New Laptop help!!

[carter1888]

Hi folks, after years of playing and writing music I'm now going to give producing some EDM stuff a go. Not got a huge knowledge of PC/macs and was wondering of anyone could give me ideas on a laptop. I'll be using ableton and refx nexus2.

Budget of around 6-700 pounds. Although the cheaper the better obviously...

Been looking at the Apple MB986B/A MacBook Pro 15.4 inch Core 2 Duo 2.8GHz 4GB 500GB Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard Laptop. Refurbished and costing £699 with warranty

Right at the top of my budget but want it to run as well as possible. I've seen a few lenovo gaming laptops that seem a lot of bang for your buck and HP envy etc.

Any ideas at all on what road to go down?

 

[JimmyS1969]

Deleted your other post and fixed spelling here. Good luck man!

 

[carter1888]

Cheers!! I'm busy working and posting via my phone, hence the spelling

 

[JimmyS1969]

What makes you want to use a laptop? Much more power and options with a desktop. Do you need portability?

 

[carter1888]

What makes you want to use a laptop? Much more power and options with a desktop. Do you need portability?

I can work away a lot, though It's not imperative that it's a laptop, I would prefer it. Ideally I don't want to leave my music for weeks at a time. Though like I said, I want it to run as well as possible..

 

[JimmyS1969]

Budget and capability is going to be your crutch. You will be sacrificing something. From what I have heard, it takes a potent (expensive) laptop to carry the duties of complete multitrack recordings. But you say you are doing EDM. Explain what software you will be using. VST's eat up resources quicker that anything. You may need a beast.

 

[DM60]

Budget and capability is going to be your crutch. You will be sacrificing something. From what I have heard, it takes a potent (expensive) laptop to carry the duties of complete multitrack recordings. But you say you are doing EDM. Explain what software you will be using. VST's eat up resources quicker that anything. You may need a beast.

I will add, if you're doing EDM and what I know of EDM, live playing is what makes EDM. DJ/Producing really and that requires Live VSTs that can be controlled by a controller. Looping your samples/recordings and manipulating them on the fly. I would suggest you rethink your laptop requirements as a quad core, RAM and Hard drive speed will be important to pull it off in front of a club crowd.

 

[carter1888]

If it comes to it I can push my budget a bit further or go with a desktop if needs be. I have Refx nexus2 and Ableton which I'll be using to begin with. I'm a total newbie from this side of things, all my musical experience is from playing instruments so I'm pretty lost ha!

 

[Steenamaroo]

I'd be inclined to look at a custom desktop or at least a microsoft platform laptop.
You'd get much more bang for buck that way.

You'd be buying into the past with a core2duo macbook and as much as I am totally a mac guy, there's no point buying something that'll be struck off the updates list very soon, if it isn't already!

 

[JimmyS1969]

I'd be inclined to look at a custom desktop or at least a microsoft platform laptop.
You'd get much more bang for buck that way.

You'd be buying into the past with a core2duo macbook and as much as I am totally a mac guy, there's no point buying something that'll be struck off the updates list very soon, if it isn't already!

WOW! Didn't expect to hear that. Beer on me next time we meet.

 

[Steenamaroo]

Aw, that hurts Jim.
I'm biased, but not blindly biased.

 

[DM60]

WOW! Didn't expect to hear that. Beer on me next time we meet.

I am a little shocked myself, especially after the BSOD I got on another post.

 

[DM60]

If it comes to it I can push my budget a bit further or go with a desktop if needs be. I have Refx nexus2 and Ableton which I'll be using to begin with. I'm a total newbie from this side of things, all my musical experience is from playing instruments so I'm pretty lost ha!

So it goes back to what Jimmy said. Laptop might be what you want/need if you are going to play live EDM. But help us understand what your objectives are and I think then, we can help.

 

[carter1888]

I'd be inclined to look at a custom desktop or at least a microsoft platform laptop.
You'd get much more bang for buck that way.

You'd be buying into the past with a core2duo macbook and as much as I am totally a mac guy, there's no point buying something that'll be struck off the updates list very soon, if it isn't already!

Yeah cheers mate, the age of the machine was a concern.

So if it was any of you, what would you go for hardware wise? Say 800 pounds area. I'm not looking for an answer on a plate, ill do my own research but I just have no idea what direction to look at the moment. If I had a handfull of machines or minimum specs required etc I can take it from there

 

[carter1888]

So it goes back to what Jimmy said. Laptop might be what you want/need if you are going to play live EDM. But help us understand what your objectives are and I think then, we can help.

Initially I want to produce my own tracks, playing live etc might be something I'll do but that'll be further down the road, I'm not buying for that at the moment. The only reason I was thinking about a laptop was that I work away from home quite a lot and would like to take my music with me...bit if it really isn't possible for my kind of budget at the moment then obviously a desktop will have to be the way to go

 

[JimmyS1969]

Build one (desktop) yourself for bang for $. Laptops are tough to get cheap and worthy in my experience.

 

[carter1888]

If i was to ignore budget...would a MacBook Pro 2.3GHz Quad-core Intel i7 suffice?

 

[Steenamaroo]

If i was to ignore budget...would a MacBook Pro 2.3GHz Quad-core Intel i7 suffice?

Just thinking, I bought my early 2012 i5 macbook pro for just less than £800 about a year and a half ago.
It's the 2.3ghz 2 core i5 but it's still a better machine than any core2duo.

If you're super dooper mac keen that might be an option.
Keep an eye on the apple refurb store. The only differences between that and retail are price and packaging.

 

[Chili]

Again, no real need to spend extra money on a Mac. The cost/benefit ratio isn't there. But if no budget, buy anything you want.

I do not know what EDM is (and probably won't google it, either ) but I am using a Dell i7 type laptop with 4GB and recording up to 8 channels no problem with Jimmy's old US-1800 USB interface. I haven't tried mixing with it nor using VST's, but I don't think it will be a problem. If I wanted to use VSTI's (virtual synths) then that might cause some choking mainly due to the memory limits.

HTH as a point of reference.

 

[Steenamaroo]

I am a little shocked myself, especially after the BSOD I got on another post.

Have you added any new hardware recently?