A good location recording laptop????

[Richard King]

I can get this laptop, minus the Blu-Ray for $550. Is it good enough to do multitrack recording using Cubase 5? Opinions?
Dell Studio 1737-156P (Silver) Notebook PC | Staples®

[jruberto]

Depends on what I/O you intend to run. Specs seem to indicate no 1394 port?

[Richard King]

The specs on the one I am looking at do include 1394. I'd likely be using a Presonus Firestudio (or three).

[desotoslo]

you can find an older macbook w/ firewire for likely a bit more money than that. mac=stable.

[jnorman]

over the past fewmonths, i have owned a new macbook with logic, a mid-line sony NS (T6400), a toshiba s350 (also t6400), and an ibm t61 (t8100). logic sucked and reaper wouldnt run on it, so the macbook went. the sony and tosh had driver problems. the ibm is the only laptop i would consider for remote use at this point. if you go with the dell, make sure the FW chipset is the correct one.

[mohthom]

Originally Posted by jnorman

logic sucked and reaper wouldnt run on it, so the macbook went.

That ain't true. The only problem with a Macbook and Logic setup is the operator. Unless you can be more specific, that is?
I've not personally used Reaper because Logic does everything I need right now, but I've seen it installed on many Apple computers (including MBs) without issue.

[Thomas W. Bethe]

We have had a Sony VAIO laptop for three years and it is still performing well. We take it to remotes in a hard shell brief case and even though the case has gotten knocked around the laptop looks as good as the day it was purchased. Make sure what ever laptop you purchase is covered under an extended warranty as repairs on even cheap laptops can be expensive. Get as much memory as you can get in the unit, you will thank me down the road believe me.

Best of luck.

[d_fu]

Originally Posted by Richard King

I can get this laptop, minus the Blu-Ray for $550. Is it good enough to do multitrack recording using Cubase 5? Opinions?
Dell Studio 1737-156P (Silver) Notebook PC | Staples®

I'd look elsewhere - the Dell Studio 15 units have proven to be completely useless for audio...
Are you looking at recording only or do you need to run VST plugins etc. also?

[Richard King]

Originally Posted by d_fu

I'd look elsewhere - the Dell Studio 15 units have proven to be completely useless for audio...
Are you looking at recording only or do you need to run VST plugins etc. also?

Probably will want to run the plugins. The Dell that I was looking at is no longer available, which may be a good thing.

[mixedupsteve]

I had many problems with a new Dell and finally gave it to my daughter. Other people have not had any problems at all. A friend of mine bought a firestudio to run on a Toshiba Vista machine and couldn't get it to work at all. Vista and Firestudio was a big problem so I would check first if you want a Vista machine. I've heard that Vista will be replaced soon anyway so who knows.
I'm not one of these Mac nuts but I did end up with a Macbook and never had any problem with it at all. Logic works fine for me too.

[jnorman]

mohthom - i will give you one example of my trouble with logic. one of the things i do regularly in the studio is build up pieces a phrase at a time with multiple instruments/tracks. so, that is one of the first things i tested out on logic. i tracked a stereo piano in phrases. then i needed to go back and delete the empty spaces between the phrases to piece the song together. to do that effectively, i needed to be able to select both piano traks at the same time, and delete the empty space.

i could not figure out how to select two tracks at once for editing. i tried apple key/select, shift/select, etc etc, nothing worked. i tried drawing a box around the area i wanted to slect - no workie. i tried reading the manual - there was nothing in the manual about selecting multiple tracks. then i went to my forums (including here), and asked my simple question - not one person on a single forum could answer my question. bye bye logic.

on the up side, it did give me the opportunity to learn the mac OS-X and fool around with what it does well and not so well. what i finally got down to was that with almost 20 years working with PCs, i am quite adept at troubleshooting almost any kind of problem, whereas on the mac, i was completely inept at solving even the simplest problems, and ran into a number of issues that even my daughter and her fiance, who are both macnuts (he is a MS in comp science and a software engr in LA), could not figure out for me. bye bye macbook, hello new thinkpad.

i dont want to bash macs - i know lots of people who love them, and they are indeed beautiful machines - but i need a tool i am familiar with, and really dont have the time in my life to learn a whole new way of doing things.

[Adlen]

Originally Posted by desotoslo

you can find an older macbook w/ firewire for likely a bit more money than that. mac=stable.

Mac also = Logic!

You can pick up Logic for a few hundred $$ or get it via 'alternative methods' free

[bishopthomas]

Originally Posted by Adlen

or get it via 'alternative methods' free

Hey, Adlen, you might be in the wrong place to advocate these "alternative methods." Promoting software pirating in a public forum (especially one of this magnitude and popularity) is unwise. There are also people here who have strong feeling about this subject. I'd hate to see you making enemies before you really got involved in this great community.

