budget-ish laptop for production.

[EvezDroppin]

Can anyone help me out here with what spec I should be getting and possibly some good deals I'm unaware of?

I'm running studio one and my macbook pro is really struggling.... got about 30 tracks (dnt want to have to flatten everything so i can work).

SO I've got about 500 to spend on a laptop.. obviously goping to be windows for this bduget...

Looking for as good a spec as possible really.

8GB of RAM needed? is 6 enough? i3? i5? i7?

really lost when it comes to this!

[DJWhizzkidd]

Quad core CPU, 6GB RAM, seems good for the price

http://direct.tesco.com/q/R.215-3137.aspx

[owen1210]

Get a desk top?

on them 30 tracks do you have similar effects on each one say like 5-10 different reverbs for the different tracks. Start sneding the sounds to a single reverb, that uses ALOT less computing power

and i5 will be fine or a or the dual core i7. alot of software is aimed toward 2 core computers not all

[lostnthesound]

Can anyone help me out here with what spec I should be getting and possibly some good deals I'm unaware of?

I'm running studio one and my macbook pro is really struggling.... got about 30 tracks (dnt want to have to flatten everything so i can work).

SO I've got about 500 to spend on a laptop.. obviously goping to be windows for this bduget...

Looking for as good a spec as possible really.

8GB of RAM needed? is 6 enough? i3? i5? i7?

really lost when it comes to this!

What year is that MacBook Pro? You may be able to invest that money in additional ram and a Solid State HD for an extremely upgraded performance boost.

[msmith222]

^ this

[Close_Integral]

Ram and a ssd wont provide massive gains, CPU power is what you want, current Gen sandy bridge Intel cpus have plenty of cache and are very quick clock for clock!

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk

[msmith222]

Ram and a ssd wont provide massive gains, CPU power is what you want, current Gen sandy bridge Intel cpus have plenty of cache and are very quick clock for clock!

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk

thats why we were asking about the macbook. if it is recent enough then RAM and an SSD will absolutely make a difference. obviously if the macbook is older, this won't be as much of a help.

[EvezDroppin]

the mac has 2.4ghz intel core 2 duo

2GB 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM

Hd is 160...

so its not BAD spec, im going to reformat it, see if that helps first...

otherwise iv been looking at refurbished laptops can get a high spec one for about 500

[msmith222]

mine is 2.26GHz and i just put in 8GB of 1067MHz DDR3 and I have zero issues. We have been averaging about 35-40 tracks per tune lately. The memory cost me $50.

---------- Post added at 10:19 ---------- Previous post was at 10:18 ----------

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/memor...o/Upgrade/DDR3

[lostnthesound]

mine is 2.26GHz and i just put in 8GB of 1067MHz DDR3 and I have zero issues. We have been averaging about 35-40 tracks per tune lately. The memory cost me $50.

---------- Post added at 10:19 ---------- Previous post was at 10:18 ----------

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/memor...o/Upgrade/DDR3

This. The processor in the OP's machine is more than adequate for dealing with audio production. The 8GB will allow Logic to actually take advantage of the 64-bit option (as opposed to using only 4GB when @ 32-bit) and the SSD will make your load time, preview time, etc. reduced dramatically as it's light years faster in terms or read/write time than a typical HD.

[windowkill1]

Hmmm, I've got a fairly "good for production" laptop, I would say. I mean mine is a HP that has a 2.2GHz AMD Dual in it with 3GB RAM... It costed my parents about £350 and it's been going fine when I'm on Reason... Not a problem with it, and I do have a lot of tracks on the go these days.

[EvezDroppin]

hmm ok cheers guys, maybe I'll try the RAM upgrade even though when i look on activity monitor it says only roughly a gig is being used with studio one running anyway! is this irrelevant?

[DJWhizzkidd]

Having 4GB RAM is always good, 8GB RAM is pure overkill, you will never be using more than 4GB RAM in a real world scenario.

You only need as much RAM as you use, having more won't make your computer faster.

CPU is really the big thing as that is what is doing all the calculations. More plugins + synths = more CPU power required.

SSD will make your load times faster, yes, but it will make no difference at all once everything is loaded into RAM. your laptop struggles because the CPU can't keep up.

[lostnthesound]

Having 4GB RAM is always good, 8GB RAM is pure overkill, you will never be using more than 4GB RAM in a real world scenario.

You only need as much RAM as you use, having more won't make your computer faster.

CPU is really the big thing as that is what is doing all the calculations. More plugins + synths = more CPU power required.

SSD will make your load times faster, yes, but it will make no difference at all once everything is loaded into RAM. your laptop struggles because the CPU can't keep up.

I agree with you that the CPU is the big thing, as the more cores available the better the performance. I hear what you're saying about the RAM, but will respectfully disagree.

While a CPU will certainly aid in overall performance, 8GB is not pure overkill when used within a 64-bit environment. It allows the 64-bit application's plugins/instruments to take advantage of the extra memory resources not in use by the OS, which means more instances of memory hogging instrument/fx plugins can be utilized without overload. This goes double for applications such as video editors that are light years above DAW's in terms of memory usage and resource requirements.

Ideally, a new computer would be the way to go. But if a couple hundred bucks can salvage a system that is running only DAW software, why waste the money? Just my .02.

Cheers.

[EvezDroppin]

very true, the problem is the ram is 800MHz speed, im not sure what this motherboard can take interms of ram upgrade, speedwise and sizewise, ill find out....

I've found some good laptops for 400ish that are more than what i need... i was going to get one with graphics card but figured its best I dont, so i havnt got games as a distraction... want to keep it as clean as possible for writing music