What’s a good laptop for production

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oldintomusic

New member
GM,
What’s a good laptop widows - mac for music production? at the moment I’m using iPad but it’s very limited. I have it hooked up to Volt 276 audio interface and it ok . But even to get updates for volt I need to take I’ve to a friends to get those updates.
 
In honesty, very few latest laptops of any kind will not be fine. All now have pretty decent processors and with plenty of ram you are away. Most people end up with lots of externals hanging on. Drives with big capacity are vital when your samples, vsts and other stuff takes up huge space. On both my systems, with 8TB of external storage, I am starting to get messages about space. Some laptops have few sockets, like macbooks. Making adaptors and other gizmos very important. Few people have nevr had a crash when a plug falls out. I have those gadgets on my macbooks that use up both sockets and give you loads more in out, but using gaffer tape to stop them falling out is less than elegant. Ipads are fine, but prevent you running so much decent software. Extra screens are also very useful, if you have enough sockets. I suspect we can forget the old windows crashes macs dont rubbish now. My windows 11 system is actually ahead of the mac a little I think. Certainly no longer a ‘thing’.

Sockets
Ram
Decent size screen for what you do
Weight
Heat
Fan noise

That is kind of what I look for.
 
 
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oldintomusic said:
GM,
What’s a good laptop widows - mac for music production? at the moment I’m using iPad but it’s very limited. I have it hooked up to Volt 276 audio interface and it ok . But even to get updates for volt I need to take I’ve to a friends to get those updates.
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I like Apples - so for ma it would be MacBook Pro M4 Pro with 32gb ran and a 1tb SSD.
 
oldintomusic said:
GM,
What’s a good laptop widows - mac for music production? at the moment I’m using iPad but it’s very limited. I have it hooked up to Volt 276 audio interface and it ok . But even to get updates for volt I need to take I’ve to a friends to get those updates.
Click to expand...
A few months ago I invested in a HP mobile workstation laptop running Windows 11. It has two usb-C ports and two usb-A ports, an HDMI port for the extra monitor. It came with 32 GB of RAM but I think that is expandable to at least 64, maybe more. Came with a 1 TB SSD and an expansion space, so I put in a second 1 TB SSD dedicated for only music files.

I use a Volt 476P interface and it works like a champ. I'm curious about your interface needing updates. I've been using my Volt for a few months and other than the initial install, I've never had to download updates for it. I wonder if this is an ipad thing.
 
I'm a little skeptical about buying large ticket electronic items from Amazon. One time I paid $100 for a new SM58 and did not know it was counterfeit until receiving a surprise $100 credit from Amazon and an email telling me the mic was not authentic. I dunno if I would drop several hundred bucks on an unknown brand name computer and cross my fingers hoping it works or doesn't come pre-installed with the latest spyware. I don't care how good their customer service may be, if I buy a PC, install my stuff on it, and it stops working, Imma be pissed. If there is a line between overly cautious and paranoid, I may have crossed it :D
 
Dusty Ol' Bones said:
A few months ago I invested in a HP mobile workstation laptop running Windows 11. It has two usb-C ports and two usb-A ports, an HDMI port for the extra monitor. It came with 32 GB of RAM but I think that is expandable to at least 64, maybe more. Came with a 1 TB SSD and an expansion space, so I put in a second 1 TB SSD dedicated for only music files.

I use a Volt 476P interface and it works like a champ. I'm curious about your interface needing updates. I've been using my Volt for a few months and other than the initial install, I've never had to download updates for it. I wonder if this is an ipad thing.
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So my understanding is that if you have windows or Mac the updates are done automatically. My son came by last week and we hooked it up to his laptop and it showed a couple of firmware updates. But there were no changes to volt.
 
I have recently bought my son (he does not know yet, him in France!) a refurbished laptop. It is a Lenovo E590, 15.6" i5 gen 8, 512 SSD 16g ram and Win 11. £300. I had a few issues with the company but they were sorted very quickly and even gave me a nifty back for my trouble.
OK so an i5 g8 is not Deep Thought but it is faster than his current T430 and a bigger screen and more ram. He does not have any speed issues with that machine so this HAS to be better. Indeed, as I have been preparing it for him I found it pretty slick. I bought it because he will need a W11 PC in the next couple of years I suspect? On ten atmo.

Son and his sister are in line for a bit of a windfall* come Christmas time so then he can go nuts on a state of art i9 jobby if he wants. He almost never takes his laptop out of his flat so size, weight and even battery life matter little. He has a Tascam Pro 40X handheld recorder for 'scratch' location recordings.

*I am hoping they don't forget dear old dad? Pop wants some KH150s!

Dave.
 
oldintomusic said:
So my understanding is that if you have windows or Mac the updates are done automatically. My son came by last week and we hooked it up to his laptop and it showed a couple of firmware updates. But there were no changes to volt.
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On Macs Automatic updates are switched on - but you can customize your choices - Download but Don’t Install - Don’t do anything etc….
 
Yea, I’m going to start shopping for a laptop not too expensive I’ve already invested quite a bit in my tiny studio. I’ll keep my two iPads . One is for production the other I use for lyrics and notes . I just don’t want to make a mistake on what I purchase so I’m going to have to do some research!
 
oldintomusic said:
Yea, I’m going to start shopping for a laptop not too expensive I’ve already invested quite a bit in my tiny studio. I’ll keep my two iPads . One is for production the other I use for lyrics and notes . I just don’t want to make a mistake on what I purchase so I’m going to have to do some research!
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I can only advise you about Windows machines but since you want to keep costs down, for any given specification a mac is likely to be more expensive than a Windows laptop.

The three "parameters" of any computer are,
CPU speed.
Hard drive capacity (has to be an SSD these days)
and memory, ram.

Don't get hung up about CPU speed. You have a Volt 2 in 2 out +MIDI interface. Any i5 or i7 loaded laptop that runs Win 11 will work fine. You only need blistering CPU speeds if you are running loads of track and plugins and VSTis. And I DO mean loads! Do you know about "Latency"? If not come back and we will go into it.

Hard drive: get the biggest one you can afford. I would say 512G as a minimum but better 1Tb and up. Some laptops can take two HDDs and if so you could avoid getting two machines? Just save music on one drive, "office" on the other*.

RAM: 8G is enough but go for 16 if you can. You can do just about anything audio with 8G but if you want to dabble with video it will stutter.

Makes? I like Lenovos but have an old HP that serves me well. Dells can be good I hear? But that is about the extent of my experience. If you have a trusted PC tech near you see what he likes?

*in any event get at least one 1TB+ external USB drive. SSD would be nice but big ones are expensive. Wee spinners are cheap as chips and since speed is not an issue get those. You MUST you see back up all your work OFF the PC....'t'appen. Also, once you have the laptop all setup make an image of the system drive on said USB drive.

Lastly I am NO PC guru! I am just a retired valve amp tech who has been dabbling with computers for 20 years. I SHOULD know more but it is hard to get it to stick when you get past about 75!

Dave.
 
Wow! Lots of info. My son who is a computer wiz. supposedly is building me one. Not exactly sure what his building but I was to get it on Father’s Day this year. Didn’t happen he just told me last week that it’s almost done. So maybe I’ll just wait a few more! Fingers crossed.
 
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