Minimum Laptop Requirements (after meltdown)

[dirimini]

Hi, all.

I'm a "re-newbie" (meaning, I had done some basic, PC-based home recording many years ago, but have been out of the loop for a long time), and was gearing up to jump back into the fray. And then I had a disaster yesterday.

The computer I was using - an HP Pavillion, which I had gotten a couple of years ago (but had literally only used for about four months, because I had a laptop from my company) just, out of nowhere, died. Turns out - after searching the internet - that HP laptops have an abysmal track record, and there is an known issue regarding power supplies which are shoddily assembled, cease to function, and fry the machine from the inside. I took it in to the repair shop, knowing it was bad news, and the tech guy told me he's seen this many times before, and that I would probably need to replace the whole mother board - but even if I did so, I might continue to have problems. This would cost about $300-400.

I'm pretty upset, because it's as if I took $700 and threw it out the window. But there's not much I can do about it, and I'll have to get a new laptop. I don't think I'm technically savvy enough to undertake repairs by myself.

So now that I'm short on cash, I'm wondering what anyone has to say about the bare minimum requirements for a new machine. I ask because I found a super-cheap Toshiba for $300, but it has a single-core Celeron processor, a 250GB HD, and 2MB of ram (my piece-of-sh*t HP had a dual-core AMD processor, 160GB HD, and 3MB of). I also found a Toshiba for $500 with a dual-core Celeron processor, a 250GB HD, and 3MB of ram; the more expensive machine also has 3 usb ports and a built-in webcam and mic (neither of which, obviously have any impact on doing recording); the cheaper machine has only 2, and no mic/webcam.

I know that a dual-core processor and more ram is obviously preferable, but I'm not terribly flush with funds at the moment, and still stinging from the $700 paperweight I now have. But would it be possible to get by with the cheap machine, or would it be virtually impossible? I'm not talking about studio-quality work, just being able to record things that sound good (very subjective, I know). Back in the day when I was first doing this stuff - late 90s - I actually used an older desktop for recording, running the ancient version of Cubase, and I really never encountered significant problems - and honestly, I'm just tired of spending big bucks for things that either break or are dinosaurs within a matter of months.

And input is greatly appreciated; thanks in advance.

 

[dintymoore]

Because I don't use many plug ins and all my MIDI stuff is with external modules, my computer works fine. It's a dual 1GHz G4 Mac with 1.5 GB RAM. I have two hard drives in there. The whole thing was free. Hard drives are, for me irrelevant, I could use any I get for $2 at Goodwill. I do not need more than a 10 GB hard drive! The whole thing of huge hard drives is for video, you're better off with tons of smaller externals. I have around 20 externals, most were free, some were as much as $5.

Before that I was using an 867 MHz G4. Many of my songs have a few tracks going on, say 14 MIDI and maybe 10 audio. There's no problem.

I refuse to buy into the total bullshit Upgrade Dance. I probably have the cheapest/crappiest computer and most expensive mic/mic pre/front end of anyone on this site. Priorities. The whole thing of needing a great computer is true only if you have a lot of plug ins and such going on. Many major songs you like were probably recorded on computers with specs that people wouldn't even consider for emailing.

 

[TeyshaBlue]

If you're not going to run alot of plugins and soft synths, then virtually any contemporary comp will work just fine. I too just had my Compaq lappy crash on me...too much HP influence me thinks as it was not even 2 years old. I ran Sonar 8.31 in it with a fair amount of plugins. It too had a Celeron processor, 2.2ghz and 3 gigs of ram with a 5300 rpm 160gb hard drive. I bought it new for $285. Since it crashed I've had to use my fallback systerm. I'm currently running Reaper on an Eee PC netbook with 1 gig of ram and that crappy Intel Atom processor runnning at 1.6ghz. It's running flawlessly.

 

[dirimini]

Guys, this is extremely helpful to hear. Thanks a million for taking time to respond.

I refuse to buy into the total bullshit Upgrade Dance.

I think we're on the same page on this one; good to hear I'm not the only one.

I have a friend who is an incredible (really) musician, and one of the most tech-savvy people I've ever met. But his technophilia also manifests itself in a near-obsession with buying gear, learning new systems, upgrading, reconfiguring, etc.; I guarantee he's spent tens of thousands of dollars on studio gear in the past couple of years alone. And at the end of the day, he's probably one of the least productive - despite his incredible talent - musicians I know; he's so busy buying and learning and reading, that his music seems to be almost his fifth or sixth priority.

