Laptop recommendations?

Per Boysen · Post by **Per Boysen** » Thu Sep 11, 2003 12:11 pm

Hi guys,

I would certainly love to play Live live with a G5 powerbook, but since none are around yet and I don't know if they will be affordable I'm looking into other alternatives. Any suggestions?

I spotted a good price for this Dell:

IntelR PentiumR 4 cpu 2,40GHz
512 MB RAM
14,1" TFT XGA LCD monitor (1024x768)
20GB ATA-100 drive
Integrerat 8x DVD-ROM

The audio interface to is an M-Audio Audiophile USB. Any thoughts on this set-up?

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Thu Sep 11, 2003 12:28 pm

forget the macs. forget the dell--I've read a lot of posts here and elsewhere with problems with Dell and audio. Sonys and Toshibas are the way to go for laptops with Live. I have a Toshiba satelite 2430--2.4 P4, gig RAM, xp pro, RME multiface, and external fw drives for audio--it rocks. I perform with it weekly with no problems, just good times. I build songs from scratch, clip bey clip live with instruments, and can easily get 12 tracks going, each with at least one effect, and still be at 5 ms latency or less. The macs cost more, and if you read around on these forums, you'll find they're capable of way fewer tracks and effects than a decent pc (just the facts, no flame wars please!). True, when seeing laptop performers, they almost always have a mac, but sooo what. PC's can do way more with live, and regaurdless of what the neighsayers say, pcs can and do perform with great reliability, especially with live. All of this pcs suck and crash all the time junks is old and irrelevant. Look around on the forums for awile--i see way more mac problem threads going right now than pc problem threads, and way more mac users asking for altivec this,optimizatino that--bypass all that junks and get a solid pc. Ditch the usb soundcard (too much latency, limited ins/outs, sound quality not all that), and get a firewire or preferably a PCMCIA (RME or Layla) soundcard--the pcmcia port will offer you the fastest connection, therfore the lowest latency. For live performance, you gots to get the lowest latency possible within your budget--by saving all that money NOT buying a G4/G5, get an RME multiface. Look around on these forums for all kinds of helpful tips, and good luck with the new system.

Ryan

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sat Sep 13, 2003 4:55 am

PCs suck for audio. Every Studio in the world is Mac based.

stew · Post by **stew** » Sat Sep 13, 2003 7:39 am

IIRC, the Audiophile USB interface supports only stereo output. You'd be better off with one that supports at least 4 output channels, so you can prelisten properly. Interfaces like the M-Audio Quattro or the Emgic EMI 2|6 are very popular, and if you skim through older threads, you'll see other recommendations.

As for the notebook: I am not very happy with the quality of my Dell notebook, or any other Dell computer I ever owned. I'd prefer an IBM notebook, HP and Toshiba seem to be quite nice too. I never owned a Sony, but their latest Pentium M based offerings are very interesting.

Alex Reynolds · Post by **Alex Reynolds** » Sat Sep 13, 2003 9:15 am

The Windows camp doesn't want to admit it, and it has to be said, but you'll pay as much for a decent Wintel laptop as for an Apple, for the same features and reliability.

Those $800-1000 laptops you see in a Best Buy flyer in the weekend paper have Celeron or cacheless PIII chips in them. Good luck getting them to last more than a couple years of heavy use.

Sony, Dell and Toshiba hardware are awful. The plastic casing on the Dell Inspirons is flimsy and does not stand up well to being moved about -- besides bits and pieces coming loose, expansion bay devices get loose and cause startup failures.

I've had to replace a lot of Toshiba laptop batteries and components of late, and I don't know what is going on with Sony but the build quality has been going downhill with their consumer electronics over the last five years.

Certainly, Sony is not worth the premium you pay -- your money is really going to their industrial design crew and not to the technology people, and so you might as well go with Apple if you're trying to save money or buy quality hardware, if you're looking at Sony.

If it were my money, and someone put a gun to my head and said I had to use Windows, I would recommend an IBM ThinkPad. They are built rock-solid and, should you damage one, the warranty support policy is truly excellent.

As for Windows vs OS X stability, don't take anyone's word on it but just read threads here on what people have been having trouble with. Decide if the tweaking you need to do to "tune" performance or fix strange problems in Windows is desirable, or if you just want something that pretty much works out of the box.

For me, I'll be waiting for a G5, since the cost will be the same. All the cool new music apps are being developed under OS X anyway, and if you want FireWire for hard disks and audio adapters or built-in wireless, then Apple hardware does it the best. Some things are worth waiting for.

In the end it is about the artist's creativity, not horsepower...

Good luck,
Alex

Mbazzy · Post by **Mbazzy** » Sat Sep 13, 2003 9:25 am

... but has anyone ever tried making a movable DAW from a 1 or 2 unit rack enclosure [ with all-in mobo and risercard for the pci ] ... It's just that I don't see me immediatly needing [ opposed to "wanting"

] a laptop, but do need somewhat more horsepower at a +/- affordable price and prefer to invest in a higher spec audiocard instead .

