What Laptop for Audio?

[odsyl]

Hello,

I am looking for a Laptop for audio creation and virtual guitar ampli (GuitarRig, Cubase, Reason, …)

- About Motherboards, I saw the Asus seem well, but I have some dificultoes to get card references for laptops …
- Sound card: I don’t have any precise idee yet, but I think about an external one (Firewire, or Express card would be better)
- I think about Core 2 Duo minimum 2.4GHz, Cache L2 FSB 800MHz.
- RAM: 4Go 800MHz minimum.
- OS: would a 64 bits be useful?
- HD: 7200RPM or better.

So about the laptot itself:
From what I saw in various forums, seems this 2 kind are the best : first Dell, then Asus.
About Dell, I don’t really know wich serie from Latitude (D830, my favorite), XPS (15’ or 17’, but prices get quick higher), or else Vostro (absolutely no idée about this one??).
For a price about 2000€, untill 2500€ if needed.

Any advice?


Thanks a lot!

[bill3107]

hello !

I have recently purchased a laptop so here are my comments :

1) you can find good Vaio-Sony or Dell PC laptops OR chose (Like I did) a macbook pro as they all can provide an express card (that's very important !) . This latter (MBP) allows you to install mac osx BUT also Windows XP (what I did !) so that can be an clever purchase .

2) As for audio. I have decided to buy the Xite from Sonicccore because :
- it includes converters, DSPs ... and preamp so that's a 100% mobile beast !
- the power and the plugins available (synth emulation, mixers, FX, rooting system..) are unbeatable and (that's very important !) allows you to create a whole studio (Xite is very very powerfull !) thanks to this mobile system ...
- (very important to me) it is connected to the express card whereas many audio products (RME, presonus,...) needs Firewire. Using an express card product is better to me (faster !) and you can connect your HD to the firewire connecters without sharing bandwidth (important if you have sample streaming and also for audio recording)

Of course you can buy a RME converter (or anything else) but :
- I would be careful as for a MBP as there are some issues with firewire on recent Macs...
- you only have converters + (preamp)
- you won't have enough power to run sequencer + guitar FX (guitar rig) + big projects at the same time (as there are no DSPs). Let's say it can be ok for live but you cannot build a whole studio around this set up. It depends on your needs ...

I have Sequoia (Samplitude) on the MBP (on the windows partition) and evrything is going smootly ... I am waiting for the Xite release ... very soon !

Hope it helps !

Jonathan

[odsyl]

Thanks a lot !

I didn't mind about mac, in fact... but heard very good comments !
Is there anything I would have to know about installing a WinXP on a mac, or is the result exactly the same as owning an XP on any kind of "win made for" computer?

I neither have no idea at all about what sound card I should look for... I will look for some info about the Xite you're talking about. Do you have some comparative notices with some other cards? or what other cards could you recommend to me?

Thanks again.

(PS: I suppose you're french, and that would be easy to note that I'm too, but "in case of" and for any other "forumer", I go on writing in english !
See ya !

[astroman]

if you buy a current Mac (i.e. shipped with OSX Leopard) then the 'boot camp' control panel is included, which makes installing XP really easy. In fact I did this with several iMacs for the office recently. The required drivers are on the Mac OS DVD and it will prompt you to insert it at the proper moment. The one and only catch during install was when XP asks about formatting the partition you have to format it. There's a 'leave drive a s is' option which will prevent the XP partion from booting if choosen. Of course it is mentioned in the 'Read Me' file, but who looks at this anyway ?
It really is a Windoze PC afterwards, there is absolutely no difference.
The machine always boots the previously choosen OS, unless you change it via the 'Boot Camp' control panel from XP or the Mac 'Startup Volume' thing from OSX. Pretty easy and straight forward.

Imho Guitar Rig still isn't up to the audio quality it suggests - I've installed the demo a couple of times and in high quality mode it took up to 30% of the CPU.
The audio quality with 'regular' processing is completely unacceptable imho, but even the hi-q mode is still a bit tinny and a distinct (identical) soundprint covers whatever you connect.
To my ears all Scope amp emulations and guitar/fx processors are a class above - it's a true relief when you switch back from VST into Scope processing.
I'd rather spend that amount on a Boss GT10 for live playing (guessing from the quality of the ME50B, tho)

the (not yet released) XITE Jonathan mentions is certainly a great live tool for guitar players and bassists, but a 110% professional recording approach. I.e you can play live with the full set of Scope processors and record your performance (or with an Adat/ZLink based IO extension the whole band).

cheers, Tom
big lover of french limestone, the Chartreuse, Champagne and Fromage - not to forget french audio software... except... Arturia

[bill3107]

PM me if you want to talk about fromage, champagne or Spacef, DAS, Celmo, Hurolura

As for the Xite, Astro is right about the studio approach and of course it means an quite big investment but 100% mobile and very very powerful...

When it comes to the MBP, everything is said... I do not see any reason to chose a PC as a laptop (I just prefer PC desktop because you can do what you want inside !) because a MBP will offer OSX + windows OS with the same high quality of a high end PC laptop ... As for the price, you can buy a second hand MBP under warranty (that's very important !) or even better with Apple care (it means a total of 3 years warranty). To give you an idea I have bought a recent MBP (oct 2007) at 1900 euros like new. You can find a better price but I could see the item and the seller in Paris so I was ready to pay for that. Just be careful with ebay sellers. If you are seeking for a PC, just buy a new one as you can find better prices (MBP are quite expensive on the 2d hand market !).

Before I forget : yes my windows XP is perfectly working with Sequoia on the MBP. remember that Sequoia/samplitude is only for PC. A Windows MAC can be very reliable ....

Good luck !

[siriusbliss]

Alienware Area-51 here.
Anxiously awaiting a XITE plugged into the side!

Greg

[odsyl]

Hi siriusbliss,

I'm quite interested in AlienWare serie, and especially the Area51 model, since I saw it was providing XP OS.
I think I would prefer this one from a macbook.....

What about the Area 51, from your own experience ?

[siriusbliss]

Hi siriusbliss,

I'm quite interested in AlienWare serie, and especially the Area51 model, since I saw it was providing XP OS.
I think I would prefer this one from a macbook.....

What about the Area 51, from your own experience ?

very solid and robust. Basically a desktop in a laptop form-factor.
The beefier models tend to be on the heavy side.
Screens are great since they use Nvidia boards (if you pick one).
A few years ago they got a lot of complaints about fan noise, but mine (two years old) is fairly quiet.

Overall I'm happy with them (I have two), and I look forward to seeing how well it runs with Xite!

Greg

[odsyl]

OK, thanks for the comment.

And what model do you own? 15" or 17" (I didn't find the 17" with XP, only the 15" one)
and do you have any experience of a mac, in order to compare?...

Thanks anyway !

[siriusbliss]

OK, thanks for the comment.

And what model do you own? 15" or 17" (I didn't find the 17" with XP, only the 15" one)
and do you have any experience of a mac, in order to compare?...

Thanks anyway !

I have the 17".
I haven't touched a MAc on a long time (although at the hardware level they are basically the same nowadays anyways).
I prefer PC's so that I can hot-rod them and swap out parts without having to rebuild everything around it
30-years working in the hardware engineering environment has shown me a few things

Greg