laptop vs. desktop

[tvaillan]

I deleted my previous post like a sissy boy, many people don't apreciate fine distinctions in technical acronyms and i'm not in the mood to get flamed on this. Let's start a tube guitar amp versus solid state guitar amp thread instead. It's more productive. hehe. just kidding.

PC, personal computer. IBM launched it in early eighties. Been programming them for years. They sit on your desk. Some people call em desktops. Then they made the 'towers' and all hell broke loose.

LOL

anyways. i retract my statements, flame lords.

I adore my laptop equiped with outboard sound card. It's an essential tool that the band can't live without.

Tried the ol' tape deck and VCR thing ... ouch. not my bag at all.


Tristan

 

[Uncle Roel]

dual to triple monitors

get to keep your generic soundcard along with your professional one

boot up from different HD, among other things

Triple monitors... well, I can do dual on my laptop, which is already enough. When moving around, you only use one. A triple monitor setup is more something for a fixed setup, in which I would go desktop too. But only when I'm sure never to move it...

My laptop has an onboard soundcard, and you can't get it out. So, we keep that too when we add a professional soundcard.(which has to be external...)

Booting from a different HD. Interesting, but when talking about recording setups, there ain't much use for it...

No offense. I used to be kinda desktop orientated too, till I got this little beast here...

 

[sae]

Laptops are awesome and I think there performance rivals and desktop computer (except custom made ones, but then again you can get custom made laptops)

The only thing that sucks in the upgrading.

 

[bigc1a42]

As is typical of these kind of discussions there is no mention of virtual instruments, latency and carrying a controllers around with you. For those of you using laptops, are you more concerned with live recording or are you using virtual instruments and recording mostly midi? I’m into acid jazz and have a completely virtual setup how do laptop using USB sound cards handle latency and virtual instruments?

 

[Uncle Roel]

I use it for recording, and as a sequencer/looper running ableton. No probs with latency...

It's not only USB, you can go PCMCIA or firewire too, with some really good specifications there... A friend is running the Hammerfall on his laptop, and he's got latency down to 6ms if I got that right.

 

[faderbug]

it does indeed depend on the hardware you're using, if you get a external soundcard with ASIO drivers you can get your latency down to about the same values as on a desktop.

 

[faderbug]

25 votes out of 400+ views?

 

[christiaan]

25 votes out of 400+ views?

How many views are yours?

 

[faderbug]

only about 250?

 

[Giganova]

I absolutly love laptops and do everything on them -- except record & produce music. Here's why:

1) display! There is simply not enough space on a tiny laptop display to produce music. I have a dual flat-panel monitor setup on my desktop which makes it easy to produce music hours after hours. My tiny laptop screen drives me scrazy after 1/2 hr.

2) slow hard drives: my laptop is simply not able (at 4200 rpm or so) to handle a high track count. I just can't do on my laptop what I am doing on my desktop

3) upgrade/expansion: for music production, you need two hard drives. How are you doing that on a laptop? Have an external FireWire drive in the bag? How about a MIDI controller? How is this gonna fit in my bag?? Memory is also a problem, coz you can't put as much RAM in laptops compared to desktops. That limits the number of virtual intruments to the extent that I find them useless.

I'd like to use my laptop to be at least able to polish & master my final stereo tracks while I am traveling, but even that's impossible. Why? studio monitors! You can't master with cans.

I am constantly thinking about getting a dope MAC latop for music production while I am on the road, but I simply can't see how they are useful for that.

 

[Chris Shaeffer]

Well, there are some suh-weeet widescreen lappies out there these days. I bought the vpr Matrix 15.1" widescreen model and I love it. The wide aspect gives me the room I need for editing and mixing.

Then I add a second monitor when I'm at the main rig for enough screen real estate to go around.

I'm a solid laptop man, but not because I think they are better. They're not. Sure, you can get the same performance, but it costs more. If you need or want the laptop anyway, then you're good to go. Unless mobility is needed, I'd never recommend that someone buy a laptop just for recording.

That said, I really like my little portable powerhouse. I had some unexpected last minute free time while travelling to a conference I was leading a few weeks ago so plugged in the Mbox. I did a quick remaster of several recent mixs, bought some Office supply CD labels and printable envelopes and....voila! A demo CD ready for sale. I sold enough to pay for the Mbox.

