Dell Laptop

renmorescout

Sorry to be asking basic questions but.....!
I need to buy a laptop for general use, but also for home recording.
I have limited cash ( whats new) and need to know if I can get by with a
lesser machine. Basicly I have a choice of
1. Dell Inspiron 1501 with AMD Turion 64 mobile tech MK36, or
2. Dell Inspiron 1300 with Intel Celeron M Processor 380 ( 1.60 GHz)

I know that the first is a better machine, but would no.2 do for runing basic
recording packages?
There is about €240 of a price differance.
Thanks for your help.

cornbb

You'll get by with option 2 alright, although obviously it would be desirable to have a powerful machine. What sort of software do you intend running? Do you intend to use tons of plugins etc at the same time?

DJ_Spider

I would get option 2 as you will be probably be able to add more RAM. I have 768Mb in my Latitude C640 1.7Ghz and sometimes it struggles. But that's coz I'm usually trying to do about 20 things at once! I know computers are multitasking but I can multitask more!

Also if you visit the websites for the software you are going to be running you might find forums to help you decide. PCDJ has a very good forum, the US one is better than the UK one.

Doctor J

I would go with as powerful a machine as I could afford. OK, you may get by with the Centrino for the moment but if you get into it, you'll use if more, if you use it more, the Centrino isn't going to be up to it. Software gets more and more resource hungry and what might just get you by today won't get you by tomorrow.

There is nothing more depressing than your machine crapping out on you when you're trying to get something done. Your computer is the heart of your operation, it needs to be as good as you can afford it to be, unfortunately.

renmorescout

Thanks for the help guys, While I am bothering ye, what do ye think about
adding one of there external sound cards? Would it be a help in the recording side of things?

Sound Blaster Audigy 2 NX

cornbb

I had an Audigy 2 (the laptop version) a couple of years back, its certainly better than bog standard soundcards, at least in terms of monitoring quality, but it doesn't cut it when it comes to recording. I'd suggest buying an audio interface - there are at least a few threads about that on the forum somewhere...

DJ_Spider

have a butchers at the PCDJ forum Just do a search for soundcard and you will get excellent suggestions. Oh and if you register you can ask the forum for advice. Tell 'em Spider sent ya!

////0\\\\:cool:

electro.ie

I cant stress this enough. Do not buy creative labs products if you intend producing/recording music. I am speaking from experience here. You will run into Latency issues, ASIO driver conflicts (or no ASIO drivers) Switching problems, random pops and clicks (especially if used with a dell laptop) and for the price you could have bought a decent soundcard. If you are serious about production consider An M-Audio, Presonus, EMU or MOTU soundcard. Have a look here

electro.ie

And also when producing, recording music on the Laptop your CPU is ultimately what limits you, not the RAM so the First option would be a far better one even with the price difference. nothing worse than a cpu overload while producing tracks

Anima

Yeah definitely do not get an Audigy. Its a gaming / home cinema card, not a recording device. The converters on it (D/A,A/D) are supposed to be rubbish. 24bit my bollacks!

Also, its all about the CPU and RAM when it comes to music production (obvious enough). These days I'd say at least a gig of fast ram and a fairly decent CPU is essential. If your mainly recording guitar or whatever and applying a few mastering plugins or maybe a bit of reverb or something then I'd say you'd get by with a lesser machine. You can always bounce down a few tracks in Cubase/Protools to save resources.