Ableton Forum

what Laptop PC should i purchase to use with Live 7? Should i use Windows Vista? ???

probably dont want to hear this but...a macbook

You should not at this time use Vista, unless you know for sure that the hardware you're using supports it and has reasonable Vista drivers.

Problem is, almost every new laptop only comes with Vista, so either search out a copy of XP

And remember, get a good audio interface, inbuilt laptop audio card sucks ass. Allow at least 300 dollars for this in your budgeting and if you need multiple inputs (say to record drums, or various miced instruments) then allow 800 bucks.

A Macbook Pro if you can afford it would be best. The basic macbook has sucky, memory stealing integrated graphics and a tiny screen which makes a myopic old duffer like me struggle to read it from 5 cm away. The MBP, with bootcamp and parallels allows you to run Windows programs.

i got one of sony vaio fz series recently
so far so good
however, fresh machines all have vista onboard
so i had an egghead to hack it up in order to remove vista and make xp see the sata harddrive
what can i say, it works and feels solid

but as for vista there are two options:
either you have an egghead around to shag away vista
either you are an egghead yourself to shag away vista

macbook/macbook pro is the way to go 4 sho son. remember you can upgrade the ram in the macbook to 4 GB so that will give that greedy integrated vid card all the ram it wants. just get dat ram aftermarket man www.crucial.com is real reputable for all ur ram needs. yeah the macbook def has crazy bang 4 the buck. do it!

4.33 wrote:i got one of sony vaio fz series recently
so far so good
however, fresh machines all have vista onboard
so i had an egghead to hack it up in order to remove vista and make xp see the sata harddrive
what can i say, it works and feels solid

I feel you on the forced Vista on new laptops, that shit is ridiculous.

There's ways around it though (sometimes). For example, Dell, I was ablwe to access the XP pro installs by selecting 'business' instead of 'home' when accessing the store.

The other thing that selecting 'business' opens up on Dell, is for the desktops you can remove the monitor, whihc you often can
t do on the 'home' shop.

dumb.

I also expected a price drop in XP/XP pro with Vista released, but not, it actually costs more than most versions of vista. I guess Microsoft is forcing vendors to impose Vista on the masses, oh well


STRATEGY

live 6 runs well with my sony viao. i upgraded to vista and had major problems with everything so am running xp again.

that said, get a macbook. i love my setup but regret not getting a mac...i think.

if not for a bunch of pc plugins, i'd defenitely get a mac too
cause that vista headfuck from microsoft is utterly bonkers

4.33 wrote:if not for a bunch of pc plugins, i'd defenitely get a mac too
cause that vista headfuck from microsoft is utterly bonkers

still bootcamp and running xp on a mac is always a good option for your situation

I heard that PC only vsts do not function under Bootcamp.

Please correct me if I'm wrong.

leedsquietman wrote:I heard that PC only vsts do not function under Bootcamp.

Please correct me if I'm wrong.

if they function on a dell or hp or whatever brand PC then it will run exactly the same under boot camp. An Intel based Mac is a PC and as bootcamp is simply dual booting the computer into a another partition (just like if u install and dual boot a version of Linux and say XP on a Dell)
I think you have got confused with Vmware Fusion and Parallels which are running INSIDE at the same time as OSX and are not dual booting your whole system. An option under Fusion or Parallels is to use the Bootcamp partition to use the bootcamp partition as the image for the Windows OS and when you do that you may have issues as it is running at the same time as OSX. Fusion and PArallels are very clever programs and the ability to boot your bootcamp partioin in these programs while inside OSX is very handy. Then of course you can reboot, hold the option key at startup, choose XP from there and restart the computer completely in XP which is what you want to do with VST's
THe only way to access OSX again or any of it's apps is to restart you computer and boot to OSX
I was surprised though that under Fusion most apps and DAWS run fine.. A friend runs Fruity Loops under Fusion while running OSX at the same time and has no issues.

Not too sure if I have made that clear but defintily dual booting with bootcamp works 100%

shaneblyth wrote:

4.33 wrote:if not for a bunch of pc plugins, i'd defenitely get a mac too
cause that vista headfuck from microsoft is utterly bonkers

still bootcamp and running xp on a mac is always a good option for your situation

yep, i've been considering that, but in the end decided that if i'm going to run xp exclusively - there's no point in buying a mac

the day i'll switch to mac i'm gonna burn a bill gates dummy at the fucking red square)

4.33 wrote:

shaneblyth wrote:

4.33 wrote:if not for a bunch of pc plugins, i'd defenitely get a mac too
cause that vista headfuck from microsoft is utterly bonkers

still bootcamp and running xp on a mac is always a good option for your situation

yep, i've been considering that, but in the end decided that if i'm going to run xp exclusively - there's no point in buying a mac

the day i'll switch to mac i'm gonna burn a bill gates dummy at the fucking red square)

it's nice to transition and keep your options open..
anyway bill has retired so try and be nice to him hell be dead soon enought... but monkey boy Balmer.. thats another story

i use a mac desktop and will upgrade that this year. using a dell insprion 2.16 ghz 17 inch laptop for the last two years and it has never maxed out on me with vst use etc etc. i gotta say i used macs desktops and laptops for over 12 years before i went and bought my first pc (that dell above) and i found using xp very different and a bit of a learning curve but once i got past that it has been great. macbooks are definately superior in terms of simplicity of use but once you get past the xp quirks and its differnt ways of doing things for value for money the pc laptops blow macs miles away. Macs are still incredibly overpriced for what they do but in saying that i will be buying another mac desktop in 2008.
Go to dell ive had a good experience, and for value for moeny and lots of power i recommend them.
There is a lot of justifiable hype surrounding macs but pcs are gonna do the same for you if not just with a wee bit more of a quirky route to b where you wanna go

Yikes Jamie, sit back and watch the mac haters come for you with their flame throwers, Dell are the nemesis Beelzebub for many mac fanboys !!

But you're correct, I use macs at work and have no issue with them and like osx, but they still do not offer competitive pricing, although to be fair, it has improved a bit on the basic macbook and imac, which are at least in the same ballpark *even if quite distant in the outfield*.

Mac users will say you get what you pay for, etc, etc, which may be true in the experience of some. I wish they would reduce their prices a bit more though as I am considering going Mac next time I upgrade.

Dell's mid range to high end computers are totally fine. I would say avoid the real budget end, but I would say that about the budget end in general. My Inspiron 9100 is almost 3 years old and is still performing excellently, none of the crappy Intel GMA integrated graphics (ATI Radeon 9700 128 mb), has a TI firewire chipset (albeit only a 4 pin interface but it works, quite rare for a PC to have working firewire, lol) and still punches above it's weight, only the most recent core2duos outperform it (ones that are 2.16 or faster Ghz) with my DAW software. Had 5 Dell computers, 4 of them have been superb, 1 had a couple of issues that were eventually resolved by tech support and since then it has been working nicely.