PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Recording, Mixing, Performance and Production PC laptop purchase - for music production & s/w development

Soon I'll begin researching a PC laptop purchase. It will likely run Win7 (maybe Win8) and primarily be used for:

1. music production (biab, sonar, etc.)
2. software development ala Microsoft Visual Studio
( any later model pc should do #2 )
3. NO games - I'll play guitar before a game

It will need to do both #1 & #2 equally well, and have a low defect history. Given this group's focus, I thought I'd solicit input here first. If you have experience with or know about a great audio production laptop, please chime in.

Thanks for any input!

Ken,

I've been through this journey for topic 1, two times in the past 7 years. First time I bought an IBM Thinkpad Z61m, because it was one of the few laptops that I could confirm had the Texas Instruments firewire chipset which PreSonus eventually said was nearly necessary to make their Firewire interfaces work properly.

It lasted less than 5 years before the mobo gave out. It was $1000+ in roughly 2007 time frame. 5 years out and the replacment mobos were incredibly rare and expensive. Cheaper to buy a new laptop.

I have used T-series ThinkPads from IBM for very durable and reliable USB based audio recording at work - bashing them in and out of automobiles (not intentionally of course) for connection to binaural dummy heads. I thought the IBM choice was a no-brainer as a result.

The reality is, there are very few laptop manufacturers globally. It's probably less than 5 manufacturers making laptops for 95% of all brands.

Here's what to really look out for - after going through these efforts again about 3 years ago:

Make sure that the processor is up to the task. Many of the $300-$500 range laptops are using pretty crummy processors. AMD has a line of processors (I think it's the E series) that are not worth the powder to blow them up as it pertains to audio production.

On the intel side, I would recommend Core i3 and above, whatever the latest configurations are. Intel has made it quite confusing with all of the different processor lines they now offer, with features enabled/disabled, etc.

CPUBenchmark is your friend here: http://www.cpubenchmark.net/

I learned the AMD E-series lesson the hard way with a cheapo Toshiba that couldn't run the software that the Core Duo Thinkpad did 5 years previous. Office Depot/Max/Staples sell these and it's best to avoid them, IMO. Here's the latest flavor $250 - probably can't run BIAB: http://www.officedepot.com/a/products/35...140202_20140209

CPU Benchmark is 605 on that one. Pretty low.

Took the one I had bought back to the store, and then got wise to the fact that the E-series in that box was seriously weak for audio. Bought a refurbished Samsung for about $50 more with a Core i3 that doesn't even break a sweat doing all kinds of live VSTi/VST processing in my DAW software.

Memory went bad about a year ago on the Samsung, but swapped it and no issues since.

Look for faster hard drive speeds, and a CPU benchmark that is reasonable - again, these days I would look at Corei3 performance and look for scores higher than that. It also helps if your music software can actually make use of multiple cores.

As for #2, sorry can't help out there. My guess is that good performance for #2 would go along with good performance for #1.

My laptop, a Toshiba Satellite with an Intel i5, works well with audio.

I've had many Toshiba laptops with no problems. The hard drive in my current one failed, but I replaced it with an SSD and now it screams.

Also check the reliability sites. The Asus laptops are up there. I have 8.1 and it works just fine. Later, Ray

Also check the reliability sites. The Asus laptops are up there. I have 8.1 and it works just fine. The last 3 or 4 pro recording studios that I've been in though have been using Macs for production. Later, Ray

+1 for Asus. I have an 18" N76V with i7core, and windows 7 with winXP as a virtual PC. I installed an SSD as system disc and moved the 750Gb disc to the second slot. It is a power house

When I first decided to get back into digital recording I knew I needed a good laptop and I also knew I needed an external interface.

My previous foray into music recording on computer a few years earlier had taught me that. Due to OS upgrades and drivers that weren't upgraded by the PCI card manufacturer, the old machine wouldn't work for recording.

So I checked around and purchased what amounted to a basic, off the shelf, with a few add on options, Dell duo core laptop.

I removed much of the crapware that comes pre-loaded on the off the shelf models. I made sure it had a firewire port since I was looking at firewire interfaces. I knew nothin about the TI-chipset issue and bought the interface, plugged it in, and it worked. BTW: it is still working to this day and I now use it on my custom built DAW in the studio.

All that to say that most laptops on the market these days that will do #2 on you list can easily do #1 on the list. #3 isn't even a factor.

