Upgrade or not

Discuss anything related to audio or music production.
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phil@40
Posts: 60
Joined: Sat Jan 09, 2016 3:36 pm
Contact:

Upgrade or not

Post by phil@40 » Sun Feb 10, 2019 10:54 am

Hey guys I'd like a bit of advice I have an Acer laptop.

Specs as follows
AMD
E-Series
E1-7010
1.50 GHz
Dual-core (2 Core™)
Cache
1 MB

Standard Memory
4 GB
Maximum Memory
16 GB
DDR3L SDRAM
2
Storage
1tb

Is this enough to run Ableton 10 etc I'm already using the komplete software etc without issue, but have had one issue iwht the software overloading the CPU.

Also someone mentioned apple Mac's are better for music production for there specs etc

Is what I have enough or can I/should I upgrade and if so what should I upgrade

Thanks in advance

miyaru
Posts: 1267
Joined: Tue Jan 10, 2017 12:08 pm
Location: The Netherlands

Re: Upgrade or not

Post by miyaru » Sun Feb 10, 2019 3:50 pm

https://help.ableton.com/hc/en-us/artic ... quirements

Your system is far from powerfull, an upgrade would do you good! But beware of what you buy, as there many things to consider.....

Mac or PC - it's up to you, both are good these days - I prefer PC - but hey that's me.

I haven't used a laptop to run Live 10, so I can't help you with that. Beware of throttling and stuff like that in laptops (powersavings etc.).

Maybe someone chimes in with knowledge of both Win Laptops as well as Macbook Pro's.
Greetings from Miyaru.
Prodaw i7-7700, 16Gb Ram, Focusrite Scarlett 18i20 3rd gen, ESI M4U eX, Reason 12, Live Suit 10, Push2, Presonus Eris E8 and Monitor Station V2, Lexicon MPX1,
Korg N1, Yamaha RM1x :mrgreen:

justanametouse
Posts: 109
Joined: Mon Feb 26, 2018 11:54 pm

Re: Upgrade or not

Post by justanametouse » Sun Feb 10, 2019 4:00 pm

Once upon a time, Macs were better for music production and creative tasks in general (I don't think too many people would argue that), but nowadays, it's really personal preference. Part of the reason why that belief has stuck around is just good marketing on Apple's part and parroting by creative communities. If you want to upgrade, get the best thing you can within your budget. If that's a Mac, great, if it's Windows, also great.

As for myself, I'm an Apple ecosystem slave. I started production with a MacBook Pro and have since moved onto an iMac. When it's time to upgrade again, I'll probably be sticking with Apple, but at this point it's more for convenience and comfort than any technical reasons.

phil@40
Posts: 60
Joined: Sat Jan 09, 2016 3:36 pm
Contact:

Re: Upgrade or not

Post by phil@40 » Sun Feb 10, 2019 4:03 pm

Sorry I currently have 8gb in not 4gb, I've checked and can install two SSD hard drives in, using the smaller 120gb SSD for Windows maybe then the bigger SSD for Ableton, or what software I use

102455
Posts: 1733
Joined: Sat Nov 21, 2009 1:41 pm
Location: UK
Contact:

Re: Upgrade or not

Post by 102455 » Sun Feb 10, 2019 4:39 pm

What's your budget? It's no good anyone recommending anything if you're not prepared to spend the money...

My suggestion would be - get an Intel CPU, not AMD. A nice fast i7 preferrably. 64 bit OS with as much RAM as you can cram in.

Gaming laptops are a good starting point, as they tend to be more powerful than the average consumer "web browsing" laptop.

The ASUS R.O.G. range are well regarded.

kj
Posts: 9
Joined: Thu Jan 12, 2006 11:23 am

Re: Upgrade or not

Post by kj » Mon Feb 11, 2019 3:27 pm

Besides what the people above me are saying. It also depends on how are you using Live. For example, i mainly record my own synths with Ableton and have the occasional softsynth in there. So i just need some OK disk speed that can track recording 24 channels of audio.
Your machine specs depends on things like, do you use a lot of softsynths, get more CPU cycles. Do you use a lot of sample based instruments like Kontact, you probably need lots of memory. Do you record lots of audio in parallel, think about IO throughput.

8E
Posts: 392
Joined: Sun May 05, 2013 11:25 am
Location: +ICXC·NIKA+

Re: Upgrade or not

Post by 8E » Mon Feb 11, 2019 4:27 pm

You can find someone selling old licenses, and run version 8 on that machine.

