Ableton Forum

Hi,
I've been dj-ing for 2 years now with ableton.
I use a 3 year old toshiba laptop with external HD a UC33 controller and a audiophile m-audio.
This is more than sufficiant.
But in a couple of weeks I'm leaving to japan, and I might do a set there,
and all that equipment is a bit much to cary around.
So I was wondering if it would be better to buy a new laptop.

My questions are:
-I have HUGE DJ sets, can I risk it to go without an external HD? maybe one of those laptops with 2 HDs?
-Are there laptops out there with build-in asio cards, or audio good/fast enough so you don't need the external one anymore.
-Or, in case not, can I find a laptop with a big firewire connection, so at least I don't need the powersupply for my audiophile anymore.
I know apple has these, but I don't feel like switching to osx for various reasons. Maybe I can run windows on it? But i suppose that might give some other problems.

Anyhow, thanks for any help in advance.

There are lots of people who run Windows in Boot Camp on MacBooks with great success. I use Parallels for work (hate it) but it works flawlessly for me. It can use all of my peripherals. I'm sure Boot Camp is simply better, not having to run 2 operating systems.

How many GB's is your set? That will help people to suggest whether or not a 2 HD laptop is necessary.

And I've seen people just go right out of their onboard sound card for gigs, too.

I usually play ableton sets with between 100 - 200 tracks in them (WAVs or 320k mp3s).
And during a set I usually drag new tracks and small ableton files in it.
I've seen people play without an external soundcard too, thats why I wondered if the latency/audio quality is acceptable.

thanks

I'm gonna bump this,
since I'm still not sure what to get.
still not sure if I should get a macbook, seems a bit of a hassle with bootcamp. But I could be wrong.
isn't here any pc laptop with large firewire port out there?
Can't seem to find any.

Boot Camp works perfectly on a MacBook and the installation is easy as well, so don't worry about running Windows this way - you won't have any problems. It boots straight in to Windows (so there is no emulation) and Apple supply all the relevant drivers so everything still works ok.

Though you'll find yourself using Windows less and less once you start using OS X, that's what happened with me - I only use Windows for one application.

Not sure why you'd need an external hard drive - you can get 320Gb internal hard drives for laptops now which is more than enough space for anyone's DJ set.

The problem with DJ'ing without a sound card is that you can't monitor anything as pretty much all laptops only have one audio output. Sound quality wise I'd of thought most built in sound cards are fine nowadays to play out with.

I am about to get one of these - Acer TravelMate TM7720G-602G50Mn, Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T7500 2.2GHz, 2GB DDR2, 2x 250GB HDD, 17" WXGA, ATI® Radeon HD 2600, DVD SuperMulti Dual Layer, Gigabit LAN, 802.11agn, Bluetooth, Card Reader, IEEE1394, Webcam, Windows® Vista™ Businesss (LX.TNR0Z.006-C84):
has Cardbus Type II (pcmcia) slot so I can use it with an Echo Indigo DJ soundcard; and xpp downgrade for $2055 Aud. I am replacing my desktop to save space and need hard drive space for music and torrents etc too. it is reputed to be very quiet and runs cool. Good battery life and reliability. Sadly, I can't upgrade the CPU without voiding the warranty, sadly. The desktop I have really is more than enough, so I should be fine for what I need, it is only a small spec down.

I will pick it up next week, I will tell you how it goes.

I was looking at the Lenovo T61 and R61's- they are way too expensive in Australia, but are rumoured to be very reliable, have cardbus as well. They are ugly as sin but very solid. In the U.S you can pick them up quite cheap with the latest CPU's and 7200rpm 200gb hard drives. You can slot in an extra hard drive with an ultrabay adapter- you swap it with the cd/dvd drive. 320gb 7200rpm drives are rumoured to be out later this month.

Feel free to PM me , I have been researching for weeks. The T61's are better but I didn't want to risk overseas purchase. A u.S $1500- model costs about $4000- here.

I wish mine had a faster CPU and 7200rpm hard drives but I had to compromise as an all rounder, and really wanted pcmcia for the indigo dj- I don't want to have to lug a soundcard around as well. Echo's expresscard version of the indigo dj is at least 2 months away ( I emailed them). If you can wait two months, you will have loads more options methinks.

Cheers.
Gavin