, 2013 5:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.

adessmith
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Re: Best laptop for Ableton Live - on stage performance

Post by adessmith » Fri Apr 06, 2012 9:21 pm

I've been running an old IBM Thinkpad R52 (made before they rebranded everything Lenovo) with just 1GB ram and windows 7 for a couple of years.
I use it live, at least 2-3 times a week, and it still works flawlessly. However, I dont tax it much. Your situation might be different from mine. We use it for loops and backing tracks behind a live band. I do all the recording and arranging at home on a beefy quad core desktop. For each song, I export each track to a seperate file and save them on an external drive to be added to the set in live.
For the live playback we have one HUGE set in live with all the songs we ever do, each song is is one or more scenes (there are about 40 songs) and we setup a midi controler to trigger the ones we need for that nights set.

The important thing is to make this a DEDICATED MACHINE for your audio stuff. Dont let your kids play games on it, dont use it to browse the internet or anything. Strictly live audio only. If your machine comes with a bunch of bloatware on it, uninstall EVERYTHING except software which is necessary for your hardware to function, and Live. Or better yet, format the drive and install windows CLEAN and then just add ableton and any hardware drivers you NEED.

IBM (now Lenovo) makes some really solid stuff.
There was some IBM software which was designed to stop the hard drive in the event of a fall or any other impact.
I found that I had to disable that, because the vibration from the music (heavy bass parts) caused the audio to dropout when the computer thought it was "protecting" the drive from the vibrations, and the data couldnt be read from the drive at those times.
Other than that, I would highly suggest anyone looking for a windows machine, look into the Lenovo stuff. I know they still make thinkpads.

MrBen
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Re: Best laptop for Ableton Live - on stage performance

Post by MrBen » Fri Apr 06, 2012 9:34 pm

Who cares anyway? Ableton is dead.

JimConley
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Re: Best laptop for Ableton Live - on stage performance

Post by JimConley » Mon Apr 15, 2013 6:25 pm

filter_7 wrote:Would be nice to hear from you - as some guys did - your succesfull combination of
computer + audio interface + midi controllers
Dell XPS 14
Focusrite Scarlett 2i2
Push

Low enough latency that I can monitor run my guitar (Ibanez AJS) and microphone (AT2035) with a whack of Live effects and tracks without any discernible delay (I think it's about 11s round trip). One power plug since the Push and the Focusrite are bus-powered.

Quick note for PC users - Asio4All is imperative if you're using (ugh) your native sound card. Also run LatencyMon to see what's impacting your audio. Network connections (including Bluetooth) are usually the biggest culprit.

Dragonbreath
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Re: Best laptop for Ableton Live - on stage performance

Post by Dragonbreath » Mon Apr 15, 2013 7:44 pm

I would go with a macbook pro 15", get the most processor you can afford and upgrade ram, Hard drive later on (as allready suggested)

To people out there that suggest that PC is just as good, I must disagree. I always have been an Apple fan boy, but never disliked PC's that much either. Found they were good for the right people.

But then my friend got Ableton and wanted my helped setting up his rig. My mac is 4 years old now and has a core duo 2,53ghz use to have 4 gigs of ram (upgraded to 8gigs and bigger faster drive last year). Always handled live smoothly. His toshiba had about the same specs 2,4,ghz and 4 gigs ram on windows 7. He asked if he should upgrade his computer. I told you should have more then enough to start off (his processing needs are less then mine).

What a nightmare, latencies much higher then my mac. Downloaded ASIO for all. Was better but still not great (his USB interface would get decent Latencies on my MPB). Now the projects would have CPU spikes on sets that would barelly make my Mac flicker. Oh of course, gotta optimise the thing and turn this off and that on. Followed a few instructions online, turned to performance mode and what not. Still would not compare to what I could get of the mac both in latency and CPU performance, even though the technical specs are almost identical. Would of been possible to get closer with even more tweaking? I dont care! My Macbook pro has been my main computer for 4 years and never defaulted on me. No maintnance, no anti-virus, no bullsh*t!!

The extra money is worth the hassle free operation and performance anyday!

redglass
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Re: Best laptop for Ableton Live - on stage performance

Post by redglass » Tue Apr 16, 2013 10:08 am

doghouse wrote:I've used pretty much every version of DOS, Windows and Mac OS (not to forget Atari ST) over the years. I use a MacBookPro at home and I'm prepping a Toshiba Satellite (WinXP) for some upcoming gigs.

