Powerful laptop necessary for vocals?

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K2MH

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Right now I have an OK laptop, it has a pentium dual core processor and 2gb ram. I was wondering if I should upgrade to a better laptop for when I start recording in a few weeks and whether it is actually needed. I have a fast track c400 interface to go with the sm57. The requirements for the interface are - Windows Minimum System Requirements: Windows Vista 32/64 or Windows 7 32/64, Pentium 4 2.0 GHz, 1 GB RAM (32-bit), 2 GB RAM (64-bit), USB 2.0 port.
As you can see the requirements are pretty low, but bare in mind these are complete minimum, it might just be able to run, but still see some pretty bad performance, especially when you are running DAW. Anyway, let me know what you think.

p.s forgot to add, the upgrade will be to a laptop with i5 processor Intel Core (i5-3317U 1.7GHz) and 8gb ram.
 
For simple recording, even a little beyond simple, add a couple of gigs on your laptop (if 32 bit, that is the max) and it should work pretty decent.

If you are going with the i5 chip, make sure it is quad core. Me, I would spend the extra money get the i7 and be done for a few years.
 
You're just doing vocals?? I'm guessing you're not recording a lot of tracks. I used to use a P4 w/4gig ram and recorded up to about 24 tracks of audio with one sample-based VSTi. The computer never once broke a sweat.

Recording audio doesn't need a lot of computing horsepower. With a laptop, your bottle neck will be the hard drive because manufacturers usually put slower drives in laptops. Also, all the superfluous bloatware on computers will limit what you can do. Try to disable or remove as much as you can.

As a general rule of thumb:
Hard drive speeds dictate the number of tracks you can stream at once.
CPU dictates the number of plugs you assign to the project.
Ram dictates the number VSTi's you can use. (I'm guessing you won't be using VSTi's)

I suggest just adding more ram to your current computer and trying that first. And if you have Vista on your current laptop, switch to something else.

have fun,
 
Chili said:
As a general rule of thumb:
Hard drive speeds dictate the number of tracks you can stream at once.
CPU dictates the number of plugs you assign to the project.
Ram dictates the number VSTi's you can use.
Click to expand...
This is such good advice that it should be made a sticky.
 
well, all props to Chili but I had a Vista laptop and it worked fine for recording.
Mind you that was with an NI KA6 and they have superb drivers. I do agree tho' that Blista is a PITA.

But yes OP you will be fine, I ran 2 tracks at 24 bits 44.1kHz on an 850mHz laptop with 1/2G of ram. Be a boy scout...
Check the hard drive for junk, old photos, vids, programs you no longer need and get rid then defrag.
Run the registry cleaner in Ccleaner and get rid again.

Now, this next is optional and you might find it scary but trust me, I am a certified PC numpty. Download Microsoft Security Essentials, it is free.
Remove ALL other anti virus software
Run Msoft SE. (at some point run a full scan of SE but you will have to pick a time , it could take all day).

Download DPCLAT latency checker (Thesycon - USB and IEEE 1394 Software Development, USB and Firewire Device Drivers development) This will tell you if there is anything that will cause clicks and plops on recording or playback. If you get a bad result the most likely culprit is the wireless network adaptor. This can be defeated in Services...Computer>right click>Manage>Services find Wireless and "properties" and turn it off.

Or! Just give it a go! At least you can refer to the above if things go T's U?

Dave.
 
I have an older laptop Sony Vaio dual core with 2 gig of RAM that records 24 tracks at once via firewire without a stutter or other problems.

I get the sense from your post that your needs are minimal. What you have should serve you fine. On the other hand, if you really just have a severe case of GAS (gear acquisition syndrome), go for it!
 
Tom Hicks said:
I have an older laptop Sony Vaio dual core with 2 gig of RAM that records 24 tracks at once via firewire without a stutter or other problems.

I get the sense from your post that your needs are minimal. What you have should serve you fine. On the other hand, if you really just have a severe case of GAS (gear acquisition syndrome), go for it!
Click to expand...

I'm not experienced on the requirements of certain DAW tools. But I will probably do some mixing/mastering of my songs. Do you think this would require a higher spec machine or would it be about the same?
 
