PG Music Home Forums PG Music Product Forums Band-in-a-Box for Windows Your Laptop experiences wanted....!

Hi all,

My main laptop broke. So I am on the lookout for a new one that is perfectly suited to do music production with medium skill but big plugins and BiaB. Low latency is always a mayor criteria but also enough connections (USB 3.0/3.1), second slot for a disc for more data storage...

What are your recommendations, with what hardware do you have good experiences without breaking the bank.

Any pitfalls that I should avoid?

I looked in the signiatures of you guys, lots of different hardware in use. But I cannot see, how happy you are ;-)

Thanks for your suggestions!


Cheers Stefan

I don’t use a laptop for music production.

My laptop for other purposes is an average i5 Toshiba.. Notes Norton performs with laptops and he loves his older Thinkpads.

Stefan.
heres what i recommend.
if you have a big budget of several thousand dollars, look at what a lot of big rich recording studios purchase. ie custom computers specifically built for the rigors of daily recording studio work. eg
https://pcaudiolabs.com/
https://www.adkproaudio.com/
https://silentpc.com/
and here is a custom builder that seems to be favored also by lots of studios.
(read the impressive references on the site.)
https://studiocat.com/opencart2/index.php?route=common/home

there are many others. research user references on google,
and also on gearslutz.com is a good site for user feedback.
make sure you do due diligence before sending money etc etc.
also on gearslutz are many threads regarding suitable systems for music production work. eg
https://www.gearslutz.com/board/music-computers/
the advantage is you literally get a "turn key" solution.
also reaper.fm has lots of info from users useing laptops includeing high end.

if i ever win the lottery lol i will probably get a company like
one of the above to build me a pc "beast" based on an amd threadripper cpu. stuffed with ram and ssd's.

HOWEVER if your a cheapskate like me and have not won a lottery lol.
here is my cheapie recommendation. FOR 700 dollars.
get TWO REFURBISHED COMPUTERS.
1. COMPUTER 1. a refurb intel i5 laptop with ssd for " trying out song ideas in biab etc" while your away from home eg on holiday or travelling. and also for useing on the net.
2. COMPUTER 2. a static at home "beast of a pc " like this, which never sees the net stuffed with ram and ssd's.
the advantage over laptop being EXPANDABILITY.
eg this beast A HP Z REFURB WORKSTATION. (450 dollars !!)
https://www.bestbuy.ca/en-ca/product/hp-z440-workstation-xeon-e5-1620v3-3-5ghz-4-cores-8gb-ddr4-256gb-ssd-nvs-510-2gb-quad-monitor-support-win10-pro-refurbished/14666686
lenovo is another good brand.
BE AWARE THEY SELL FAST. cos a user is getting powerfull performance without spending a lot.
notice loads of usb ports. AND pci if you wanna use a pci sound card unlike a laptop.
make sure you get a 1 year warranty.

total cost for 2 refurbs above about 700 dollars.
cant be beat imho. another advantage is, at worst , if one system goes kaput you can still get work done.
best
oldmuso.
ps.stefan. something to be aware of.
a friend of my wife and i was recently shopping for a new computer.
(i urged her to consider a refurb, as no bloat.)
long story short she bought a new pc from a typical computer store. she has had problems due to bloat on it. and "now" wishes she had bought a refurb pc like i always do.

Yes, be prepared to put up with a lot of bloat-ware on any new purchase.

Not hard to resolve, but it'll all be part of the experience.

Stephan, I'm on the same quest too! What I'm finding is that "without breaking the bank" might be hard to do.

First, laptop are more expensive than desktops by their very nature. If you want to save some money and get a high performance machine, get a desktop. Best part about desktops is that you can change, upgrade and "play" with the insides. Not as easy to do with a laptop.

Second, if you want desktop performance in a laptop be prepared to spend big bucks. Intel 10th and 11th gen processors and Ryzen processors are good but expensive.

Third, if you want desktop performance you'll probably want to go with an SSD for programs and a mechanical HD for data. This "dual drive" setup will limit the number of options you have from the manufacturers.

Finally, if you really want to go the laptop route, start looking at gaming machines. These will have the processors, memory and HD's to give you what you want but...and here's the big but...these will all have high end video cards that you don't need for music but will drive the price higher. Look for a gaming machine with the lowest level video card that you can find.

You seem like a guy who's really digging into all of this music production. It's not for the faint of heart!

Like I said in the beginning, a desktop would be better choice unless there is a compelling reason that you must have a laptop.

The only reason that I'm looking at a laptop is to get out of the house...can't see me dragging my desktop out into the wild....but I still want that kind of performance. Hence the problem.

Jeff

Thanks OldMuso, Video and Jeff for your valuable feedbacks.

I was looking the whole morning (in Germany) for the posibilities through long list of laptops. Being a commuter during the week away from home I have the request for portability. Yes Jeff, the gaming computers are big, high-end and expandable, I saw one from MSI that could absorb 4 discs (3 M.2 slows and 1 SATA). That looked like it can cover a damm lot of space for sample libraries, stuff and BiaBs Wave files. The grafik power is not needed though. Still on the privy side.

My second laptop I am using now is a refurbed one from HP. It holds to discs which I have at 1 and 2 TB now. Just sufficient for the moment. But when Corona is keeping me from being more active, nailed to my computer I probably buy more stuff for compensation :-(

Since this morning I spoke to an IT service guy, my power socket is broken in the mainboard, not letting power in. I decided due to the fuss of reactivating als hardware based installation to my computer, to look for a repair of the "main" laptop. Thank god I have this refurbed, slower but also setup laptop to cover this phase. So lets cross fingers, that my sweetheart can get fixed!

