Hardware Specs - what is necessary?

[clon]

Hello to the Forum,

maybe there is anyone who can help out

Question: What Hardware Specs are necessary for getting started?
(Don´t know if i´m going to do that longer - i would buy an MacBook Pro/Retina/13" who has general enough power to be happy with

Hint: It´s absolutely clear that bigger (more power) is always better BUT it´s also much expensiv.
I have no Prob to get a new and more powerfull MacBook (1 - 2 Years) if i see that i have fun with Ableton 9 live. Truely: And have also enough time for creating Songs.

What i would do: Playing around with Ableton 9 live, esspecialy trying to make some Drum n Bass Tracks.

What the MacBook Pro should be able to handle:
- Handling all the stuff to make some good Drum n Bass Tracks
Hardware:
- KORG padCONTROL,
- maybe the PUSH Controller from Ableton (in the Future),
- a hardware Keyboard,
- Micro,
- external Soundcard,
- additional Monitor,
- maybe another KORG Synthi
- and maybe an CHAOS Pad.
Software:
- Ableton 9 live Suite

Can anyone tell what Hardware Specs are necessary?

MacBook Pro 13" late 2013 / 256 gb ssd harddrive / 8 gb ram / processor: i5 with 2.4 ghz?

THX!
clon

[TomViolenz]

Hello to the Forum,

maybe there is anyone who can help out

Question: What Hardware Specs are necessary for getting started?
(Don´t know if i´m going to do that longer - i would buy an MacBook Pro/Retina/13" who has general enough power to be happy with

Hint: It´s absolutely clear that bigger (more power) is always better BUT it´s also much expensiv.
I have no Prob to get a new and more powerfull MacBook (1 - 2 Years) if i see that i have fun with Ableton 9 live. Truely: And have also enough time for creating Songs.

What i would do: Playing around with Ableton 9 live, esspecialy trying to make some Drum n Bass Tracks.

What the MacBook Pro should be able to handle:
- Handling all the stuff to make some good Drum n Bass Tracks
Hardware:
- KORG padCONTROL,
- maybe the PUSH Controller from Ableton (in the Future),
- a hardware Keyboard,
- Micro,
- external Soundcard,
- additional Monitor,
- maybe another KORG Synthi
- and maybe an CHAOS Pad.
Software:
- Ableton 9 live Suite

Can anyone tell what Hardware Specs are necessary?

MacBook Pro 13" late 2013 / 256 gb ssd harddrive / 8 gb ram / processor: i5 with 2.4 ghz?

THX!
clon

Should work

[KillerWave]

I face a lot of problems with Ableton and using a lot of native instrument's komplete plugins.... Such as Ableton crashing on medium to larger projects and losing big chunks of data that are essential in the songs... Which have been very heartbreaking in the past! Also, I can't even think about performing with Ableton Live, with multiple songs and hundreds of samples. There's just no way Ableton and my computer will allow it. So whenever I play shows, I just simply DJ polished tracks with Traktor.

The specs of the computer you just described should be great for what you want to do, just really depends on how many plugins and how in-depth you want to get with them all. And you should really think about how you would want to go about future performances as well. If you have no intentions to perform, then no worries. If you want to perform 1-2 hour shows with Push and access 100s of samples and plugins, there's a good chance you will eventually need the next step up in RAM amount and processor.

I'd say, go for that computer, and there will always be room to upgrade that computer's specs if you are in the situation where your computer can't handle what you're producing in Ableton

[KrisM]

I often run Live 9 Suite on a 1.3GHz dual core i5 (2013 MacBook Air w/ 8GB of RAM). It runs better than you'd think. I can run a couple instances of Reaktor Razor on HQ and Audio Damage's Eos reverb and be okay at 512 on the buffer (built-in sound, 24-bit 44.1kHz). 50% on the CPU meter iirc.

Those are pretty heavy plugins. I get a lot more mileage out of using the Ableton instruments, obviously, and/or freezing/flattening to audio as soon as possible, using pretty much anything but Reaktor >.>

I think you'll do pretty well on a 2.4GHz i5.

[Schmidi]

Ableton itself is quite easy on the CPU, as are it's built in plug ins.

Where you run into problems (CPU and stability) is with 3rd party plug ins.

Currently my 4 year old Core i3 laptop works just fine for producing as long as I'm using the built in Ableton plugs.

Schmidi

[clon]

First: Massiv THX to all answerers!

Another Question who who i´m worried about:

Can anyone tell if the using of a PC with Windows 8.1
(Looking for http://www.amazon.de/Lenovo-IdeaPad-ANT ... 29+schwarz that Machine)
is a bit difficult for using any of the needs i´m writing about?

Especialy for the additional Hardware?
Any Probs i schould be worry about?

Best THX in advance
clon

[djdiskmachine]

Schmidi:
Is that so, what are the specs on your laptop? I'm running ableton 9 on an old white macbook c2d with 4 gigs of RAM. No beast at all, and you can tell - it quickly goes on its knees after only a few tracks with a minor plugin setup.
Same with my Macbook air 2011 with 2 gigs of ram. It can handle a simple DJ set without any problem, but that's about it.
However, running Logic X on the latter platform is no problem, and you can get pretty advanced before you can start to feel the performance lag.

I was thinking of upgrading to a 2013 version Macbook Air with 8 gigs of RAM, but I'm not certain if I should prioritize CPU clock speed or RAM...

[Schmidi]

Schmidi:
Is that so, what are the specs on your laptop? I'm running ableton 9 on an old white macbook c2d with 4 gigs of RAM. No beast at all, and you can tell - it quickly goes on its knees after only a few tracks with a minor plugin setup.
Same with my Macbook air 2011 with 2 gigs of ram. It can handle a simple DJ set without any problem, but that's about it.
However, running Logic X on the latter platform is no problem, and you can get pretty advanced before you can start to feel the performance lag.

I was thinking of upgrading to a 2013 version Macbook Air with 8 gigs of RAM, but I'm not certain if I should prioritize CPU clock speed or RAM...

For me, I noticed a HUGE jump in CPU efficiency coming from my Intel Quadcore desktop to the laptop i3 and was quite surprised. That said, there are definitely 3rd party plugs that can kill it quick (DCAM Synth Squad). That's why I'm trying to utilize the Ableton plugs more.

I will say that the what and how a person produces is going to have the most impact. If you use tons of reverbs on each track (as opposed to 1-2 sends with reverb), and never bounce or freeze, you will see performance hits quickly.

8gb ram and as fast a CPU as you can afford are my recommendations.