Macs are more solid out of the box. Windows machines require you to do some setup work to make them rock solid for live music applications. If you're uncomfortable with uninstalling or disabling stuff in Windows get a Mac.

Live runs on both OSes, but if you plan on adding lots of VST plugs there are many more available for Windows, esp. free ones.

My only other advice is to get the fastest machine you can afford, hard drives and RAM can always be upgraded later.
IS it possible to change HD and RAM with latest MacBooks? I thought they were solid body know, so glued stuff within the MacBook...

Timbeaux
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Re: Best laptop for Ableton Live - on stage performance

Post by Timbeaux » Tue Apr 16, 2013 12:14 pm

Dragonbreath wrote:I would go with a macbook pro 15", get the most processor you can afford and upgrade ram, Hard drive later on (as allready suggested)

Still would not compare to what I could get of the mac both in latency and CPU performance, even though the technical specs are almost identical.

The extra money is worth the hassle free operation and performance anyday!

first point i agree, its really the easiest way.

2nd point isn't that true. i have had similar problems, but they depended mainly on the motherboard.


3rd point, Sure u have to inform urself before u buy something, but giyf.com.


Anyway, if u have the money, and only wnat the laptop for ur daw, the macbook stated above should be the best choice.

acidshell
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Re: Best laptop for Ableton Live - on stage performance

Post by acidshell » Mon Apr 22, 2013 1:26 am

If you want a fancy case get a mac.

If you are looking for raw performance get a pc. The components in both are the same only the mac has a fancy case. I recently bought a Samsung NP350E7C S02UK as its the only laptop with a i7 processor 8GB of RAM and 4 USB ports(2xUSB 2.0 + 2xUSB 3.0) Which covers Ableton Push, APC 40, Vestax VCI380(Serato+Audio Interface), and one to spare for my AVID Eleven rack for Protools when Im at home.

There simply isnt any other laptop with those specs, and it only cost me €800, and I had a €10,000 budget.

I work in IT by the way and have seen more issues with Apple's than PC's, plus you get a right mouse button with a PC. Saying that both will run Ableton smoothly. The best processor and as much high speed RAM as you can get. If you can setup a RAID 0/10 array with 2 hard drives is even better, and if you can get a large SSD is better than that. No point getting loads of RAM if you are not going to use 64bit Ableton though, and Max4live is now 64bit too.

Just remember fancy case doesnt mean better. It also doesnt mean worse, but it usually means more expensive.

If you get a PC ahead of a MAC you have more freedom to do what you like to it, but that also means that you run the rish of cluttering it up with crap too, so you need to be more careful as you have more freedom with a PC (Buy your software, close your antivirus+firewall when performing, disable wireless also, etc)

If your getting crackling and your CPU is not getting hammerred then you should try a different USB cable. If not that then you should check your sound card (use an external one)

Hope that helps
:mrgreen:

smutek
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Re: Best laptop for Ableton Live - on stage performance

Post by smutek » Mon Apr 22, 2013 2:39 am

acidshell wrote:
I work in IT by the way and have seen more issues with Apple's than PC's, plus you get a right mouse button with a PC.
Seriously?

PHY6
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Re: Best laptop for Ableton Live - on stage performance

Post by PHY6 » Mon Apr 22, 2013 6:37 am

Ahem, you can right-click on mac too...

Blendton
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Re: Best laptop for Ableton Live - on stage performance

Post by Blendton » Mon Apr 22, 2013 12:29 pm

twisted-space wrote:
ze2be wrote:
twisted-space wrote:If you need to ask, get a mac.
:lol:
I wasn't joking, think about it.

A mac will pretty much work out of the box.
A pc can work, but you need to do some research to ensure you choose one suitable for low latency audio and possibly do some work to configure it correctly.


The OP's question suggests, to me at least, that they either can't or don't want to do the required research, so the best option for them, imho, is to get a mac.
Sorry to strongly disagree without concession if I'm +/- totally objective, without even conseiving the "better than" concept which creates endless nuts thoughts...

