Best PC laptop for Live these days ?

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
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dwills138
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Joined: Thu Mar 16, 2006 11:05 pm

Best PC laptop for Live these days ?

Post by dwills138 » Tue Jun 13, 2006 5:15 am

i'm out of the PC loop.. whats the best one for a Live setup these days ?
something that stays cool + durable and super FAST.

depresses me to think that all my brewed pluggo plug-ins wont port til late 06. ugh.
may just go PC.

i'm a complete PC novice.. wheres the best place to by said model ?


any thoughts help !


thanks.
Last edited by dwills138 on Tue Jun 13, 2006 5:20 am, edited 1 time in total.
specs: macbook pro, OS10.4.7, 2.2ghz, 2gig ram. Live 6.0.10

Machinate
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Post by Machinate » Tue Jun 13, 2006 5:16 am

IntelDuo laptops above 2ghz with at least 1gig of ram... really fast.
mbp 2.66, osx 10.6.8, 8GB ram.

blakejarrell
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Location: new orleans

Post by blakejarrell » Tue Jun 13, 2006 7:02 am

im sure ill get alot of shit for this but

check into dell, seriously

i love mine

Jackal and Hyde
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Re: Best PC laptop for Live these days ?

Post by Jackal and Hyde » Tue Jun 13, 2006 7:09 am

....
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Last edited by Jackal and Hyde on Tue Jun 13, 2006 7:59 am, edited 1 time in total.

DeadlyKungFu
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Post by DeadlyKungFu » Tue Jun 13, 2006 7:39 am

Just picked up an HP DV8000Z, awesome box. Runs Live very smoothly. Dual core @2GHz, dual 80Gb 5400 rpm drives, 17" wide screen, just under $2k delivered.

At the time it was easily the best bang for the buck (albeit lots of bucks.) Worth checking out.

What's your budget?

I second Machinete's post, 2GHz, 1Gb RAM, dual core would be a good option to, Live 6 will support it. Drives no slower than 5400 rpm, 7200 preferable.

Start shopping around, hit a dozen web sites, give it a few days you'll scope it out.

Rod Underleaf
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RE:HP Pavilion DV8000 series

Post by Rod Underleaf » Tue Jun 13, 2006 9:00 am

I just got the HP DV 8220. Two 80 gig (5400) hard drives, 2.0 ghz Tuiron, 17' WSXGA screen. Not quite as fast as the Dell 6400 Inspiron Intel core duo I have but the HP really is the machine at $1300can. Looking forward to getting one of the 17'Turion dual core dv8000 series in the next six months and spread the tracks accross the table. It is not known(at least to me ) how the dual core Turions will stack up against the current Intel dual core crop. Beautiful machine!

markaugust
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Post by markaugust » Tue Jun 13, 2006 10:07 am

my dell 2.26 pM is banging like never before...
it's all about the tweaking and keeping it clean too though.
(a lot more work then my mac...but hell faster)

rikhyray
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Post by rikhyray » Tue Jun 13, 2006 10:45 am

if you to perform and it might be you profession get Mac or Sony Vaio , Asus are not as fancy but also well built.
IBM was good though these were always office not multimedia optimised machines, now they are chinese.
Toshiba are good and cheaper . Samsung are good but the components used like FW are unsuitable for music.
Fujitsu, Dell I woudnt take the for free or use even if paid for.
most of the "music optimised" might be well optimised but use cheaper chassis, very often- ripoffs
If you mainly stay home and have some gigs once in a while any decent notebook may do but for serious touring, heavy daily use I would advise only one of the trio mentioned on top.
Why dont you make your live easier and get Mac ( I am not fan or member of the mac sect)

quandry
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Post by quandry » Tue Jun 13, 2006 1:08 pm

I have had a great experience using my toshiba over 3 1/2 years, performing scores of gigs with Live with zero problems. I'd recommend Toshiba above all other brands--there are probably more gigging toshiba users on these forums than any other pc brand from what I can see form spending too much time here. Vaio's look good and can be good, but many people here have had a range of problems, from delicate builds to other things.

As you know, all macs are basically built the same with the same internal parts from the same manufacturers. Pc's are the opposite--there are tons of manufacturers of the internal parts, and each brand of pc uses different conglomerations of these parts--even the same model by the same company might have different manufacturers of certain parts when comparing laptops built a number of months apart. Why does this matter--because some companies get the absolutely cheapest parts to build their laptops. Compaq and HP come to mind. Glad to here some ppl here have had sucess with HP, but my buddy bought one of their top-of-the-line laptops less than two years ago and has had to send it back three times for the screen just not working, and has had to spend $150 to replace the power supply. Anyhow, I prefer computers built with better parts--texas instruments fw chipsets, intel part. Anyhow, IBM would probably be my second recommendation. There are also audio-specific pc's out their, but they all seem ridiculously expensive...
Dell Studio XPS 8100 Windows 7 64-bit, 10 GB RAM. RME Multiface, Avalon U5 & M5, Distressor, Filter Factory, UC33e, BCR-2000, FCB1010, K-Station, Hr 824 & H120 sub, EZ Bus, V-Drums, DrumKat EZ, basses, guitars, pedals... http://www.ryan-hughes.net

tomperson
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Post by tomperson » Tue Jun 13, 2006 2:13 pm

I have an HP laptop, it's like a year and a half old, and honestly, i haven't had a single problem with it, i couldn't be happier. I carry it almost every day to work, and I have gigged with it maybe 5 times with no probs. It seems that different people have good/bad luck with different brands...It would be awesome if we could compare in a "technical" way the quality of components of different brands/models.

I knew older macs were of kevlar or something like that, and they had an HD anti shock protection mecanism, which would account for them being more durable...don't know if the new ones are as well made or not...
Turn up the radio. Turn up the tape machine. Look into the sunset up ahead. Roll the windows down for a better taste of the cool desert wind. Ah yes. This is what it's all about. Total control now.

Spikee
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Post by Spikee » Tue Jun 13, 2006 8:52 pm

I love my Alienware laptop. AMD X2 4200 processor, 2 gigs of RAM, dual HD's... how can you go wrong with that?!?!?

quandry
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Post by quandry » Tue Jun 13, 2006 9:16 pm

Spikee wrote:I love my Alienware laptop. AMD X2 4200 processor, 2 gigs of RAM, dual HD's... how can you go wrong with that?!?!?
$$$$$$ and $$$$
Dell Studio XPS 8100 Windows 7 64-bit, 10 GB RAM. RME Multiface, Avalon U5 & M5, Distressor, Filter Factory, UC33e, BCR-2000, FCB1010, K-Station, Hr 824 & H120 sub, EZ Bus, V-Drums, DrumKat EZ, basses, guitars, pedals... http://www.ryan-hughes.net

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