mimsy89 Posted February 21, 2016 Share Posted February 21, 2016 My PCs damaged beyond repair and looking for a more portable route. Does anyone have any recommendations for a laptop or spec needed? Looking around £750 and not Mac. Thanks PS sorry if in wrong forum Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thebassist Posted February 21, 2016 Share Posted February 21, 2016 Why not a Mac? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
discreet Posted February 21, 2016 Share Posted February 21, 2016 [quote name='thebassist' timestamp='1456017722' post='2984617'] Why not a Mac? [/quote] That's a whole new thread right there. The OP said 'not Mac'. Anyway, I want to know which laptop for recording, too - not Mac. I'm not a big Apple fan, if you want to know. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leonard Smalls Posted February 21, 2016 Share Posted February 21, 2016 Go to www.pcspecialist.com They made one for me with i7 processor, 16Gb Ram, 1Tb hybrid hard disc and 17" screen/wireless mouse for about £710. You'd pay double that for similar spec on a Mac - and it runs Ableton 9 with no probs, even if there's 6 virtual instruments and 20 other tracks. Took them about 3 weeks to make it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mimsy89 Posted February 21, 2016 Author Share Posted February 21, 2016 Will check it out cheers Leonard! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xgsjx Posted February 21, 2016 Share Posted February 21, 2016 True, you pay more for a MacBook, but you get reliability, very little in the way of viruses & no blue screen of death (noissues on any of mine in the 9 years of being a Mac user). If it's windows based, then Mr Smalls' suggestion is worth investigating. Does the £750 include the cost of the DAW? Only PC advice I can give is avoid the HP G series laptops. The fan is in the bottom corner & collects dust, which then clogs it up & causes the PC to overheat. The only way to get to it to clean it, is to take the entire unit apart (& I mean every single bit of the heap, a very poor design). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mimsy89 Posted February 21, 2016 Author Share Posted February 21, 2016 (edited) Macs just not really my thing and my money would not stretch as far as needed for a Mac I already have the Daws and external soundcard just need new actual laptop Am I right in saying my main concern is ram and hard drive space? Edited February 21, 2016 by mimsy89 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RockfordStone Posted February 21, 2016 Share Posted February 21, 2016 [quote name='mimsy89' timestamp='1456044941' post='2984678'] Macs just not really my thing and my money would not stretch as far as needed for a Mac I already have the Daws and external soundcard just need new actual laptop Am I right in saying my main concern is ram and hard drive space? [/quote] processor power and ram will be the key points. you want to get at least an i5 processer with as much ram as you can get. hdd space isn't essential as you can external hard drives but most will come with at least 500gb if you get a good spec one, which is more than enough Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaveFry Posted February 21, 2016 Share Posted February 21, 2016 Chat with Robin at Molten Music Technology about configuring one to your spec . :- [url="http://www.moltenmusictechnology.co.uk/Performer-_p_28.html"]http://www.moltenmus...rmer-_p_28.html[/url] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shambo Posted February 21, 2016 Share Posted February 21, 2016 [quote name='xgsjx' timestamp='1456043802' post='2984669'] True, you pay more for a MacBook, but you get reliability, very little in the way of viruses & no blue screen of death (noissues on any of mine in the 9 years of being a Mac user). [/quote] You've just reminded me that I haven't seen a Windows BsoD since before Vista, which must be coming on for nearly a decade now. Not wanting a Windows/Mac debate BTW. I'm reluctantly happy to use either. As for the OP, I would forego the laptop expense and build one myself using cheaper desktop PC components in a small portable case, (see LAN party case), for maximum bang for buck. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mimsy89 Posted February 21, 2016 Author Share Posted February 21, 2016 Thanks guys been great help. My old PC was built few years back and now looking for a more portable option Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BassTractor Posted February 21, 2016 Share Posted February 21, 2016 (edited) I concur with xgsjx's report on HP laptops. We had three expensive ones, and as far as laptops go, they all were the biggest letdowns we've owned. Strangely though, my mom's ultra cheap Compaq (which is an HP) just works beautifully, is silent. IME, the laptops that have given most and demanded the least have been Asus ones. They also had and have a smart cooling system that tends to not clog and is silent. However, my newest £750 Asus (w.2.7 GHz i5, which may be too low for DAW, Idunno) is more noisy and has an annoying pitch. I'll have to open it and go through its innards. One aspect I feel may be important to the OP is how often and how long the laptop must work off the battery. I'm told that fast processors that also use little energy are budgetbreakingly expensive. This may be corrected by someone else, but I found it worth mentioning. Apart from RAM amount and a fast processor, I've found that using SSD instead of an harddisk has had a major impact on perceived speed, but I do not know whether it would have any impact in a typical use of a DAW. The DAW might be able to keep everything in RAM without swapping. Worth investigating though, I think. Edited