Purchase any halfway decent laptop and use a USB or firewire interface and you should have very little problems creating music and running BB/RB as well as most of the fully featured DAWs and third party software stuff. One thing to check..... be sure the hard drives in the lappy are 7200 rpm so that the read/write times are shorter. Yeah, that does make a difference in the performance.

For people who don't have an interface already, I do recommend that you look at the USB based interfaces since the firewire interfaces can sometimes have compatibility issues with the chip sets other than TI as Rockstar mentioned. I was fortunate that the lappy I bought and the MOBO in my custom build both apparently had compatible firewire chip sets. I was halfway expecting the custom build to not work with the firewire interface since no one I spoke to, even at the MOBO tech support team could answer that question for me.


The secret (if there is one) to get music software to run smoothly is to have a decent USB musical interface.

ADD: everybody was telling me to optimize the lappy, remove this and shut off that, and disconnect from the net and halt the AV & FW etc.... etc....etc.... What a hassle.... I simply worked as I needed, with the wi-fi on, the AV on, the firewall up, and connected to the net on that DELL lappy......and 99% of the time there was no problems. The biggest problem I encountered was when the AV decided it was time to do a system scan while I was working. So I simply paused the scan and went back to work and allowed AV to finish the scan after I was done working. problem solved.

I still have that Dell, and I still use it in my studio. More now as the internet gateway to load files I have worked on up to sites and DL from people I'm working with.....It still has an older version of BB on it for writing while traveling, and that works well on the MME drivers on the lappy. I can plug in the focusrite saffire FW interface and record with it if I need to do so..... as it remains my backup DAW in the event of a major malfunction in the big DAW.

+1 for the Toshiba Satellite.

Just stay away from the bargain basement models with those AMD E series processors. Do your homework on what the CPU can actually accomplish. The very laptop I mentioned and linked to a current model above is a Toshiba Satellite. Would not run a very light load DAW software with a single VSTi plugin without serious hiccuping and CPU spiking.

One other item, if you are planning on buying new, then you'll have to deal with removal of Win8 to install your own copy of Win7, unless you go with a full-on custom build shop that will load Win7 for you.

http://www.walmart.com/ip/Toshiba-C655-S5208/17270387


$400 out the door. Runs BIAB and Sonar X3 flawlessly.

There you go - that one will likely do the job. Core i3 and Win7 home premium 64 bit.

The reason I bought the Satellite that I did initially - which I badmouthed above, is because we use these Toshiba Satellite form factor everywhere around work as a sort of 'throwaway' PC to handle various jobs - for example there's one connected to our USPS postage printer. They rarely get used as real laptop duty - pretty much sitting in one location. The bad reviews on the Walmart site, are for the case. I can vouch that the cases on these are pretty flimsy, but I haven't seen anything better in the under $700 or so range of laptops. All the cases you will find are flimsy plastic jobs. The nice thing about these form factor lappys is that they have number pads built-in. If you are a number pad user, this alone will be a godsend. Typing in measures/beats for punchin-out, etc., I like the convenience of the number pad.

Just be wary of the CPU you are buying in to. Toshiba packages a hugely different performance lineup into the same case. See the Toshiba for just a few bux less in the 17.3" form factor with the AMD E-series? I would steer clear of that one. Here are the CPU Benchmark tests for both machines:

The machine that 90 dB referenced at $400 (though not currently available online from what I can tell):
Passmark of 2411
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i3-2310M+%40+2.10GHz&id=756

The other Toshiba Satellite for just $14 less:
Passmark of 843
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=AMD+E2-1800+APU&id=251


That's a pretty huge difference in performance for $14!

You have been warned!

I'd be more worried about 'compatibility' than 'capabilities' for a newer device.

Visual Studio can run on a Surface PRO tablet while running a 2012 MSSQL database at the same time.

However:
If you can find W7 on a new laptop; congrats.
If you are installing it on the new laptop; even better.

I recently experienced an issue with .NET 4.51 on W8 (it would take 4.5 but not 4.51) .. so just how current you need VS to be can also come into play.

I suggest keep W7 as a priority (with W8 upgrade as an option) as a focus .. considering the stated need. Or make sure your current VS requirements are supported.
It was weird, as I could update my W7 machine to 4.51 but the W8 machines failed. I'd need to update W8 to W8.1 to allow .NET 4.51 to install.

Sorry if I bored many of you with this..

No, all good RHarv.

Tips like those can save others a lot of pain.

Trevor