And no, Mac lap top is not good: to much heat, you will constantly have fans spinning.
MacOS Mojave MacBook Pro (15", Mid 2015), 2,5 GHz i7, 16GB RAM
Live Suite 10-latest + Push 1
U-PHORIA UMC204HD

jlgrimes
Posts: 1773
Joined: Mon Jan 22, 2007 1:55 am
Location: Atlanta, Ga

Re: Upgrade or not

Post by jlgrimes » Mon Feb 11, 2019 4:45 pm

phil@40 wrote:
Sun Feb 10, 2019 10:54 am
Hey guys I'd like a bit of advice I have an Acer laptop.

Specs as follows
AMD
E-Series
E1-7010
1.50 GHz
Dual-core (2 Core™)
Cache
1 MB

Standard Memory
4 GB
Maximum Memory
16 GB
DDR3L SDRAM
2
Storage
1tb

Is this enough to run Ableton 10 etc I'm already using the komplete software etc without issue, but have had one issue iwht the software overloading the CPU.

Also someone mentioned apple Mac's are better for music production for there specs etc

Is what I have enough or can I/should I upgrade and if so what should I upgrade

Thanks in advance

Probably would be better to go quad core at least.

That said if you are having no troubles, you dont need to upgrade.


You dont need a Mac. Just dont buy a basement bargain PC and expect it to perform like a iMac pro. If you invest in a good quality PC, they can be just as good or better than Macs. Macs tend to be a little simpler on setup though (installing VSTs, Core Audio on Mac (and fully supported by Apple) vs ASIO/ASIO4ALL/WASAPI, Windows tweaks) which makes them more preferable for a nontechnical person. But PCs are alot more simpler these days but most technical tweaks can be easily researched.

TLW
Posts: 809
Joined: Thu Aug 23, 2018 2:37 am

Re: Upgrade or not

Post by TLW » Mon Feb 11, 2019 6:38 pm

8E wrote:
Mon Feb 11, 2019 4:27 pm
And no, Mac lap top is not good: to much heat, you will constantly have fans spinning.
I’m not going to get involved in Max vs PC religious warfare, but sorry, that’s about as correct as saying all PCs are useless as DAWs because the way Windows handles deferred procedure calls means you can’t get low audio latency without disabling the wi-fi or other hardware drivers, plus you need to switch off most sleep states in BIOS and disable cpu core parking. Which is true of some PCs, but not all of them.

You can push any laptop into running its fans if you load it enough, and some laptop PCs are seriously noisy. Some can be a real pain to get low audio latency out of as well. Macs and PCs both have their strengths and weaknesses and both get successfully used as DAWs by lots of people.
Live 10 Suite, 2020 27" iMac, 3.6 GHz i9, MacOS Catalina, RME UFX, assorted synths, guitars and stuff.

kitekrazy
Posts: 795
Joined: Sat Jan 16, 2010 7:16 pm

Re: Upgrade or not

Post by kitekrazy » Tue Feb 12, 2019 1:35 am

I'm impressed that you actually could run stuff on that. Is that a laptop? Those are almost cell phone specs.

fishmonkey
Posts: 4478
Joined: Wed Oct 24, 2007 4:50 am

Re: Upgrade or not

Post by fishmonkey » Tue Feb 12, 2019 10:10 am

TLW wrote:
Mon Feb 11, 2019 6:38 pm
8E wrote:
Mon Feb 11, 2019 4:27 pm
And no, Mac lap top is not good: to much heat, you will constantly have fans spinning.
I’m not going to get involved in Max vs PC religious warfare, but sorry, that’s about as correct as saying all PCs are useless as DAWs because the way Windows handles deferred procedure calls means you can’t get low audio latency without disabling the wi-fi or other hardware drivers, plus you need to switch off most sleep states in BIOS and disable cpu core parking. Which is true of some PCs, but not all of them.

You can push any laptop into running its fans if you load it enough, and some laptop PCs are seriously noisy. Some can be a real pain to get low audio latency out of as well. Macs and PCs both have their strengths and weaknesses and both get successfully used as DAWs by lots of people.
Image

H20nly
Posts: 16058
Joined: Sat Oct 27, 2007 9:15 pm
Location: The Wild West

Re: Upgrade or not

Post by H20nly » Wed Feb 13, 2019 11:31 pm

phil@40 wrote:
Sun Feb 10, 2019 4:03 pm
Sorry I currently have 8gb in not 4gb, I've checked and can install two SSD hard drives in, using the smaller 120gb SSD for Windows maybe then the bigger SSD for Ableton, or what software I use
I would think twice before installing applications on a drive other than C:\
You can... but it can get weird if you do not remain diligent. Mostly because of installers and pre-configured paths that you may or may not be able to modify during installations and updates. You're almost bound to end up with something installing itself to C:\ anyway.

If it were me... I would use one SSD for Windows and applications - and use the the other SSD for libraries, content, and and general storage.
you could also move your Windows Temp folder to the second drive via Environment Variables and set your Page File on the other drive as well.

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