February 21, 2016 by BassTractor Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BottomE Posted February 21, 2016 Share Posted February 21, 2016 (edited) These days even entry level Laptops will do fine as long as you are using an external audio interface and not running loads of background apps. My Toshiba Satellite is 5 years old and was at the lower end of the market when purchased, however, Its handled Cubase for years with no noticeable latency. One thing that may influence your decision is the amount of live audio that you want to record concurrently. If you want to record, say, 5 live audio tracks at once then you may need a more powerful machine. If, like me, you are going to use it as a tool to record one live audio track at a time then i wouldn't worry too much about the spec. As a rough guide anything over £400 should be fine. My spec is an Intel Celeron T3100, 3 Gb Ram and 320 Gb Hard drive which in todays world is puny but it always works fine. Edited February 21, 2016 by BottomE Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thebassist Posted February 21, 2016 Share Posted February 21, 2016 I only mentioned the Mac because I was dead against them until my last two PCs had issues after four months and then the replacement went just four weeks before I started getting problems. Not being in any way technical I took them both back to PC World who were great to be fair. They replaced the first one but when the second one went as well, I paid the extra and bought a brand new iMac. I remember driving home with the computer boxed up in the back of my car really angry with myself about how much money I'd just spent on a computer. This was 2010 and I still run this iMac as my main machine today. So far, touch wood, it has needed to be restarted maybe five times due to slowing down but it's never actually crashed or needed any outside work from anybody so in the long run I'm really pleased I switched. And last year, I bought a year old 13-inch MacBook Pro from a fellow bassist here for £750 that my wife uses everyday and I use for recording/gigging. Again, touch wood, but it's not given any grief yet. I'm not saying every Apple product works as well as this and I do think I have been fortunate so far but I don't recall hearing any horror stories from Mac users. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
colgraff Posted February 21, 2016 Share Posted February 21, 2016 (edited) I buy my stuff from Novatech. Pretty cheap and extremely flexible. If you want a laptop, I have an Asus Transformer 200ti which I love. The Transformer 300 is now out and is pretty cheap. Touchscreen and laptop hybrid, lots of USB sockets, HDMI sockets, etc. with a large screen and . Proper keyboard. Novatech have a 15.6" laptop with i7 processor at 3.1GHz, 16Gb RAM, 1Tb Hard disk, etc. For £630 inch VAT which must be powerful enough, I'd think. [btw, MacBook Pro with slightly lower specs is £1,667] [i]runs away from Apple Evangelising horde.[/i] Edited February 21, 2016 by colgraff Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mornats Posted February 21, 2016 Share Posted February 21, 2016 Scan do a range of Pro Audio laptops but their cheapest one is around £950 which is a way above your budget: https://www.scan.co.uk/3xs/custom/daw-digital-audio-workstation-pcs/workstation-laptops#anc On my desktop PC I run with an overclocked i74790k (4.6ghz), 16MB Corsair Vengeance Pro ram, and two SSDs - one for Windows and one for Komplete and other software libraries. The processor has 4 physical cores with two threads each - essentially 8 cores. Programs that use multi-threading such as Reaper love it and use all 8. If your budget allows for an i7 and an SSD then go for that. Or, as said above, an i5 at a minimum. i3 processors aren't worth it for audio. Are you set on a laptop or will a desktop be an option? This one looks decent: https://www.scan.co.uk/3xs/configurator/3xs-mz170-music-pc-system. If you add the Win 10 upgrade (£2.75) it saves you doing the upgrade from Win 8 and you can add in another 8GB of ram to bring it to 16GB and it comes in at £749. You will need a monitor, mouse and keyboard on top though. I built mine myself as a gaming/DAW PC so I've not had an extensive look at what's out there in pre-built land. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xgsjx Posted February 21, 2016 Share Posted February 21, 2016 [quote name='colgraff' timestamp='1456055399' post='2984838'] Novatech have a 15.6" laptop with i7 processor at 3.1GHz, 16Gb RAM, 1Tb Hard disk, etc. For £630 inch VAT which must be powerful enough, I'd think. [btw, MacBook Pro with slightly lower specs is £1,667] [i]runs away from Apple Evangelising horde.[/i] [/quote] That sounds like a similar spec to my MBP, except for I have a 500gb SS drive. What I do get as well for that extra £1k is a solid built aluminium shell, software that works without me having to read the requirements & no viruses. Some folk prefer to spend that £1k elsewhere (like a new bass or expensive anti virus software), I'd rather have something that I know is unlikely to let me down & in 5 years time still be worth a bit of money if I did decide to sell it. I sold my 2007 iMac to a fellow BCer just last July. Still running fine & a good spec even by today's standard. How many 8 year old PCs could fetch a decent price? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roger2611 Posted February 21, 2016 Share Posted February 21, 2016 [quote name='BottomE' timestamp='1456053655' post='2984806'] These days even entry level Laptops will do fine as long as you are using an external audio interface and not running loads of background apps. My Toshiba Satellite is 5 years old and was at the lower end of the market when purchased, however, Its handled Cubase for years with no noticeable latency. One thing that may influence your decision is the amount of live audio that you want to record concurrently. If you want to record, say, 5 live audio tracks at once then you may need a more powerful machine. If, like me, you are going to use it as a tool to record one live audio track at a time then i wouldn't worry too much about the spec. As a rough guide anything over £400 should be fine. [/quote] Totally agree, we have been using Cubase on a 5 year old Asus laptop running Windows 7 to a Tascam 244 for all of our recordings, they have been good enough to get national airplay, if you get the best possible signal in then even an older budget laptop can deliver excellent results Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
