laptop for recording

[decline]

im in the market for a new laptop computer and, in addition to use for school ect, i would like it to be adequate enough to do some hardcore recording. from what elementary knowledge i have in the field im sure ill need something with alot of memory and some sort of external soundcard. im only a beginner so i dont kneed anything too eleaborte. i would like to be able to hook it up to a digital eight track. i would love any suggestions as to what you feel is a beter computer for the job (mac or PC) and any imput on specific models you use and what kind of set up you have. any and all imput woudl be appreicaited.

 

[altitude909]

I would recommend a Core Duo base laptop. Fast harddrive, Firewire onboard (for sound card). If you want something now, an T60 Thinkpad is worth checking out. If you want a mac, it will be a while (2007) before most plugin/hardware/daw manufactures fully support intel macs. As of right now, there is only Garageband, logic, and Live! that have universial binaries. Only interfaces that use Apples driver can be used (or that have a intel compatable driver)

 

[dgatwood]

I would recommend a Core Duo base laptop. Fast harddrive, Firewire onboard (for sound card). If you want something now, an T60 Thinkpad is worth checking out. If you want a mac, it will be a while (2007) before most plugin/hardware/daw manufactures fully support intel macs. As of right now, there is only Garageband, logic, and Live! that have universial binaries.

It's not a full DAW, per se, but Celemony Melodyne is Universal. MOTU promised Digital Performer would be out in Q2 of 2006 (<6 weeks left, assuming no schedule slips).

A lot of plug-ins are already native, but it varies from company to company. Those are usually pretty easy to port, since it is really rare for plug-ins to have any endianness problems and since most people build audio units with Xcode already. Thus, it usually takes little (if anything) more than adding another architecture in the target inspector in Xcode and recompiling. That's not saying that this is always, true, but for the most part, plug-ins should be trivial to port.

Only interfaces that use Apples driver can be used (or that have a intel compatable driver)

Of course, that's almost any interface these days. All the Presonus and Edirol FireWire interfaces use Apple's driver, I think. MOTU has native drivers. M-Audio has had drivers out for a month or so, I believe. That's just about everybody, I think.