Its Time For Me To Get My DAW !!!!!

L

lorper

New member
Hey everyone. Ive been slowly collecting some gear over the past year. I currently have a Tascam Us1800 and I picked up a Apex Mic kit along with some Presonus monitors. Nothing high end as you can see but I wanted something to get me started and I think that will do the trick. So im at the point now where im going to get my DAW and I need to know what I should get. Im thinking of getting a laptop because I travel a lot for work so it would be nice If I could bring the DAW on the road and do some editing and drum programming.

Im debating on Mac or PC. Ive always owned PC but I am not against buying a Mac and trying new things :). Im in Canada and ive been looking on Best Buy and other sites online and it seems like a PC Laptop is with the specs id want is gonna be around $1000 - $1200. I was told Id want atleast 8gb of Ram, a Intel i5 or i7 processor and a SSD Hard drive. Its hard to find all those specs in one. Usually the laptops that have solid state drive seem to only have 4gb of ram and vise versa. I was also told to get a good gaming laptop which again is gonna be around the $1200 - $1500 range and I dont see why I need the dedicated graphics card.

I also looked at macs. I dont know much about Macs. I do have an iPhone though :thumbs up: Im looking again around $1500 for a MacBook Pro. The Macbook air is a bit cheaper. Both version I seem to look at come with Intel i5 processor, 4gb, and a SSD.

One thing I like abotu Mac is that it comes pre loaded with alot of software. Theres video editing and Garageband right out of the box. I feel this would save me money and balance out the cost somewhat. Im not rich and when I drop $1500+ for either laptop Im really not gonna have much if any to spend on recording software. My Tascam did come with a free version of Cubase but I assume since Cubase is about $300-$500 alone, my version probably is not very good and would lack alot of key components I may want when I finally do start recording. Im not sure if garage band is a good platform for making music or not. Ive used it on my Ipad and it seems pretty good but im fairly new to this stuff so I really dont know whats good and whats not. If it is a descent program than I think a Mac may be the obvious choice for me because the money id save for not having to buy recording software I can purchase EZdrummer and use that for programming drums, and maybe a guitar effects program. Although I think guitar effects are built into garageband to some degree as well.

Anyway, I hope this post isnt to confusing and that some of you can help me out and steer me into the right direction. I really do understand the whole Mac Vs PC thing and that neither is better. It all comes down to preference. Im all about ease of use here. I dont have much time and what time I do have id like not to be wasting it on troubleshooting :)
 
GarageBand isn't going to save you anything. It's a toy that you'll need to replace with a proper DAW anyway. Reaper is a great DAW, costs $60 for a non-commercial license and it works as nagware (reminding you to pay each time you start the software) until you decide to pay.
 
The Cubase version that comes with the interface is pretty capable. There might be track count limitations, plug slot limitations and possibly VSTi limits, but overall, you can do most everything with it. If you got it already, you might as well give it a try. Everyone has their preference on user interfaces and the major differences between DAW's is the user interface. Try different ones until you find the one you are comfortable with. The nuts and bolts behind the user interfaces on all the DAWs are generally the same.

Mac or PC really doesn't matter, except for price. I personally favor PCs because I'm poor.
 
I'm a big mac fan but I totally agree that having garageband pre-loaded isn't really a factor in terms of saving money.
Really you're still paying more than you would for a PC, you know?
As mentioned, Reaper can be had for little or nothing and is a much better equipped, more serious, suite.

Same goes for iMovie, to be honest. It's not bad and definitely handy to have but if you're anyway serious there's a good chance you'll graduate to adobe or FCP or something.

If you want a mac because it's a mac, that's cool but I'd aim higher than garageband either which way. :)
 
Bought my laptop strictly for recording a year and a half ago. HP, Win 7, 8GB, bluetooth (easy to send my tracks to my phone), 3 USB's, etc... was $500 new at Microcenter. No problems whatsoever with it, but as I said, I only use it for music. I'll take it online only if i'm downloading a new plugin.

Also, i'd just grab Superior Drummer and pass on EZdrummer. You'll want to upgrade in a couple months anyway after you get the hang of it.
 
Thanks for the info guys. I forgot all about Reaper. I used to use that years ago when it was a free program. For $60 I will deffinetly consider that software for recording.

Im still just bouncing between Mac and PC and I honestly dont know what to get. There basically the same price range for what I would need in terms of specs. Yes I can get a $500 laptop but I want something thats gonna perform well. Seems like most PC Laptops im finding have everything I want in them except the SSD. There all coming with 1TB HDD. Im not looking for space because I have several external hard drives I can use for storage.

What features am I looking for in a Mac ? Will a Macbook Air with 4gb of ram suffice ? Or should it be a pro with 4gb or the 8gb verison ?
 
My two cents, not looking at CPU, but RAM 8GB and SSD drive (~500GB would work very well for a dedicated computer) would be worth the money. CPU is a hard call as it depends on the VSTs you will be using. Usually an i5 or an AMD 6+ core CPU does the trick these days. For tracking, I have a $200 laptop and do 16 tracks (for bands) and it has no issues. But there are not VSTs running and I don't need to real time monitor (buffering).
 
Just went online and heres the specs and the cheapest I can find them with a student discount.