Per Boysen · Post by **Per Boysen** » Sat Sep 13, 2003 10:47 am

Thanks all of you for great feedback to my question! Fact is I'm using both Mac and Pc and have been doing for a while. I ordered the dual 2GHz G5 right away to replace my studio workhorse Pentium 4 desktop, but it's not an option to take a desktop out for gigs. I'm writing this on a IBM ThinkPad A20m. It has a P3 700MHz cpu but never less I can create a 8 tracks mix in Ableton with it

. Since Live! is not optimized either for SSE2 nor Altivec this is as good as anything, except for the low cpu cycle count. I like to play live, not DJ:ing but playing traditional instruments like tenor saxophone, electric guitar and some vocal beat boxing and I like to stay away from pre-recorded loops to make all sounds by myself right there. The problem with this IBM ThinkPad is the latency, but I think I can live with it if I split my instrument signal and send one line directly to the PA and another to Ableton for recording. Eventually I'll run the laptop stereo and the instrument mono into an Akai MFC42 analogue filter bank so I can cross fade filter cut-off (between the two analogue filter channels, including beat synced lfo stuff) with an expression pedal. The filter bank will then go stereo out into a RNC compressor that goes stereo into the PA. Anyway, with that set-up I don't have to tie up the CPU with sound mangling plug-ins in Ableton and hopefully I can get a stable performance from the IBM ThinkPad? The first show is not coming up until mid october so I have time to try things out.

per

stew · Post by **stew** » Sat Sep 13, 2003 12:50 pm

If latency is your only complaint you have about your Thinkpad, just buy a decent external sound card. Newer, fancier and faster notebooks are very likely to not give you any improvement in terms of latency.

Per Boysen · Post by **Per Boysen** » Sat Sep 13, 2003 2:10 pm

stew wrote:If latency is your only complaint you have about your Thinkpad...

Well... since I do a lot of studio work in Logic I'm hoping to get a G5 powerbook whenever they will become available (affordable

That's why I'm a bit reluctant to put money into a PC laptop right now. Of course I would love to slap a Vintage Warmer on the Ableton output instead of dragging my external RNC compressor. And I think I'll stay with the little Audiophile USB interface I'm at right now. I've been thinking about the Metrik Halo I/O as it can be used both in the studio and with a laptop. But then I would need a laptop with firewire which makes it too expensive, besides I could as well wait for the G5 PB's.

stew · Post by **stew** » Sat Sep 13, 2003 2:32 pm

Doesn't sound to me like you needed a new notebook.

Per Boysen · Post by **Per Boysen** » Sat Sep 13, 2003 7:26 pm

Alex Reynolds wrote:For me, I'll be waiting for a G5, since the cost will be the same. All the cool new music apps are being developed under OS X anyway, and if you want FireWire for hard disks and audio adapters or built-in wireless, then Apple hardware does it the best. Some things are worth waiting for.

Yeah, that seems to be very true. I think I'll stick to my little IBM ThinkPad for a while. I have to stay away from my fav PSP plug-ins though, to save CPU.

stew wrote:Doesn't sound to me like you needed a new notebook.

Well, maybe I was just too accustomed to working on desktop machines. I really thought a faster CPU laptop should perform much better than this 700MHz ThinkPad. If the gain isn't that huge I think I'd better keep it and save up for a G5 PB.

laughingtiger · Post by **laughingtiger** » Thu Sep 18, 2003 5:51 pm

Here's a brief article on MacWorld UK about the possibility of a G5 based Powerbook:

http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/top_news ... ewsID=6916

Cheers

Tig

3phase · Post by **3phase** » Fri Sep 26, 2003 5:13 am

This are typical statements to not fuck the market for G4 laptops.
I think they work hard on a mobile version...they need it or they will lose on the laptopmarket...
maybe there will be g5 laptops next spring.
however...a G5 laptop maybe will have an optical out...this would be cool

spider · Post by **spider** » Fri Oct 17, 2003 9:24 pm

good laptop: sony vaio with a desktop cpu is the best bet for pc laptops.
mac is for peoples who can't make a pc work and for rich kids.mac doesn't crash so it's good for audio.but pc can be a real work horse if you can handle it.
my opinion is go for a vaio if you can it's solid.

Alex Reynolds · Post by **Alex Reynolds** » Fri Oct 17, 2003 9:31 pm

I'm not a "rich kid" and I could probably do a better repair job on most of the platforms out there than 99% of the guest trolls here, including you.

Save your silly venom for Slashdot.

-Alex

"The same ones who complain about you using a Mac are the same ones asking you to fix their PCs." --Anon.

Laptop recommendations?

Laptop recommendations?

A little off-topic ...

G5 Powerbook Mentioned..

Re: G5 Powerbook Mentioned..

mac is for non computer literates