Thanks again folks. I learned again a lot.
Good you are there!

Cheers
Stefan

and yes Matt, I remember Notes Norten mentioning the thinkpads he uses for this gigs.
I forgot to mention it. In the town I work is an Laptop PC refurbisher as it is a big town with logs of corporate companies regularly spewing off their hardware to replace it within their workforce. That will be an option I will consider next time and see what the offer.

Cheers
Stefan

Biab runs perfectly smooth on a Microsoft Surface i5 here - easily expandable with TB size sd cards.

Hello Martin,

is reading from SD cards or other external devices not a performance killer?
Or are the ext. devices rockets by now....

I thought that all I/O related tasks will be much slower if the programm needs to access external storage.

Thanks for your insights.

Cheers
Stefan

Not at all. Reading speeds are quite sufficient these days. An installation of a full fledged BiaB Ultra PAK with RealTracks, RealDrums and all that stuff onto some SD card may take a couple of hours, potentially some 10 hours or so - yet once installed I do not perceive any performance differences compared to an installation on an internal drive of some desktop PC.

Stefan.
instead of useing the slow sd card slot on a laptop.
just make sure you get a laptop with spare usb ports.

THEN just hook up a very fast external solid state drive over usb
eg
https://www.newegg.ca/External-SSDs/SubCategory/ID-2022
or put a nvme or m.2 in an emclosure and hook up to usb.
small enough to carry in a pocket etc. eg
https://www.startech.com/en-ca/hdd/sm2ngffmbu33
the startech above is vedry fast 5gbps.

the KEY is a laptop with spare high speed usb ports.
NOTE i dont like huge 4tb drives. too much data to loose.
better to use multiple drives.
another idea is , if you have old pg usb drives you can use those also.

best
oldmuso

Some of those 2 in 1 Tablet/Notebooks come with TB internal SSDs. That's plenty of space without having to make do with external USB drives.

Desktop i7 system BiaB boot from internal SSD drive -> Bootup time in milliseconds =2,531
Microsoft Surface i5 BiaB boot from SD card -> Bootup time in milliseconds =8,072

Martin.
yes those i7 laptops are very very nice, but problem is price.
i thought stefan didnt want to spend a lot and was interested in low budget refurbs.
here , a refurb i5 laptop with warranty and internal ssd can be had for as low as 200 dollars. i got my wife one. works great/fast/boots fast etc etc.

the other issue for me is "doing everything off the one internal ssd".
so ya got win running plus apps, then stefan talks bout big plug ins, then lets add in sample libs possibly, and "now" everything but the kitchen sink is on that lonely ssd. sure ssd's are fast. but imho its asking for trouble. if people get lazy and dont do their back ups, if that one ssd goes kaput; loads of work is lost etc etc.

the "problem" is the lack of really low budget laptops with 2 internal ssd's and fast processors.
you notice whats happened to processor prices ?
i mean the good high ghz stuff. crazy prices.

the PROBLEM is the really good laptops custom built for recording studio work are so very expensive.
thus imho there is no perfect low budget solution.
on a low budget the 200 buk refurb i5/ssd suggestion is the only alternative imho. with external over usb "pocket sized" drive. for a total of around 380 bucks or less.

best.
oldmuso

Hey Martin and Muso,

interessting to hear your experiences there.
In fact I would be prepared to invest some money in my setup, but obviously not in the state of the art high-end things. I wait 3-5 years and the performance is available in the mid-range market and I even save the money for the next gen some years in the future.

I found an IT service guy, that tries to fix the hardware issue with my power supply.
Than I use my old I7 6th gen laptop for some more years ;-)

External drives is definately something I will consider more ( I have already a collection of those for back-up reason).

How are you doing your back-ups? I tend to be a little messy and stick a nut under every tree like a squirrel ;-)
Are you using special programs for that, that do synchronizations?

Cheers
Stefan

The majority of your external devices, actually the software it is running, and samples as well as VST's and FX are loaded from the external drive into memory. So it doesn't matter where the info is stored. It all loads to memory and runs from the RAM which is astoundingly fast. I have always run my BB and VST's from drives other than my main one and BB has always been external with the minimal install option for the past many years. It works flawlessly this way. And my machine is seriously old.

This is interesting GuitarHacker. I was originally thinking about a dual-drive laptop...one with an SSD for programs and a 7200 rpm drive for RT/RD and songs.

Based on your comments, I might be better off with saving some money on a dually and just putting that to more RAM and a larger SSD and running RT/RD/Songs from an external SSD.

What are your thoughts?

Jeff

jeff.
my best advice.
go on you tube and look at videos of startech (and other brands) docking stations with one or two ssd in the dock with usb.
also check out on you tube m.2 and nvme ssd in enclosures and, hooked up to laptop via usb.
i personally , for a few years now use a startech dock with 2 ssd slots hooked up to host pc via usb.
benefits.
1. fast for back ups from host for large song projects.
2. can copy fast from one ssd in the dock to other ssd in dock.
ive found much much faster than sd card.
ie whereas i can sit and watch a back up to sd with a cup of tea.
the back up to the dock ssd is literally "whoosh".
BUT the only way to see is to run your own real life tests.
and see if its for you, and watch the scads of info on you tube and around the net.

best
oldmuso.

ps personally if i won a lottery i would get something like a custom built for recording studios i9 or threadripper pc stuffed with ram and ssd's .