Buying a laptop for studiolive?

Hey all, i am about to purchase myself a SL 24.4.2 but at the moment my laptop is very outdated and doesnt have a firewire connection.

I want to buy myself a new laptop so I can record on the road.

I always see people on youtube using macbook pros including the main man Rick himself but I really dont want to spend that money just to record audio.

If i was going to buy myself a laptop does it have to be a mac and if not, what are the essentials to have (Firewire, processor power, HD space, Ram etc.)

Thanks!

Aaron

chicouk wrote:Hey all, i am about to purchase myself a SL 24.4.2 but at the moment my laptop is very outdated and doesnt have a firewire connection.

I want to buy myself a new laptop so I can record on the road.

I always see people on youtube using macbook pros including the main man Rick himself but I really dont want to spend that money just to record audio.

If i was going to buy myself a laptop does it have to be a mac and if not, what are the essentials to have (Firewire, processor power, HD space, Ram etc.)

Thanks!

Aaron

Basically your best investment would be Intel's Core i processors, i7 obviously being the most preferable choice. In terms of other elements, most crucial will be the firewire controller chipset. Make sure you have a Texas Instrument chipset onboard, NEC has some working chipsets as does VIA, but not all work. TI is your best bet. If you can't find a laptop that has one on board (it's not always easy to determine) make sure you have an express card slot so you can get a card with the TI chipset.

thanks Motoko....so all i need is a good processor and texas instrument chipset firewire... if not then an expansion slot so i can get a TI chipset

Is ram important?

It is important but it is also easily upgraded. I'd say get at least 4GB ad you should be fine.

Buy a laptop in this case for three things
Processor (as much processor as you can afford)
Expresscard slot or Known compatible firewire chipset (Do your homework on this one)
Screensize (bigger is in some cases actually better)

Pretty much every other major component can be updated.

oh thats brilliant!! i guess i dont have to spend around £2k for a macbook then

hehe thanks a lot u guys, i will u all updated

The advantages to macs are that for the most part they just work. There's no adjusting required.

For many the 2k is justifiable for that reason alone.

PC almost always has to be adjusted to work. If you're ok with that then you should be ok with a regular laptop purchase.

I don't know why any one who would want to have the best laptop for their solution be concerned about price. Sure you can get a cheap pc like they all are, but in 6 months when it's already running slowly and not great, your going to wonder why you bought it. I keep my macs forever and they still run as great years later.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 17/09/2011 21:46:03

Monolithent wrote:The advantages to macs are that for the most part they just work. There's no adjusting required.

For many the 2k is justifiable for that reason alone.

PC almost always has to be adjusted to work. If you're ok with that then you should be ok with a regular laptop purchase.

Well running Windows 7 only requires you to change the power profile for your machine as it will most likely shut down disks etc. to save power. Other then that I have no problems with my Windows machines. There's no reason to choose either Mac or Windows anymore, besides personal preference. They both run on the same hardware, OS X and Win 7 perform basically the same.

Look at it from this point. If you buy a Segway, there's only one brand and one manufacturer. If you prefer a motorbike, there's a lot more choice and variations in quality.

But you know my take on the Mac vs. PC (none-) discussion.

http://forumsarchive.presonus.com/posts/list/13348.page

You wouldn't have to spend 2K to get a SL worthy Mac, either. I use an older MacBook (not pro model) for remote work, and you can pick up one like that for about $600-800 used. I highly recommend it. You could go the PC route, but with PC laptops you can get stung by compatibility issues, and you may very well not discover those issues until you get it home. If you buy a PC, make sure you can return it if there turns out to be a problem, otherwise you may get stuck with an expensive paperweight.

I have no particular bias against PCs, though (although I don't quite understand why people would want to put themselves through the headaches of getting a working PC system together and operating smoothly when it is generally quite easy to do with a Mac, and not really all that much more expensive).

Hmm 2nd hand macs... Never thOught about that...

Is there a minimum requirement or rEcommended to record studiolive. Isn't i7 bit too excessive if I just want to record 20 channels live on the go

I always hated spending money on computers until I switched to mac. Now the proud owner of 3macbook pros and 2 imacs. They make me $$$

i7 is a lot for just running Capture. If you wanted to run Studio One for mixing and mastering, and run a lot of hungry plugins, it would be nice to have the extra horsepower of an i7.

If you look into a used MacBook, just make sure of two things: 1) that it can accept and use 4GB of RAM (some of the earlier models did not), and 2) make sure it has a FW port -- the MacBook Air and the newer MacBooks (plain MacBooks, not the MacBook Pros), for example, have no FW and no card slot.

Here are my model recommendations (for stretching your $):

Model Identifiers: 3.1, 4.1, 4.2, 5.1, 5.2

see this table: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacBook

I would give slight preference to the 5.1 and 5.2 for slightly better video performance and faster bus speed. I have a 5.2, a 5.1, and a 3.1, and they all play nicely with my SL16.

I'd put a 7200 RPM drive in it if it didn't have it already, and I'd max out the RAM at 4GB. If it didn't have Snow Leopard, I put that on it, too (because it has been a very reliable platform for Capture, UC, and the SL.

One online seller that deals in used Macs is called Powermax. They have quite a supply of them at the moment, ranging from ~ $600 to $1,000.

I bought a used HP NC8430 which sports a TI fireport and works great with my SL 16 mixer with both Capture and Studio One Pro.

Here's one on eBay right now http://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-Nc8430-Core2Duo-2-Ghz-500-Gig-HD-Win7-Ult-3-Gig-Ram-/270816772226?pt=Laptops_Nov05&hash=item3f0df00082

and no this isn't my eBay listing nor my laptop just saying it will work and don't need to take a 2nd mortgage out to get the latest and greatest i7 or mac machine.

Oh well, fanboys will be fanboys...