typical newbie laptop question

[milkjam]

hi, it's me milkjam, just joined, first post and all that.
you may know me from other social networking sites such as F.B.I's Most Wanted, M.L.P, or even the very popular Witness Protection Programme.
i have just bought the roland quadcapture with the sonar le.
i am a guitar player so computers are like science fiction to me. does anyone know if an Acer Aspire 5741 G...i5...3GB ram..windows 7 premium 64 bit...laptop, can handlethis home recording tomfoolery.
and if not can anyone recommend a budget laptop that can.
cheers!

 

[DM60]

hi, it's me milkjam, just joined, first post and all that.
you may know me from other social networking sites such as F.B.I's Most Wanted, M.L.P, or even the very popular Witness Protection Programme.
i have just bought the roland quadcapture with the sonar le.
i am a guitar player so computers are like science fiction to me. does anyone know if an Acer Aspire 5741 G...i5...3GB ram..windows 7 premium 64 bit...laptop, can handlethis home recording tomfoolery.
and if not can anyone recommend a budget laptop that can.
cheers!

Not sure how well it will handle it, but it should. I would say the only think you could improve without an upgrade is increase the RAM. But I would wait and determine if it is required.

 

[polarity]

It can handle some home recording, yes. If you are planning on doing 36 tracks with 50 effects per track, no you will have a problem. The biggest upgrades you would need to get into the higher end would be more ram and a second hard drive (one hard drive runs Windows, the other runs plugins, etc).

In short, you should be just fine for a while.

 

[milkjam]

yeah, thanks that's what i thought. the acer seems to have the neccesary stuff.
quadcapture / sonar le needs 1 GB , recommends 2. acer has 3 but the ones with 4, 6 or 8 all get a bit pricey or have windows 8 or only have i3 so on the face of it the acer looks ok. just so many models of so many laptops it's all a bit mind boggling. all the ones i see recommended seem to be for the full on music production software. too expensive and too powerful for me. i just want to be able to use the quad / le for simple 4 or 8 tracks, my guitar and a drum loop, some bass and a bit of singing. maybe track some band rehearsals. just dipping my toe in really. and of course i want to be able to surf the net, check e mails, ramble on guitar forums, ya know the usual stuff. i had a zoom 16 track portastudio for a while but i never really got into it. if i can't make the next "Sgt Pepper" at least i'll have a laptop.

 

[trkkazulu]

You have more than enough processing power there. Some classic albums were made on far less than that. Learn your software thouroughly. That is the key. Regardless of what hardware you're on, if you know your way around your gear/software you can work miracles. Look at what Lee "Scratch" Perry did with a simple two-track tape machine.