Hi There my beloved Advisers,
Thanks for all the awesome advice and help y’all give us on here. I need some tech advice/ recommendations (you name it). I am essentially a gigging Keyboard player with the intention of setting up a mini home studio set up to do some good demos, sequencing and ultimately to do some good work. The clients have been calling me lately asking me to do some production and so, if I have a home set up, I can work from home smoothly and do my thing. So anyways, first of all my gear is as follows:
• Software: Band in a box Mega pak 2008, power tracks pro audio 12, Sonar 4, Cubase Sx3, Sound Forge 7.0, Finale 2007. I am getting Ableton Live 8 soon to help with playing “live” in the worship band at my church. Obviously, I will need a good enough Laptop for this and a midi set up hooked up a Roland Clavinova that I play at my church.
• Hardware: Yamaha Motif ES-7, a LEXICON OMEGA interface, a Korg D888 HARD disk recorder/ Mixer. I am also looking into purchasing one of those M-AUDIO fast Track Pro interfaces just in case. Always good to have more than 1 interface, at least one in the box waiting.
Now here is what I need, folks. I need a good enough Laptop to integrate with my above gear. My budget is gonna be approximately maybe about close to $700.00. I have 2 end of October gigs ($285.00 + $375.00 and Maybe I can chip in a $100.00. A Customer Manager Friend of Mine who works at Wal-Mart here in Columbus, Georgia informed me of some good Laptop Sale deals coming up for the Thanksgiving holiday……….I mean like in a few weeks time. I need some advice and or recommendations here. I know that purchasing a laptop for music is a highly subjective matter but however, based on my gear above, and what I want to do, take a look at these super Laptop deals that Walmart will have for Thanksgiving sale and tell me which one I can be recommended or suggested to purchase. There is the Compaq Pressario Laptop for $298, pretty good specs and there’s also the $548 Acer 8-hour battery laptop among others. Any ideas on the specs of these in terms of Music production for a home studio situation? Which one do y’all think can be best for me at this point in time? Take a look at this link below. I do await your feedback and or comments. Thanks soo much, y’all. I know that a Mac is usually the better bet for music production but I am looking at the prices of these Walmart windows Laptops and I am like whoaaa !! Check the link below:

http://blogs.zdnet.com/gadgetreviews/?p=6181

Jacobins