Ableton Forum

The wife has been asking for a laptop of her own, as we only own one at the moment... but if she's just going to be browsing the net I might as well get something that I can use for Ableton

I've narrowed down some of the choices for the laptop I want. I've decided to go with the middle ground by getting an i5. But I did have a few questions I was hoping some of you could help me out with.

1. Can harddrives in all laptops be replaced? I'm sure I'll eventually upgrade to a 7200rpm HD, but not all laptops mention that I can remove the exsisting HD.

2. How can I find out if a laptop has room for 2 HDs? I've noticed in the reviews for a few higher end models that 2 HDs can be used, but I didn't see this in the description for the laptop itself. Do certain brands or models usually have this feature?

3. Graphics cards. I'm not a big PC gamer (Console is another story ) so I'm not too worried about a fancy graphics card, but I was wondering...
a). For ones with low quality cards, am I correct in reading that it will use the computers memory to run games if needed? Would this cause a problem with Ableton at all? Meaning, if the graphics card only has 128mb of it's own RAM, would it need any more than that to run the basics of windows? Or would it start to use some of the RAM that I'm using for Ableton?
b). For the higher end cards, is there any way to "turn them off"? I know they can really suck up battery life, so I worry about them pulling too much power when I'm not using it.

4. Speaking of battery life, if I did look into turning various features of the laptop off (Graphics Card, Wireless, ect), would this cause stability issues? While some features may be easy to turn off, i'm wondering if I'd have to get into the BIOS or something to work on other parts.

5. Battery again, anything else I can do to improve battery life? Some laptop models claim up to 7 hours, while some only say 3.

6. Firewire seems to be on its way out, and so do expansion cards. So with no way to add to what the laptop comes with, is it a good idea to make sure I have a SATA or USB 3.0 port?

Phew! I think that's it. I know this isn't a tech forum, but I'd hope that some other Ableton users have had to go through the same situation buying a computer recently Doing this, I can almost understand why people go to Macs. It seems like besides some choices about processors and ram, you know exactly what you're going to get. But my budget isn't that big.

Sorry to ask one last question, but I thought I'd put it in here too...

7. When it comes to getting an Audio Interface (I don't have one yet, ASIO4ALL has worked great on my current computer), does the interface have different drivers to use? I guess I'm confused because people talk about reducing latency by getting an interface, but when I load up ASIO, it seems like all my latency goes away even without an interface. What am I missing here in terms of benefits?

Again, sorry! But thanks for any help you can give

RottenToTheGore wrote:1. Can harddrives in all laptops be replaced? I'm sure I'll eventually upgrade to a 7200rpm HD, but not all laptops mention that I can remove the exsisting HD.

I've never encountered one that can't. What would you do if the drive dies? Toss the whole machine?

RottenToTheGore wrote: 2. How can I find out if a laptop has room for 2 HDs? I've noticed in the reviews for a few higher end models that 2 HDs can be used, but I didn't see this in the description for the laptop itself. Do certain brands or models usually have this feature?

Many laptops have a bay for a removable DVD drive or something like that, which can often be replaced by a second HD. Aside from that, you need to read the specs or ask someone who knows the machine.

RottenToTheGore wrote: 3. Graphics cards. I'm not a big PC gamer (Console is another story ) so I'm not too worried about a fancy graphics card, but I was wondering...
a). For ones with low quality cards, am I correct in reading that it will use the computers memory to run games if needed? Would this cause a problem with Ableton at all? Meaning, if the graphics card only has 128mb of it's own RAM, would it need any more than that to run the basics of windows? Or would it start to use some of the RAM that I'm using for Ableton?

Graphics cards use their own memory; they generally do not steal memory from the main machine. If you don't have enough graphics memory for what you want to do, you can't do whatever it is.

RottenToTheGore wrote: b). For the higher end cards, is there any way to "turn them off"? I know they can really suck up battery life, so I worry about them pulling too much power when I'm not using it.

I haven't encountered that; but when you're using it for music, you'll probably want to run it on AC power anyway for maximum performance.

RottenToTheGore wrote:
4. Speaking of battery life, if I did look into turning various features of the laptop off (Graphics Card, Wireless, ect), would this cause stability issues? While some features may be easy to turn off, i'm wondering if I'd have to get into the BIOS or something to work on other parts.

It may be the other way around. If I'm using my laptop while it's not connected to the network, I have to turn off my network adapter or I get audio glitches.

RottenToTheGore wrote: 5. Battery again, anything else I can do to improve battery life? Some laptop models claim up to 7 hours, while some only say 3.

Get a bigger battery? Run it on AC? Many laptops run in reduced-power mode by default when they're on battery power, and they do it by reducing the cpu clock speed, which in turn reduces polyphony.

RottenToTheGore wrote: 6. Firewire seems to be on its way out, and so do expansion cards. So with no way to add to what the laptop comes with, is it a good idea to make sure I have a SATA or USB 3.0 port?

USB 3 is apt to be useful for fast disks or video. It's way more than you need for audio.

RottenToTheGore wrote: Phew! I think that's it. I know this isn't a tech forum, but I'd hope that some other Ableton users have had to go through the same situation buying a computer recently Doing this, I can almost understand why people go to Macs. It seems like besides some choices about processors and ram, you know exactly what you're going to get. But my budget isn't that big.

Sorry to ask one last question, but I thought I'd put it in here too...

7. When it comes to getting an Audio Interface (I don't have one yet, ASIO4ALL has worked great on my current computer), does the interface have different drivers to use? I guess I'm confused because people talk about reducing latency by getting an interface, but when I load up ASIO, it seems like all my latency goes away even without an interface. What am I missing here in terms of benefits?

Most audio interfaces come with their own ASIO drivers, and if it's a good interface, those drivers will be more flexible, with lower latency, than using ASIO4ALL.

RottenToTheGore wrote: Again, sorry! But thanks for any help you can give

One more comment: If you're using Max for Live, and you decide to add Jitter (video mangling), you should be aware that Jitter runs in your graphics card; in which case the capacity of that card becomes relevant.

ark wrote:Many laptops have a bay for a removable DVD drive or something like that, which can often be replaced by a second HD. Aside from that, you need to read the specs or ask someone who knows the machine.

Ah! Didn't think about that! I'll have to look into it.

Thanks alot for the info Besides the RAM and HD which I'd upgrade at some point, any reason not to consider this laptop? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6834146986

RottenToTheGore wrote:Thanks alot for the info Besides the RAM and HD which I'd upgrade at some point, any reason not to consider this laptop? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6834146986

You should be aware that it's a 64-bit machine, and Live currently does not have native 64-bit support. Presumably Live will run just fine in compabitility mode, but until Live runs in native mode, you may be paying for capacity you can't use.

Also note that not all sound cards have 64-bit drivers; if they don't, you can't use them at all.

This little free windows app is priceless for it's ability to eliminate audio glitches with wifi enabled. Makes your PC feel like a Mac in this regard!

http://www.martin-majowski.de/wlanoptimizer/

It works for me, but I'll be interested to hear how it works for others. I no longer have to disable wifi to play my guitAW through my dAW!

ark wrote:Most audio interfaces come with their own ASIO drivers, and if it's a good interface, those drivers will be more flexible, with lower latency, than using ASIO4ALL.

Also be sure and try the AISO4ALL driver with whatever usb device you end up with. Sometimes the ASIO4ALL drivers behave a bit better for some of the cheaper interfaces.