Advise me on what laptop to go for..

[Teddy Ray]

I have a lot of concerts coming up. Need a good laptop. been out of the loop a while, so don;t know whats good. my wife has agreed to get me one for our anniversary coming up..

suggestions??

[studer58]

Originally Posted by Teddy Ray

I have a lot of concerts coming up. Need a good laptop. been out of the loop a while, so don;t know whats good. my wife has agreed to get me one for our anniversary coming up..

suggestions??

You're going to record audio on it ? Live...on location ?? What sort of audio interface do you envisage using with it...USB, Firewire ?
Macbook, an older one, is a good place to start considerations...maybe?

[BradLyons]

MAC, anything...just no Windows machines

[Douglas Whates]

Originally Posted by Teddy Ray

I have a lot of concerts coming up. Need a good laptop. been out of the loop a while, so don;t know whats good. my wife has agreed to get me one for our anniversary coming up..

suggestions??

If it's for location audio, I've just done a lot of research and can recommend the MacBook Pro 13" with solid state drive. This particular combination should be one of the quietest (very low fan noise, no hard drive noise), most rugged, and most reliable laptops on the market, with a nice compact size, and with more than enough power for location recording (It's not the newest processor, but seems to be more than enough for audio capture).

[Don S]

I'm with you Teddy. My Powerbook is going on 6 years old! It still works very well. The only reason for a new one is that I want XP and Sequoia DAW laptop. The only thing I can see as a future liability with the 13inch MBP is that it lacks the express slot. As far as the SSD feature, I'm sure many of us write to an external drive anyway. I've never had an issue with my powerbook being noisy. Are the new ones noisy? Has anyone sent files directly onto SD cards while recording?

[Audiop]

I can't imagine anything better than the 13" MBP which use myself.

It's so quiet it can be used in small silent rooms recording weak sources without problems even with standard HD. SSD would be nice and I thought about it a year ago when I bought the 13" but I don't think I need it for tracking.

I am so satisfied with the 13" that I bought a 15" i7 MBP with FCS for video editing. That one is a little noisy (run much warmer), not that it is disturbing working with it but not useable for critical audio in a small room or up close with weak sources.

Apple knows how to get paid for their products but due to all the problems I've encountered with PC's and Windows I regret I didn't jump on the train earlier.



/Peter

[hbphotoav]

About the best way to get into a new Mac is to buy refurbed machines, either from the Apple site or from VAR stores (we love MacAuthority here in Nashville). My last purchase was a MacBook Pro 15 2.6gHz Core 2 Duo/4gb RAM/500gb internal. It's the last of the aluminum bodies (just before the current unibody style), and has all the I/O I need for AV production (PCI Express, FW400, FW800, USB2x2, DVI, Ethernet, analog and digital audio out). The refurb route (full Apple warranty, with AppleCare if I decide I want it before March, 2011) saved me about $600... my out-of-pocket was just over $2K. For the machine that works pretty much flawlessly in all of my endeavours, it's well worth it. I'm always glad for the LCD real estate (compared to the 13" models... 58-year-old eyes, what?) but only long for a 17" when the track count exceeds 16 on a Logic tracking session...

The "old" MBP (1st gen, same machine running 1.8gHz) still soldiers on weekly in the webcaster role at my church, and my wife still uses the TiBook G4 that I bought in 2002 as her piano studio business machine.

Been in the Apple Corps since 1985... I do PCs when I must, but have never rued the decision to put most of my apples in, well, Apple.

[jnorman]

well, after many years as a windows guy, i finally broke down and bought a 13" MBP and put logic 8 on it, with an echo audiofire interface. the interface was very nice. the macbook, unfortunately, did many things that i did not like, such as importing all my photos (i am a professional photographer) into the iphoto domain, and would not let me organize them into the folder arrangement i had before and i simply could not figure out how to fix it - v frustrating.

logic 8 was absolutely the worst piece of software i have ever used - i found it completely non-intuitive. i could not even figure out how to select more than one track at a time, and could not even find anyone here at the forums that could answer my simple questions about using logic.

add to that my inability to customize OSX in ways that i desired - things that i had always taken for granted in windows i could not figure out how to do in OSX.

now i know that experienced mac people probably can manipulate OSX to get any desired outcome for customization, etc, but i found that i was just spending WAY too much time on the OSX learning curve, and i do not have the kind of time it takes to learn an entirely different kind of OS at this point in my life.

i sold all the mac stuff and bought a ibm thinkpad T61 with Reaper and a lexicon U42s (4 channel USB2). this setup is totally rock solid, fast as hell, and makes no noise at all. plus my many years working with windows allows me to customize at will, fix little problems when they occur, etc - the years of familiarlity with windows pay off, and i think i will stay here.