[Adlen]

Originally Posted by bishopthomas

Hey, Adlen, you might be in the wrong place to advocate these "alternative methods." Promoting software pirating in a public forum (especially one of this magnitude and popularity) is unwise. There are also people here who have strong feeling about this subject. I'd hate to see you making enemies before you really got involved in this great community.

There are always some who love the 'alt methods' and those who hate it. I'm in between and I know it's not always the best thing to do. Checking out a few other threads a moment ago I see what you mean about the strong feelings. Thanks.

[rumleymusic]

Laptops are one of the riskiest purchases to make, there is about a 40% chance that what you get will be unusable.

If you go the PC rout, Lenovo T series is fantastic. (formerly IBM). My T400 is rock solid with a firewire express card adapter running an 828mk3. All of my sessions went off without a hitch (except for one where the laptop went into standby mode, showing the log on screen, though that was my fault for not turing standby mode off, luckily Sonar was still running and I didn't miss anything.)

I had a Dell PC, and I will never buy one again, let alone a laptop.

Of course you can always check out ADK pro audio or Sonica Audio Labs for great audio laptops.

[mohthom]

Originally Posted by jnorman

mohthom - i will give you one example of my trouble with logic. one of the things i do regularly in the studio is build up pieces a phrase at a time with multiple instruments/tracks. so, that is one of the first things i tested out on logic. i tracked a stereo piano in phrases. then i needed to go back and delete the empty spaces between the phrases to piece the song together. to do that effectively, i needed to be able to select both piano traks at the same time, and delete the empty space.

i could not figure out how to select two tracks at once for editing. i tried apple key/select, shift/select, etc etc, nothing worked. i tried drawing a box around the area i wanted to slect - no workie. i tried reading the manual - there was nothing in the manual about selecting multiple tracks. then i went to my forums (including here), and asked my simple question - not one person on a single forum could answer my question. bye bye logic.

on the up side, it did give me the opportunity to learn the mac OS-X and fool around with what it does well and not so well. what i finally got down to was that with almost 20 years working with PCs, i am quite adept at troubleshooting almost any kind of problem, whereas on the mac, i was completely inept at solving even the simplest problems, and ran into a number of issues that even my daughter and her fiance, who are both macnuts (he is a MS in comp science and a software engr in LA), could not figure out for me. bye bye macbook, hello new thinkpad.

i dont want to bash macs - i know lots of people who love them, and they are indeed beautiful machines - but i need a tool i am familiar with, and really dont have the time in my life to learn a whole new way of doing things.

Either click on the first track and then shift-click subsequent tracks, or just drag over the tracks you want (with the initial click in an empty space).

Just because you didn't figure it out doesn't make Logic 'suck.' If I'd have seen your post I'd have answered with the same thing then, and I hope that you are able to give Logic another go some time.

[_Morph_]

Originally Posted by jnorman

mohthom - i will give you one example of my trouble with logic. one of the things i do regularly in the studio is build up pieces a phrase at a time with multiple instruments/tracks. so, that is one of the first things i tested out on logic. i tracked a stereo piano in phrases. then i needed to go back and delete the empty spaces between the phrases to piece the song together. to do that effectively, i needed to be able to select both piano traks at the same time, and delete the empty space.

i could not figure out how to select two tracks at once for editing.

It's as simple as grouping the tracks.

I've been using MB/Logic to do location recording and the only problem I've had was with faulty preamps, not with the DAW. Very stable, and I hope it keeps it that way.

[desotoslo]

Yes, I've also had great success with Logic. It's very dependable in the studio and on location. I love it.

[David Spearritt]

I can also confirm problems with Dell Inspiron laptops, mainly DPC issues. Steer well clear for audio purposes. My Lenovo T61 is excellent, stable and very good quality. But it did take Lenovo 14 months to release a BIOS that fixed the onboard slow Ricoh Firewire and Cardbus transfer speeds. Highly recommended.

[alex!]

FWIW I am a huge fan of the macbook and MH 2882 record panel combo for concerts or Logic for multitracking with overdubs. So solid! If I wasn't using an interface that took the load of the macbook I would have to consider another option away from computers for concerts. Not to say that it can't be done, just that if core audio in logic decides to stop cause I don't have enough ram I would probably cry.

What I'm getting at is see what works best with your interface.

my $.02

It takes a big man to cry, but it takes a bigger man to laugh at that man. ~Jack Handy