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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Feb 2009
    Location
    Sweden
    Posts
    14

    Lightbulb Composing on a laptop...

    Hello everyone!

    I need a little help finding a good laptop for a music project i'm starting. It's going to be used for music composing mainly. Renoise will be the musical tool of choice. The project is for beginners and they will learn the basics of composing in renoise. They will use soft samplers, softsynths and vst effects.

    The criteria are the following: Fast (able to handle the normal stress levels of heavy usage of vst's and such, 4 gigs of ram, and preferably a big enough screen to work with. The computer is not going to used for gaming so an expensive graphics card is out of the question ofcourse.

    Suggestions are more than welcome, and also if someone out there composing on a laptop from time to time maybe even using renoise please if you have any ideas let me know what you think.

    Thank you!
    Last edited by Peter W; 2009-02-24 at 14:25.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Feb 2009
    Location
    Hällefors 8miles outside Örebro
    Posts
    63

    Default

    I have a HP pavilion dv5 . 2ghz dualcore 3mb ram 300gbharddrive and that works really well,the screen resolution only goes up to 1280*800 widescreen, not much, wish it could get higher. So a good grafic card in the laptop is pretty much a need i think if you want to get high resolution :P
    And renoise have support for dualcore so that is really great

    It has vista and not xp but that does'nt change anything when running renoise

    It costs 9000:- when I bought it, There are better laptops but I don't know the price on those and what price you are willing to go to

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Feb 2009
    Location
    Sweden
    Posts
    14

    Default

    Yes I was thinking about a hp laptop and around that pricerange as well. I was thinking to go for this maybe. Tell me what you think. http://www.komplett.se/k/ki.aspx?sku=362876

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Feb 2009
    Posts
    4

    Default

    My Acer Aspire 5930G geforce 9600gt 4gb ram 320gb hdd was pretty cheap(about €600) and works a charm with Reason 4.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Feb 2009
    Location
    Sweden
    Posts
    14

    Thumbs up

    Yes, that looks very interesting. Perfect price range and has all the goodies I need. Screensize is enough too. Thanks! I will do some in depth research of it and if it satisfies our needs i'll go with this one.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Feb 2009
    Location
    Finland
    Posts
    66

    Default

    I'd say get a quadcore processor, but those aren't out for laptops yet, are they? If you use VST synths, processor speed is very important, and should get priority over everything else when deciding what to buy.

    The laptop's integrated soundcard is probably going to let through all kinds of noise (and suck in other ways as well ), so you're going to need an external one. Get one with a physical output volume knob, so you don't have to tweak it with mouse like I have to do with my U46.

    Also, if you like to keep the laptop on your lap (or if you do live gigs), get a notebook cooler. (An example here http://www.antec.com/usa/productDeta...an=us&id=75004 but any similar product will do.) They cost something like 30€, and make using the laptop a lot more comfortable since you'll always have a flat, cool surface under the laptop and your balls won't boil when CPU usage gets high.

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Feb 2009
    Location
    Sweden
    Posts
    14

    Default

    Thanks, really good advice. This means I have to do a lot more research.

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Feb 2009
    Location
    Hällefors 8miles outside Örebro
    Posts
    63

    Default

    Yeah soundcards in laptops are generally bad so look for a good external one with ASIO
    And do have a BIG look around first before you decide, ones you have bought it it's no turning back :P
    Good luck

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Feb 2009
    Location
    Sweden
    Posts
    14

    Default

    Indeed, I will choose wisely and do some extensive research. Thanks for all the help, I have a good enough idea on what to look for now.

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Feb 2009
    Posts
    20

    Default

    I'd recommed You some PCMCIA or PCI-e stuff, there're some constantly appearing issues with USB and FireWire on Windows. I personally have EMU1616 and it works perfectly with my laptop and with my desktop as well (connected via PCI-PCMCIA adapter).

    If You'd like to not have problems with sound card, just pick the MacBook with any FireWire interface . At D16 we purchased a Phonic FireFly 808, and it's impossible to connect it to Windows - we checked that on all our computers around , but after connecting this thing to MacBook, it has started to work like a charm and allows to run with 64 samples length buffer - not ASIO needed on MacOS, only native CoreAudio.

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