 

[dirimini]

I too just had my Compaq lappy crash on me...too much HP influence me thinks as it was not even 2 years old.

Compaq and HP are the same company, and both have horrible quality ratings (he says, after the fact....)

Dam* them both to hel*

 

[dintymoore]

It really depends on how you like to work. By using an external MIDI module (Roland SC-8850) and an externel reverb unit (Yamaha SPX1000) I take a massive load off of my computer, so I don't need much of one. The 867MHz Mac I had before this wouldn't handle VST's well.

To me the magic is in the songs mainly. There's a guy who said that there have been no major advances in the field of audio in the last 50 years and I agree with that.

Analog was over-the-top good by 1989; digital in 2010 is where analog, at best, was in 1920.

 

[Armistice]

You should get one of these... they're probably crap for recording on but imagine how cool it would look in your studio, especially with the lights down...

BTW, I get the gear obsession thing. There's a related affliction for guitarists... scales and modes obsession. I have a friend who's technically extremely proficient in all that stuff and often makes off the cuff observations such as "you solo a lot in Lydian mode" to me (huh?)

Trouble is, in 20 years, I've never heard him create an actual piece of music.

To each their own, as the saying goes...

 

[dirimini]

Thanks again, everyone, for the input. I'm leaning toward the cheaper machine at this point, because a) funds are tight, and (probably even more important) b) I need to show myself how serious I'm going to be about recording/writing music before I start shelling out thousands of dollars. Last time - years and years ago - I dropped the ball just when I really felt I was breaking through some creative blocks. Now, I'm really thinking about going as low-tech as possible, and putting the lion's share of the energy into other aspects of the production (the writing, the arranging, etc.) including the judicious use of technology - I'm definitely a "less is more" type of person, and would rather have one brilliant sound/effect/loop showcased than to weight everything down with too much clutter anyway.

Or maybe I just say that because I'm a techno-disaster, and it scares the sh*t out of me

BTW, I get the gear obsession thing. There's a related affliction for guitarists... scales and modes obsession. I have a friend who's technically extremely proficient in all that stuff and often makes off the cuff observations such as "you solo a lot in Lydian mode" to me (huh?)

Trouble is, in 20 years, I've never heard him create an actual piece of music.

As someone with four degrees in music, I totally get this obsession - and see scary little glimmers of it in myself.

 

[dastrick]

Minimum Laptop Requirements

Stability









That was easy.

 

[legionserial]

This is the 3rd case in a very short space of time that I know of involving an HP laptop dying. Same deal, motherboard fried. The worst thing is, if you check the recall lists, it's full of models, yet in the 2 cases of the people I know personally, their model wasn't in the list, but the preceeding and following models were.

In short, wise advice to anyone would be do not buy an HP laptop.

Somebody needs to contact these fuckers to investigate or publicize this shit as much as possible.

EDIT: I just pulled this from, of all places, wikipedia.

Overheating issue
Many notebook owners experience hardware failure in various Pavillion models due to overheating. The first symptom is usually a disappearing Wifi. Later failure of the graphics system and booting problems. HP does acknowledge this as a "hardware issue with certain HP Pavilion dv2000/dv6000/dv9000" notebooks, which is eligible for free repair. [7] Other users recommend a "resoldering" of the nVidia GPU on the motherboard.

 

[FLYcrash]

Hmm...I run an HP Pavilion (dv5000), and it's been working faithfully for 4 years. Must've gotten lucky.

It's easy to get a computer on the cheap! Get a used one, which can be had for pocket change, wipe the hard drive, and rebuild it with Linux (which is free).

It can be a day or two worth of headaches to get the display, network adapter, etc. configured correctly in Linux (it was for me using Debian), but as I understand some recent distros like Ubuntu are pretty user- (and laptop-) friendly. But at the end of it, you can have a not-too-old computer for maybe $100.

As I understand there are a full complement of music software and drivers for Linux.

 

[Seidy]

...
In short, wise advice to anyone would be do not buy an HP laptop

do not buy HP Pavilion. HP business class computers last very well (yeah, i have used same HP laptop 5 years now with no problems.)
typical reason for frying your laptop is working on blanket or on other soft suface that blocks ventilation holes.