$1429
2.7GHz Dual-core Intel Core i5, Turbo Boost up to 3.1GHz
8GB 1866MHz LPDDR3 SDRAM
128GB PCIe-based Flash Storage
Intel Iris Graphics 6100
Force Touch trackpad
Backlit Keyboard (English) & User's Guide

The other two options are the same specs except the Storage space is upgraded. For 256gb it will run $1679 and for the 512gb $2079.

Once I add on Apple care which is $199, Im really liking the $1429 price tag. Although I dont know if 128gb is going to cut it for storage when recording. I do plan on using externals dedicated to recording but Im no sure if the tracks im recording at the time can run off the external or have to run off the internal.
 
I use a 120GB ssd for my C: drive. I do have to stay on top of the storage issue; cleaning it out and moving files to other drives. And I back it up regularly.

If you have USB3 or thunderbolt, you can stream your audio to an external drive and still maintain a decent track count. Don't know actual numbers. If you can only use USB2, then you won't get very far, but you can use it for archival purposes.
 
Ok. So let me ask it this way. Lets say I buy the 128gb version and I have Logic Pro X. Im not sure how much space will be used up by the time I get the Macbook and all the factory programs are installed. Lets pretend I have 50gb of free space. Would I be able to work on several songs with 16 tracks each without having to swap songs back and forth to an external ?

Also, I was looking at macbook air and for $1555 I can get

11-inch MacBook Air
2.2GHz Dual-Core Intel Core i7, Turbo Boost up to 3.2GHz
Intel HD Graphics 6000
8GB 1600MHz LPDDR3 SDRAM
256GB PCIe-based Flash Storage
Backlit Keyboard (English) & User's Guide

However I was told Macbook air arent really good for music production. Not sure why.
 
50gb of audio is a lot. 30gb of audio is a lot. All the song projects from my last cd (audio and supporting files) adds up to about 12gb. You can do a lot of songs and store them in 30gb. It's all the other stuff that erodes your storage. Internet, email, programs, etc.

But still, it's manageable and you should do well with what you're proposing.
 
So I've found a couple little things online. One is called a Nifty Drive. Which is basically a nice sleek 128gb SD card that fits seamlessly in your SD slot so I could use that for storage as well. So that's kind of making me think I can save the $250 on doubling the hard drive space from 128gb - 256gb. Now the MacBook Pro comes with 8gb of ram. Will that Handle music recording as well as superior drummer ? Or should I upgrade to 16gb of ram?

Another option is upping the CPU to a 2.9ghz.

I guess in the grand scheme of it all I'm asking what is more important to put my money into. A hard drive, ram, or CPU. Or are the specs of the MacBook Pro perfect for what I'll need it for which is dedicated to music recording.

http://minidrive.bynifty.com/
 
Last edited:
Not in anyway slagging the mac, but for the price you can get a damn nice capable PC and have money left over for gear.

You're gonna need and want gear.
:D
 
I know and I was looking at the option. For the price of a good gaming laptop which is what I need I'm told or even a laptop with similar specs, i5 or i7, 8gb ram and a SSD is not much cheaper. Maybe couple hundred bucks. If it was a little more significant I would deffinetly go PC I've been PC all my life but I think I'm ready for change ?.
 
For recording, I'd stay away from gaming laptops solely because they have hefty graphics cards that require major cooling. Cooling = fans, and fans = noise. My stepson's laptop sounds like a jet engine when it really gets worked up and warm. I wouldn't want a microphone anywhere near that thing when recording.
 
Still researching and calling around the local stores to see what is available in store. I can get both the 8gb and 16gb with 128gb ssd in stores.

Another thing I found out today is that to Retina Mac Book Pro are non upgradable. However The Macbook Pro without Retina display is upgradable in terms of Hard drive and Ram. I went on the apple store and configured the Macbook pro to what I can afford and came up with these two models. Seems like the most ram these can take at the moment on there site is 8gb.

For $1661
Hardware
2.9GHz Dual-core Intel Core i7, Turbo Boost up to 3.6GHz
8GB 1600MHz DDR3 SDRAM — 2x4GB
128GB Solid State Drive
SuperDrive 8x (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
Backlit Keyboard (English) & User's Guide (English)

for $1499
2.5GHz Dual-core Intel Core i5, Turbo Boost up to 3.1GHz
8GB 1600MHz DDR3 SDRAM — 2x4GB
128GB Solid State Drive
SuperDrive 8x (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
Backlit Keyboard (English) & User's Guide (English)

Would you guys see any disadvantage to going without the retina display ? I like the idea that if my hard drive crashes I can replace it. Thats a plus for me but again im really a Mac virgin so thats why im bombarding you all with questions. Thanks for all the help :)
 
My 2011 model is pre-retina.
The resolution is low compared to even the dell laptop I had before but I've never been in a situation where I wished for higher res.
8gb ram will almost certainly be plenty.
I moved from 4 to 16 because I don't like upgrading twice and the cost wasn't much great than going to 8.
It turns out 8 would have been absolutely fine, though.

I don't think you'll go wrong with either model but get yourself on to the apple refurb list and save a few bucks. ;)
I suspect most of them are just returns 'cos some idiot in a office ordered the wrong thing.
They're all up to retail standard with full warranty. Sometimes the packaging isn't retail...Boo hoo.

If you need any help making the transition, give me a shout. I've been mac-only for a number of years now.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top