[hbphotoav]

I'll agree wholeheartedly that (for me) all the iPrograms (iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, et al) have large amounts of suck attached. However... that said (and since I rarely venture into iLand) and since I have edited video on a Mac since 1997 (long before iMovie, as I recall) and have run my business from the Macintosh Classic days... I must say... get the proper tools to produce professional work, and either platform SHOULD provide excellent service.

That said... I have NEVER had to reformat/rebuild a boot drive (other than to upgrade the mechanism) on any of the 12 or 13 Macs I've owned since 1985. The one instance of a virus came in on an infected floppy drive (remember those?) and was discovered and eliminated without major trauma... in 1988. My PCs, however, have needed multiple rebuilds and reinstalls from the 286 machine in the late '80s (which I nearly, numerous times, pitched into the street), right up to the most recent Inspiron. Suffice it to say, critical work (like my business records) is Mac-only and none of the PCs are allowed to play outside. Or go online for anything but program updates and to upload photos to my digital lab from the "storage vault" hard drives. They are wonderful file cabinets, and corporate clients wedded to PowerPoint want to see them on the lectern... but the real work gets done on my Macs.

Mileage may vary. Anecdotal evidence is what it is. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. You can have my MBP when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers.

HB

[philper]

Still using a 12" PB G4 very stripped down--recording etc only w/ Boom Recorder, external 7500 rpm FW400 drives, FW interfaces. Years and years of live recording, 20 tracks and a 2-mix. A later MBP would be great if you can swing it, although the newest ones have dropped firewire completely, so maybe a used one? One with a FW800 interface would allow you to use RME FF800. No iBooks or MacBooks if you can--I had bad luck w/ those.

phil p

[fafalio]

hp business series.
very very solid.
all chipset intel, also firewire port.
Alessandro.

i ve sold my macbook pro+digital performer for hp+samplitude. the best thing i ve made.

[rumleymusic]

Steering away from Mac here.

For a windows audio laptop,

Lenovo T series and Toshiba Satellite are very good. As well as Asus (who are the only brand who makes their own laptops in Japan, MAC's are made by a Chinese company who make a number of other name brand windows laptops).

MAC is the only main stream laptop with reliable firewire built in. But you can check out ADK pro audio for custom laptops that have TI firewire and are tuned for audio.

[Teddy Ray]

thanks guys.

I will be using an Orpheus.

[ysmgj]

+1 on the Thinkpad T line from Lenovo,...

they're built like tanks, and have all the recovery stuff in a seperate partition in the machine itself, so recovery, if you ever need it, is all right there at a push of a button.

they used to have airbags for their harddrives too, incase you dropped the machine, dont know if they still do.

i just had a look at their site, the T series are all coming with 128GB SSD drives now,.... should be well quiet.

[Ali.harman]

Depending on what your budget is, i'd go for the Macbook Pro. Steer well clear of windows.

If your working on a smaller budget, a used 13inch white macbook would do the trick, (you can prob pick up one on ebay for around $700ish). Bump up the RAM and your ready to go!

The newer unibody versions do not have a firewire port, so be aware of this.

[d_fu]

Originally Posted by BradLyons

MAC, anything...just no Windows machines

Originally Posted by Ali.harman

Steer well clear of windows.

There's nothing like some well-preserved prejudice from the days of yore, is there, guys...?

Teddy, you're a Samplitude user, aren't you? So stick with that and instead of buying some mass-produced laptop off-the-shelf, get in touch with e.g. ADK, who sell customized audio laptops... (Just noticed Daniel Rumley also suggested ADK...)


D.

[Audiop]

Originally Posted by philper

A later MBP would be great if you can swing it, although the newest ones have dropped firewire completely, so maybe a used one? One with a FW800 interface would allow you to use RME FF800. No iBooks or MacBooks if you can--I had bad luck w/ those.

The MBP line still has FW800 which is compatible with FW400. The ordinary Macbooks comes without the FW-port these days though.


/Peter

[Teddy Ray]

Originally Posted by d_fu

There's nothing like some well-preserved prejudice from the days of yore, is there, guys...?

Teddy, you're a Samplitude user, aren't you? So stick with that and instead of buying some mass-produced laptop off-the-shelf, get in touch with e.g. ADK, who sell customized audio laptops... (Just noticed Daniel Rumley also suggested ADK...)


D.

Thanks, Daniel, yes, I use Samplitude 11 pro. The ADK stuff is nice and not too much more expensive than the off the shelf stuff!! I can build my own desktop PCs, but the laptops, I have no idea. this is perfect!