Laptop for making electronic music?

AARRRGH

Hello

I hope I can get some advice on this.

I am getting back into making electronic music, and I would like to do so using a laptop.

If I buy a decent Dell laptop and good external speakers, how should I go about fitting a decent soundcard? Or are the basic soundcards which are supplied with today's laptops good enough?

Any advice appreciated.

Thanks!

Anima

Most if not all laptops come with onboard soundcards, which are ****e even for day to day stuff. They rely on the CPU to do some tasks so the quality is poor and you might get stuttering under heavy CPU load. You'd need to buy either an external or slot in one really for decent quality and performance.

You can get by with a bog standard one though if you want, I do and it works ok with decent ASIO drivers but I do get artifacts in the sound. If I turn on the EQ in the software that came with it, it produces quantisation noise... piss poor stuff really.

flyswatter

If you buy a laptop it will most likely come with an internal soundcard which probably won't be good enough. You would be best off buying an external soundcard for it. Are you planning on recording instruments or vocals?

AARRRGH

Thanks for the replies.

Initially I will only be using software (e.g. Ableton) with a midi keyboard, but I can't rule out recordng lyrics or an instrument.

Do the external soundcards slot into the PCMCIA slot, or are they connected via USB or something?!

cue brute

usb is the way to go - i have had great results with the line6 stuff - i have heard that the others are good too, edirol and some other names - there must be a wealth of info on this board if you do a search

flyswatter

I think external soundcards are generally connected via USB 2.0 or Firewire.

cue brute

firewire is generally thought to be marginally better than usb2 - however laptops with firewire tend to be more expensive

i think its not worth the extra cash for firewire unless you want to do some really heavy stuff and have the experience needed to to demand this

Dragan

AARRRGH wrote: »

Thanks for the replies.

Initially I will only be using software (e.g. Ableton) with a midi keyboard, but I can't rule out recordng lyrics or an instrument.

Do the external soundcards slot into the PCMCIA slot, or are they connected via USB or something?!

Just get a Lexicon Lambda....it's an animal, usb connected too.

paulelectronica

you can also get a firewire audio interface . i produce electronica music on my laptop and thats what im going to be getting . you`d have midi inputs , mic , and more with pre amps also

empirix

cue brute wrote: »

usb is the way to go - i have had great results with the line6 stuff - i have heard that the others are good too, edirol and some other names - there must be a wealth of info on this board if you do a search

Firewire is the way to go,its more reliable and stable, macbook pro is the way to go too and if you have the cash an rme fireface 400

AARRRGH

Thanks for the replies everyone. Would a laptop with 6 gigs ram and 2 x 2.8GHZ processors be ok?

Also, can you recommend what speakers to get (need to be reasonably priced) and any other bits and pieces I need?

In total I have a budget of 2k.

Thanks!

rcaz

6 gigs of RAM is PLENTY. Two 2.8GHz processors are PLENTY.

If you've got two grand to spend, would you consider getting a MacBook? I got an MBP and absolutely love it. Firewire 800 port, GarageBand, and the very lovely Mac OSX all included in that. It might be bit tight to fit monitors and an interface in under €2,000, but I think it'd be worth the stretch.

Jev/N

As the above poster said, go with a Macbook Pro if you can; you won't regret it.

Also don't buy 6 GB of RAM, you won't need it unless doing heavy video editing and anyway, you can buy it cheaper from crucial.com subsequent to buying the laptop.

If you're going for the Apple option, look at the refurbs, best deals out there and they're as solid as a brand new machine and come with a year warranty...

http://store.apple.com/ie/browse/home/specialdeals/mac/macbook_pro


here's an example of a brilliant deal:


Refurbished MacBook Pro 2.8GHz Intel Core 2 Duo

15.4-inch LED-backlit antiglare widescreen display
4GB memory
500GB hard drive
8x SuperDrive (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
SD Card Slot
Built-in 7-hour battery
NVIDIA GeForce 9400M + 9600M GT with 512MB
Illuminated keyboard

€1,839.00

AARRRGH

Thanks for the replies. I actually don't like Macs so I'll be sticking to a PC.

Jev/N

AARRRGH wrote: »

I actually don't like Macs so I'll be sticking to a PC.

Please, why?

paulelectronica

Jev/N wrote: »

As the above poster said, go with a Macbook Pro if you can; you won't regret it.

Also don't buy 6 GB of RAM, you won't need it unless doing heavy video editing and anyway, you can buy it cheaper from crucial.com subsequent to buying the laptop.

If you're going for the Apple option, look at the refurbs, best deals out there and they're as solid as a brand new machine and come with a year warranty...

http://store.apple.com/ie/browse/home/specialdeals/mac/macbook_pro


here's an example of a brilliant deal:


Refurbished MacBook Pro 2.8GHz Intel Core 2 Duo

15.4-inch LED-backlit antiglare widescreen display
4GB memory
500GB hard drive
8x SuperDrive (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
SD Card Slot
Built-in 7-hour battery
NVIDIA GeForce 9400M + 9600M GT with 512MB
Illuminated keyboard

€1,839.00

looks class , i actually was going to buy a mac when i was buying my laptop a few years ago but a mate advised me against it .

AARRRGH

Jev/N wrote: »

Please, why?

I prefer Windows, and I don't like the Apple brand, it's too pretentious.

My girlfriend has a Mac and I'm forced to use it every now and then. It's just not for me.

rcaz

AARRRGH wrote: »

I don't like the Apple brand, it's too pretentious.

Lots of people get elitist over their Macs, but it's only pretentious if you make it that way. The way I see it, they make computers that work, and don't release operating systems with huge gaping security holes.

But lots of people do great things on Windows, too. AFAIK Autechre use both.

Jev/N

I understand the idea of trying to distance yourself from the pretentiousness that can accompany the brand but don't let that mess up your choice!

One of the main reasons I went with a mac was, amongst other things, the ability to use logic, which I always wanted to have.

AARRRGH

Yeah, I don't really like using Macs in general though. I'm used to using unix, but I just hate the Mac UI.

Can you recommend any budget speakers and midi keyboard, and anything else I might need?

Thanks!

paulelectronica

AARRRGH wrote: »

Yeah, I don't really like using Macs in general though. I'm used to using unix, but I just hate the Mac UI.

Can you recommend any budget speakers and midi keyboard, and anything else I might need?

Thanks!

budget speakers id go for the samson resolv 65as (i have these ) cost me under 200 and i love them . really nice sound out of them and future music awarded them budget monitor of the year the year they were released

Aliner

i am using a dell studio 15 laptop with 2x KRK rp5 G2 and an M-audio fasttrack usb external soundcard