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Looking for new laptop for music production.. What should I buy? (pg. 2)
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| Ray_Chappell |
| quote: | Originally posted by lenieNt Force
Yea.. Thats a great point.. I have two btw.. But the thing is that u cant bring that additional screen around with you everywhere.. on trains and airplanes and so forth.. and in those situations a still want a good working surface.. So to be honest I don't think I'll go for anything less than 19". I don't care if its going to be a bit heavier.. I'm used to bringing my bigtower around at different LAN-events and so forth.. so if it's just a little less heavy and smaller than that, I'm satisfied :P |
FYI - A 19" laptop will suck on a plane. I travel constantly and much more than a 15" is a pain in the ass on commercial flights unless you are flying in first class. I used to have a 17" VAIO and considering how much of a pain in the ass that was while traveling, a 19" would be a nightmare flying. (Never been on a train, so maybe that's different, but just a heads up on the plane thing.) |
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| counterfeiter |
| quote: | Originally posted by lenieNt Force
Yea.. Thats a great point.. I have two btw.. But the thing is that u cant bring that additional screen around with you everywhere.. on trains and airplanes and so forth.. and in those situations I still want a good working surface.. So to be honest I don't think I'll go for anything less than 19". I don't care if its going to be a bit heavier.. I'm used to bringing my bigtower around at different LAN-events and so forth.. so if it's just a little less heavy and smaller than that, I'm satisfied :P |
Typically, you probably won't do the majority of your producing away from your home studio. But if you'll be bringing around with you smaller is probably better and you could buy 2 laptops for the price of the 20" HP you're looking at.
Using a 20" laptop on a plane probably won't happen.
I've seen a lot of producers and DJs use 13" macbooks on the road then hook them up to a 19" in the home studio. |
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| lenieNt Force |
Hmm youre probably right.. I think I've misunderstood the actual size of a 19" screen on a laptop.. for some strange reason I've been thinking it's smaller than a standalone 19" screen.. wth? please don't ask..
I see now 17" should be enough for a laptop.. A friend of mines laptop which I thought was 19" also appears to be 17".. and that one has exactly the size I am after, so..
Inch measurement is not what I'm best at I guess.. |
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| lenieNt Force |
Thnx for the headsup :P |
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| palm |
doesnt seem right that 19 is bigger than 20 ???:nervous: :nervous: :nervous: |
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| lenieNt Force |
| quote: | Originally posted by palm
doesnt seem right that 19 is bigger than 20 ???:nervous: :nervous: :nervous: |
Haha! Wth? Didn't recognize that..
Whats up with that? |
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| counterfeiter |
whoopsie!
19" = 482mm (not 582mm) |
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| kitphillips |
Sorry to say I can't help you much in terms of SSD versus traditional HDs, since I don't have much experience. I guess I'd recommend you stay away for maybe another year or two because the technology is still slightly untested, but thats all I could really say. A 5400 RPM disk will work fine for most production in my opinion, if you need more power you can always grab an external and hook it up via firewire for those huge sample libraries, but its only really an issue with libraries like the vienna symphonic orchestra, Kontakt library (running several instances of the biggest instruments) and stuff like that. If your only doing 4 tracks of sampling you'll be just fine.
With the size thing, you should know that 13" is almost useless for all production, you just can't see anything. If you are going that small, check the maximum resolution you can display. I have a 13" laptop (as well as my main 17") and it won't output the full 1024x whatever resolution, so its really too small for anything but 6 track live sets (I'm using ableton). 17" is OK, but realistically, your not ever going to be producing on the train, you can't get the focus in a public place like that, I've tried. Your battery will also run out after about half an hour as well, and remember you'll be lugging your power adapter if this happens. So just go with something you'll be happy with in the studio, 17" is fine, and then if you come to doing stuff live, you'll be able to lug it easier than a desktop, but not so easily you'll be able to produce in transit. |
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| Ray_Chappell |
| quote: | Originally posted by kitphillips
Sorry to say I can't help you much in terms of SSD versus traditional HDs, since I don't have much experience. I guess I'd recommend you stay away for maybe another year or two because the technology is still slightly untested, but thats all I could really say. A 5400 RPM disk will work fine for most production in my opinion, if you need more power you can always grab an external and hook it up via firewire for those huge sample libraries, but its only really an issue with libraries like the vienna symphonic orchestra, Kontakt library (running several instances of the biggest instruments) and stuff like that. If your only doing 4 tracks of sampling you'll be just fine.
With the size thing, you should know that 13" is almost useless for all production, you just can't see anything. If you are going that small, check the maximum resolution you can display. I have a 13" laptop (as well as my main 17") and it won't output the full 1024x whatever resolution, so its really too small for anything but 6 track live sets (I'm using ableton). 17" is OK, but realistically, your not ever going to be producing on the train, you can't get the focus in a public place like that, I've tried. Your battery will also run out after about half an hour as well, and remember you'll be lugging your power adapter if this happens. So just go with something you'll be happy with in the studio, 17" is fine, and then if you come to doing stuff live, you'll be able to lug it easier than a desktop, but not so easily you'll be able to produce in transit. |
My understanding, and recent experience, is that using external drives is pretty much crap as it relates to performance. I noticed somewhere in the neighborhood of a 33% improvement when I was using samples stored on the internal drive vs. an external connected via firewire (after taking some suggestions from people here). I'm gauging that based off the performance meters. A 5400 is probably fine, but I'd recommend a 7200 if the option is available - there will be a difference. On the other deal, I've recently started producing on the road much more. It's just a hobby for me, but an addictive one and I've started taking advantage of my time on the plane and in hotels much more lately. Using a new MacBook Pro, my battery runs for well over 3 hours, close to 4 (Bluetooth and AirPort turned off). I don't know what the average is on other computers, but a second battery is always an option, too. |
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| kitphillips |
| quote: | Originally posted by Ray_Chappell
My understanding, and recent experience, is that using external drives is pretty much crap as it relates to performance. I noticed somewhere in the neighborhood of a 33% improvement when I was using samples stored on the internal drive vs. an external connected via firewire (after taking some suggestions from people here). I'm gauging that based off the performance meters. A 5400 is probably fine, but I'd recommend a 7200 if the option is available - there will be a difference. On the other deal, I've recently started producing on the road much more. It's just a hobby for me, but an addictive one and I've started taking advantage of my time on the plane and in hotels much more lately. Using a new MacBook Pro, my battery runs for well over 3 hours, close to 4 (Bluetooth and AirPort turned off). I don't know what the average is on other computers, but a second battery is always an option, too. |
Yeah, running samples off an external disk isn't ideal, but it can sometimes be better than doing it off a similar speed internal drive if you only have one, because the system isn't accessing drive at the same time etc. The main problem with the 7200 RPM drives is that they lack a bit in space, I'm finding myself running really low with 500 gig, so with only 160, I think you'd struggle to fit all your samples and stuff on there.
I was looking at the Toshiba satelite series, some of them have TWO harddisks (up to 640 gig) I'd go one of them if you can afford it:eyes: But its so heavy you'd only carry it if you had to...
Hotel rooms are probably an OK place to produce, but unless your flying business class a plane is not (in my experience), trains are worse!
Also, Macbooks have much better battery life than most PCs, its one of the reasons they're attractive. |
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| counterfeiter |
| Since most 17" laptops have a space for a second HD I wouldn't worry about buying an external. Just buy a 2nd internal HD, they're cheap enough and you won't have to carry around more equipment with you. |
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