I admit I've hesitate so much, that Toshiba (the one ay the bottom's signature indeed) or if I remember early 2012 I could have a MPB 15" + 750GB 7200rpm and I presume by writing I "considered" the most expensive Sandy Bridge Core i7 upgrade, a 2870QM with 8MB L3 (which is a little more "many GB/sec in bus width or ... whatever).

I also (better late than never ever) realized the actual difference between PC and Mac is that the Apple way looks like you said, "out of box stuff" where all from low to above high grade notebooks are bundle with noy only "malware style to behave as you always are everwhelmed by crap sponsoring apps, demos of Norton Yellow Virus (this one requires total rebuild after annilation of the "out of box" MAYBE but with serious and muticulous rethinking being : go to hell and live for long to suffer, bloody shitty OS making jeweks slower than some Android ARM gadgets for a mouse move or two ^^

>>> but did you realize that Apple Inc. the "ALWAYS AND FOREVER BELIEVED TO BE THE OPPPOSITE from PC, compatibility issues & stuff" for the majority, even in skilled users just having pointed a simple trth which 15 years behind us would have been "less than a joke and words frpù insane dudes"

THE TRUTH IS THE MAX IS THE ONLY TOTALLY COMPATIBLE WITH EVERY FUCKING OS : OSX + Windows 7 and above (or not but more smart starting from 7) + why not a Linux mate.

On a PC we can't access to OSX.
Antoine, aka Blendton.

OS : Windows 8 Professional with Media Center - x64
Ableton Live 9 Suite (64-bit) & Ableton Suite 8 + Max for Live (32-bit)
Toshiba Qosmio F750 + lenticular glasses-free 3D
i7 2670QM 2,20GHz - 2x4GB DDR3-1333 - 5400rpm HDD

davidjccawley@yahoo.co.uk
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Re: Best laptop for Ableton Live - on stage performance

Post by davidjccawley@yahoo.co.uk » Thu Apr 25, 2013 5:38 pm

twisted-space wrote:If you need to ask, get a mac.
this is definitely the single best advice i've come across after the last two hours of looking for advice on this topic! Twisted space i salute you!

Dragonbreath
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Re: Best laptop for Ableton Live - on stage performance

Post by Dragonbreath » Thu Apr 25, 2013 9:34 pm

Im sorry but you get much more then a fancy case with a mac.
You get an optimsed computer out of the box and it works hassle free.
Im sure if your very tech savy and you want to take time and hassle to do a ton of research you can maybe get a more powerfull system then on a mac, but it still wont be as stable.

From my personal experiemce I had two laptop side by side with the same external sound card. Even the system specs on both computer in terms of RAM and processor were almost identical. The PC completly chocked CPU wise compated to the Mac even after spending half hour reading online trying to optimise the computer. Some of you mentionned something about motherboards. The amount of time and knowledge needed to set up a PC to match the performance and stability of a mac simply doesnt add up. If you cant afford mac I guess your stuck, but I believe a PC probably still more expensive on the long run.


H20nly
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Re: Best laptop for Ableton Live - on stage performance

Post by H20nly » Fri Apr 26, 2013 3:43 pm

Dragonbreath wrote:Im sorry but you get much more then a fancy case with a mac.
You get an optimsed computer out of the box and it works hassle free.
Im sure if your very tech savy and you want to take time and hassle to do a ton of research you can maybe get a more powerfull system then on a mac, but it still wont be as stable.

From my personal experiemce I had two laptop side by side with the same external sound card. Even the system specs on both computer in terms of RAM and processor were almost identical. The PC completly chocked CPU wise compated to the Mac even after spending half hour reading online trying to optimise the computer. Some of you mentionned something about motherboards. The amount of time and knowledge needed to set up a PC to match the performance and stability of a mac simply doesnt add up. If you cant afford mac I guess your stuck, but I believe a PC probably still more expensive on the long run.
sorry, but you're wrong. sure, building one takes longer... but that's just it... you CAN build one if you'd like, not that you have to anymore. the options don't end there. i have an iMac and i like it, but i won't pretend i could not have thrown that same 2000 bucks down on a PC that would have run circles around it performance wise. in the end, it was the fancy case and otherworldly resolution of the monitor that got me. i will agree that CORE Audio is nice though.

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