I couldn't have done that without the portability. I'm pretty sold on it.

Take care,
Chris

 

[kgirl72]

Yesterday at work, I was composing. So easy to just transfer it all over to the desktop when you want to add it to tons of tracks.

I agree, if I'm at home, I'm not using the laptop, but the desktop. The mobility and almost multi-tasking capabilities that the laptop gives are why I'm so damn glad I have it. But, I'd take 5 more computers, and still be damn glad I have them all, you know?

I have a 5400 rpm laptop, so that's not so much of an issue, though I've had a dropout or two, and that's being kind.
But, it's creative uses are plenty.

I now want to use it as a remote for my desktop but don't have all the wireless stuff, so I'm going to ask around how I do this hardwired, I haven't really seen it explained in the board.

-Kirstin

 

[Uncle Roel]

1) display! There is simply not enough space on a tiny laptop display to produce music. I have a dual flat-panel monitor setup on my desktop which makes it easy to produce music hours after hours. My tiny laptop screen drives me scrazy after 1/2 hr.

I have a 17" on my laptop, and I can just as easily connect a second screen...

2) slow hard drives

Depends on the laptop too, put a faster drive in it, and you're set.

3) upgrade/expansion: for music production, you need two hard drives. How are you doing that on a laptop? Have an external FireWire drive in the bag? How about a MIDI controller? How is this gonna fit in my bag?? Memory is also a problem, coz you can't put as much RAM in laptops compared to desktops. That limits the number of virtual intruments to the extent that I find them useless.

Firewire HD. It's more expensive, you pay for the portability, but you can do it without any problems... What's that about a controller? It's easier to put a laptop and a controller in a bag, than put a desktop, with mouse and keyboard, a screen and the same controller in a bag! That didn't make sense.

More RAM, that is a valuable point. But it limits your number of virtual instruments to the point where they are USELESS???? I have 512Mb in here, I can go up to 1 gig. What do you have in your desktop???

I'd like to use my laptop to be at least able to polish & master my final stereo tracks while I am traveling, but even that's impossible. Why? studio monitors! You can't master with cans.

Ok, but you can do MORE than just master with a laptop. You can record on location, use it as a sequencer, virtual instruments, anything.

I am constantly thinking about getting a dope MAC latop for music production while I am on the road, but I simply can't see how they are useful for that. [/B]

Read up man. I don't know what a freaking lightningfast desktop you have, but laptops are pretty decent these days. Shit, people where producing music on commodore 64s just 20 years ago! Don't be a spoiled bitch! It's a tool, and you will be limited in some ways. Do you here me complaining that I can't play an orchestra score on my piano??

 

[Giganova]

guess you are all right. Maybe I should give it a shot and get a G4 MAC or something like that. I'd really love to be able to work on my songs while I am away from home.

 

[Giganova]

so, if you had to get a laptop, which one would you get?? A G4 PowerBook or a WinXP-based system like a Dell or Toshiba? Seems like they all cost around 2000 buxx for a not too slow system (5400 rpm hard drive and at least 512MB memory).

 

[kgirl72]

Oh God, now this debate!!!???

Just kidding

Mine's a Toshiba...but I can't discuss this stuff as I am technically inferior to many of my contemporaries on this board.

 

[Giganova]

I wonder why Apple and Emagic don't have a bundle where you could get a PowerBook and Logic6 with a rebate. There's not even a cross-grade offer.

 

[Uncle Roel]

Jee... Now you're on the Mac/PC thing... That's a totally different discussion.

As far as the numbers go, the higher the numbers, the better mostly. I know what all the numbers stand for, but I'm not up to date with all the models etc, maybe do a search on laptops or something. I just know that with the prices of laptops these days, it's not all that more expensive to get a portable workhorse instead. A few years ago, a decent laptop was just too expensive...

 

[Giganova]

didn't mean to hijack this thread and get into the MAC vs PC debate

 

[Polaris20]

Both Macs and WinTels are great, just pick the one that suits you best, and the one which supports the software you want to use.

Obviously if you use Logic, then it's gotta be a Mac, and if you use Sonar/Acid/CEP2 etc. it's gotta be a WinTel.