I am also considering buying a external hard drive which has 7200rpm which can be used with my current laptop. Any of you think it would provide an advantage of recording the vocals to this external hard drive rather than using the internal hard drive which is 5400rpm? I am not sure if it would even work because the one I'm looking at is usb 3.0 and firewire 800, I'm not sure if it would be compatible with my current laptop.
 
K2MH said:
...But I will probably do some mixing/mastering of my songs. Do you think this would require a higher spec machine or would it be about the same?
Click to expand...

We are referring to mixing. Recording and mixing is done within the DAW. So when we say 24 tracks, that's 24 tracks recorded and mixed. Mastering (if you want to call it that) uses much less processing power because you are only dealing with 2 tracks.
 
K2MH said:
I am also considering buying a external hard drive which has 7200rpm which can be used with my current laptop. Any of you think it would provide an advantage of recording the vocals to this external hard drive rather than using the internal hard drive which is 5400rpm? I am not sure if it would even work because the one I'm looking at is usb 3.0 and firewire 800, I'm not sure if it would be compatible with my current laptop.
Click to expand...

I am pretty sure that running an external drive on usb 2.0 will not give you any read/write speed advantage.

In any event the speed of the internal drive is not going to be an issue unless you have absolutely masses of tracks to run. I am typing this on a modest i3 laptop with a 640G 5400rpm drive and 4G ram. I have run over 17 24bit 44.1kHz tracks in Cubase LE6 without a glitch.

This is not to say an external drive is a bad idea, if you have the spare wonga get one but I would buy a bomb proof usb 2/3 jobbie (I have had 2 external drives "break") and use it to back up and keep the laptop drive as clean as possible.

Dave.
 
If you're recording vocals, I'm guessing you're talking 2,3, or 4 tracks at most. You won't be taxing your computer. Don't overthink it.
 
I always heard that it is good practice to have your audio files on a different drive than your OS. I have a 250 gig USB portable drive I use with the laptop.

My main recording device is an Alesis ADAT HD24. I lightpipe those tracks via an M-Audio Profire Lighbridge to the laptop as a safety copy. And then process the audio files on the computer. The Sony Viao is loaded with XP service pack 2, which has been very stable for me.

Although the laptop has wireless internet connectivity over my home network, I turn that off whenever I am doing audio work on it.
 
Tom Hicks said:
I always heard that it is good practice to have your audio files on a different drive than your OS. I have a 250 gig USB portable drive I use with the laptop.

My main recording device is an Alesis ADAT HD24. I lightpipe those tracks via an M-Audio Profire Lighbridge to the laptop as a safety copy. And then process the audio files on the computer. The Sony Viao is loaded with XP service pack 2, which has been very stable for me.

Although the laptop has wireless internet connectivity over my home network, I turn that off whenever I am doing audio work on it.
Click to expand...

Back in the day when drives were slower and smaller it made abundant sense to have OS and DAW software on the C drive and record to and play from a second. The advent of much faster and bigger (and cheaper!) SATA drives removed that advantage. It is still good practice since if the "music" drive only ever has data on it you can stuff it to the gills. This is not good practice on a system drive because it is shunting all over the shop.

Then, cheap ram has helped enormously. 4G of ram means that almost all of the OS and DAW is loaded and running from ram (just checked this i3 in Resource Monitor: hard drive doing next to bugger all, CPU 0 to 1% but 1.8G of the 4G ram is in use. If I were streaming those 17tracks in Cubase the load would be much bigger of course but the work shared out much the same).

The received wisdom is... System drive just OS/DAW. drive 2 recorded music. Drive 3 Samples but unless you are scoring the next Pirates most of us need not worry!

I once again give the caveat that all this is my learning, I am NO computer guru!

Dave.
 
thanks dave for your comments. i also like the ability to take all the audio files on the portable drive to another computer elsewhere. the drive i have is smaller than a paperback book and can slip into a pocket.
 
Tom Hicks said:
thanks dave for your comments. i also like the ability to take all the audio files on the portable drive to another computer elsewhere. the drive i have is smaller than a paperback book and can slip into a pocket.
Click to expand...

You could of course also create a partition on the laptop's C drive just for .wav files and this makes it easier to just dump stuff off and leave the drive spick and span.
Another advantage is that SHOULD the worst happen and you had to format and re install, you won't touch your music data.

Dave.
 
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