colgraff Posted February 21, 2016 Share Posted February 21, 2016 [quote name='xgsjx' timestamp='1456060960' post='2984955'] That sounds like a similar spec to my MBP, except for I have a 500gb SS drive. What I do get as well for that extra £1k is a solid built aluminium shell, software that works without me having to read the requirements & no viruses. Some folk prefer to spend that £1k elsewhere (like a new bass or expensive anti virus software), I'd rather have something that I know is unlikely to let me down & in 5 years time still be worth a bit of money if I did decide to sell it. I sold my 2007 iMac to a fellow BCer just last July. Still running fine & a good spec even by today's standard. How many 8 year old PCs could fetch a decent price? [/quote] Bugger. An evangelist found me. Not answering the metaphorical doorbell, though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leonard Smalls Posted February 21, 2016 Share Posted February 21, 2016 [quote name='xgsjx' timestamp='1456060960' post='2984955'] What I do get as well for that extra £1k is a solid built aluminium shell, software that works without me having to read the requirements & no viruses. Some folk prefer to spend that £1k elsewhere (like a new bass or expensive anti virus software), I'd rather have something that I know is unlikely to let me down & in 5 years time still be worth a bit of money if I did decide to sell it. [/quote] Funnily enough, I've just spent the weekend in a studio running Reaper 10 and Euphonix desk with a top spec Mac... They've recently changed to the El Crapitan (as they call it) OS, which they say has caused them nowt but problems; we had to re-start the Mac 5 times, 1 time it even lost all the display screens which had to be manually re-configured. We lost probably 2 hours of studio time as a result of all that! It appears that Apple, in their rush to sell more and more product are doing what Windows (used to/still) do which is bung out beta software, causing all the pro users who made Apple's reputation in the first place think about switching to PC! And there most certainly are viruses for Mac. The only way to stay virus free is to be sensible! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BobVbass Posted February 21, 2016 Share Posted February 21, 2016 I'd go for a good spec business laptop - dell latitude or something - heavy, built like a tank, easy to fix Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlpherMako4 Posted February 21, 2016 Share Posted February 21, 2016 This is all a very interesting read, because I want a new computer but don't know whether to go Mac or pc. I have cubase 8. You can get a lot of pc laptop for half the apple money. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
colgraff Posted February 21, 2016 Share Posted February 21, 2016 [quote name='AlpherMako5' timestamp='1456084889' post='2985280'] This is all a very interesting read, because I want a new computer but don't know whether to go Mac or pc. I have cubase 8. You can get a lot of pc laptop for half the apple money. [/quote] It really comes down to personal preference and available funds. I've always been a PC user and so prefer them. I'm also quite poor, so Apple products don't appeal to me. You can get much, much higher specs for your money in the PC market. The products aren't as shiny on the outside, though. Re laptops, touchscreen apps for Windows machines are improving all the time, but still lag behind the iTunes store. My laptop has iTunes for my iPod and Chordle for my sheet music. I also use Audacity for music editing and Paint.net for logo design and poster making. These all run perfectly well on my £200 hybrid tablet/laptop under Windows 10. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrtcat Posted February 21, 2016 Share Posted February 21, 2016 I recently picked up a Dell for £549 with an i7 processor, 1TB hard drive and 16gig of ram. It has happily tracked loads of recording sessions already without skipping a beat. If money was no object I would defo go Mac for reliability and the fact that they don't slow down over time without regular maintenance. For what I spent on the Dell though it's great for recording. I should add though that I bought it purely for recording so there's virtually nothing other than reaper installed on it and the hard drive is empty (I use an external hard drive when tracking). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
geofio Posted February 21, 2016 Share Posted February 21, 2016 (edited) Would not use a pc for recording , Mac is the only way to go for serious recording, there are always issues with pc been there done that. no matter the power of the pc/lapotop they just don't hack it for multitrack recording don.t waste your money on a pc is my 20 years recording music advice!!!! Edited February 21, 2016 by geofio Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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