Hi everyone-- i apologize if this is a bit of topic...
i am looking into doing "live" dj sets with Ableton and am shopping around for a laptop. my biggest concern is getting a laptop that won't crash.
as i have never owned a laptop, i am unsure about which ones i should look at.
also, any advice about what kind of set-up and the amount of RAM/ CPU speed that i will need to run the latest from Ableton would be much appreciated.
Thanks
Ben
Best Laptop for Ableton Live
Get one of the newer DUO models, the additional processing power at your disposal will insure that you don't hit snags when other processes (OS etc) steal a few cycles for housecleaning duties while you're playing. These are VERY fast for laptops, the only slow part being the single harddrive still.
Going to higher rpm's for your harddrive give more heat and doesn't necessarily solve trying to access OS binaries, Live binaries AND samples all at the same time, so an external harddrive is recommended if you do a lot of work with longer files that aren't easily cached.
For RAM & Cpu speed, 2Gb RAM is a good ballpark to be in imo, and the modern Duo cpu's from Intel are fast enough that speed isn't a primary concern if you're sticking with samples & loops in Live. If you're going to be doing a lot of playing of virtual instruments then you might want to look towards the fastest Duo speeds.
I do NOT recommend AMD & Intel desktop chips in a laptop to get 'more performance'. Everyone I know that has gone this way has had thermal issues (a lot of AMD systems with their desktop chips will even shut down mid-performance with no thermal warnings beforehand). AMD's next gen Dothan for mobile use is apparently better than their previous outings (versus Centrino) but Duo is still the best choice atm imo.
If you can wait a few months the next-gen Duo laptops should bring some substantial improvements even (although this is always the case, isn't it?) The current Intel Duo chipset was codenamed Yonah during development, and is 32bit. The next gen is 64bit (mostly yawn but becoming more important) but above this it has a very advanced Speedstep implementation for power saving and a core design that is going to be shared across the desktop & workstation lines. P4 is finally going to be dead...
Now, crashing is typically NOT a problem for Live itself, instability almost ALWAYS comes from 3rd party vst plugins these days. There are a few plugins I have that will even cause strange cpu-overload type behaviour from Live even when only around 30% cpu (the audio engine starts having problems basically). I do extensive studio sessions with new plugins before they are 'confirmed' ok for live use, and to be honest I typically stick to using samples & audio loops ONLY (prepped from the main DAW) in conjunction with Live's built in effects.
Btw Live 6 will even support multiple cpus/cores and give you a performance increase with Duo chipset laptops in the long run.
Going to higher rpm's for your harddrive give more heat and doesn't necessarily solve trying to access OS binaries, Live binaries AND samples all at the same time, so an external harddrive is recommended if you do a lot of work with longer files that aren't easily cached.
For RAM & Cpu speed, 2Gb RAM is a good ballpark to be in imo, and the modern Duo cpu's from Intel are fast enough that speed isn't a primary concern if you're sticking with samples & loops in Live. If you're going to be doing a lot of playing of virtual instruments then you might want to look towards the fastest Duo speeds.
I do NOT recommend AMD & Intel desktop chips in a laptop to get 'more performance'. Everyone I know that has gone this way has had thermal issues (a lot of AMD systems with their desktop chips will even shut down mid-performance with no thermal warnings beforehand). AMD's next gen Dothan for mobile use is apparently better than their previous outings (versus Centrino) but Duo is still the best choice atm imo.
If you can wait a few months the next-gen Duo laptops should bring some substantial improvements even (although this is always the case, isn't it?) The current Intel Duo chipset was codenamed Yonah during development, and is 32bit. The next gen is 64bit (mostly yawn but becoming more important) but above this it has a very advanced Speedstep implementation for power saving and a core design that is going to be shared across the desktop & workstation lines. P4 is finally going to be dead...
Now, crashing is typically NOT a problem for Live itself, instability almost ALWAYS comes from 3rd party vst plugins these days. There are a few plugins I have that will even cause strange cpu-overload type behaviour from Live even when only around 30% cpu (the audio engine starts having problems basically). I do extensive studio sessions with new plugins before they are 'confirmed' ok for live use, and to be honest I typically stick to using samples & audio loops ONLY (prepped from the main DAW) in conjunction with Live's built in effects.
Btw Live 6 will even support multiple cpus/cores and give you a performance increase with Duo chipset laptops in the long run.