Possible to get a studio worthy laptop for $1k?

N

Nutdotnet

New member
I'm in need of becoming more "mobile" and will be purchasing a laptop in the next month to replace my fast, but old, desktop.

That being said, I am going to be purchasing a laptop but am putting a ceiling of $1,000 (maybe 1,100). Is it possible to find something out there that will work WELL in a small studio environment. Basically, it'll be just myself recording tracks one at a time.

I know I'll need a gig of ram...and maybe a faster HD then the 4200 most come with.? I could care less about playing games or anything like that. And I'll purchase an enclosure for my 250gig 7200rpm hd to make it external, and will most likely do the same for my DVD burner. I'd like widescreen with either a 14.1 or 15.4" screen

Any suggestions would be great. I did a search but most people were looking for more expensive units.
 
I just got an Averatec 5500 for about $700 and put 1GB of RAM in it. Seems to record one track fine.
 
A laptop for studio work? Your greatest challenge would be finding a laptop with an audio chipset worthy of recording multitrack...

- Tanlith -
 
tanlith said:
A laptop for studio work? Your greatest challenge would be finding a laptop with an audio chipset worthy of recording multitrack...

- Tanlith -
Click to expand...

You'd have to get an external Firewire or USB soundcard, of course.
 
apl said:
You'd have to get an external Firewire or USB soundcard, of course.
Click to expand...

Yeah...I was thinking about getting the M-Audio Firewire Solo, or maybe something else. Looking UNDER $200. I already have an M-Audio DMP3, a Presonus BlueMax Compressor, and a Joe Meek VQ3. I basically just needs something that can interface these to my computer. I was also thinking of USB since I'll only be going one track (maybe two) at a time.

Thoughts?
 
apl said:
You'd have to get an external Firewire or USB soundcard, of course.
Click to expand...


I've never considered going portable for recording... any suggestions about the USB / Firewire cards available? Any favorites?

- Tanlith -
 
I have a TASCAM US122. PreSonus makes a FireBox and FirePod.

M-Audio makes an Audio Buddy, but it's 16 bit instead of 24.
 
nut.
if you can. look at a amd 64 or sempron laptop.
with an internal 7200 rpm drive and a gig of ram.
some vendors will put in a 7200 rpm drive for you.
the biggest mistakes people make with laptops are not enough memory,
slow hard drives, and buying the laptop before they have bought the usb or firewire solution. then they encounter problems if there are usb or firewire sound device incompatibilities.
my advice as a computer engr is always the same..
decide on your sound solution THEN ask the manufacturer of the usb or firewire sound solution for an appropriate laptop.
if were me i would check out the emachines/gateway amd 64 laptops which
i keep on hearing good things about. in summary - they are beasts for processing power and track/plug in counts with a good fast internal hard drive. but there are many other laptops also.
if you need 48 tracks audio/midi recording i have tried powertracks that i use on several laptops , and it works well. a number of powertracks users are using maudio sound devices. there is a list of devices at zzounds or music123.com. hope this helps.
 
apl said:
I have a TASCAM US122. PreSonus makes a FireBox and FirePod.

M-Audio makes an Audio Buddy, but it's 16 bit instead of 24.
Click to expand...

Shanks! :)

I'ma go check out the specs on those. Now you guys got me thinkin of going mobile... my buddy lives way out in the sticks and we usually jam there on weekends... would be nice to get some of the improv stuff we do down on something better than my portable cassette recorder - that's me - living in the stone age.

Unga bunga!

- Tanlith -
 
grains of salt

I bought a refurbished Compaq Presario 1018XL last May (1 year ago) for $1100 from Tigerdirect. It has a wide screen, 512MB ram, 60GB hard drive, etc.

I have used it with a Tascam Us-122 and a Digi 002 rack. Amazingly it works perfectly. For Pro Tools I use an external 7200rpm drive. For low track count projects (14-16 tracks) using the US-122 I have gotten by fine using the internal drive.

I did alot of research before purchasing this laptop. Alot of the info I found on this and especially the Pro Tools forum led me to believe that I would have issues using this laptop. I have not had a single issue and am impressed at this machine's ability to do the work I ask of it.

Maybe I'm lucky or maybe only those who have issues take the time to post (if it's working people are recording rather than playing on a forum - right?) which can mislead people.

lD
 
I bought a wide-screen Gateway 7320GZ (2.8Ghz P4) for $1100 last month and it's working real good for me. Using it with a Motu828mkII firewire interface and a GlyphGT050 80Gb drive; smooth as silk...
 
if you need to lower the price a bit, you would be fine with 512 megs of RAM insted of a gig. I dont know that the price difference between the two is but i have 512 in my laptop and i got a lot done. I would say 30+ tracks with real time effects on 20+ of them. I never recorded more than 2+ tracks at a time though.
 
Nutdotnet said:
Unfortunately, by the time I woke up this morning (7am Alaska Time) that deal was dead. I would have hopped on it too.
Click to expand...
This the third time they've offered this deal in as many months, so I expect it'll happen again. Just check sites like slickdeals.net or gotapex.com once a day to see what specials are going on.
 
i think he means the same thing as you, that these deals come and go all the time. There will soon be another.
 
How do guys think about recording on a ibook (G4, 512Mb or 768Mb) (although its it costs more than $1000).
 
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