Suggested Laptop models for Music editing/Sound engineering course?

iceage

Hi guys Techy question for you, my eldest has started a PLC course in Sound Engineering including some Media studys ie, Video production and he will need a Laptop upto the job of dealing with Cubase, Pro Tools etc and possibly a video editing one as well.

Apple laptops out of his reach budget wise, we're talking about spending between 500-600 Euro preferably. Are there any particular Websites, Makes or models of Laptop that will be upto the job that are worth looking at or, are there any particular ones to steer clear off. I'd hate to pick one up for him to find its not up to the job or unreliable.

I'd appreciate any advise or suggestions, this is not a brand slagging contest I honestly am not up to speed with Laptops brands and specs.

Iceage.

Neurojazz

For doing all that within that budget will be pushed into second hand market i'd say - maybe look at some secondhand macs - they are better suited for multi-media i'd say.

You can get pc refurbs here also - http://www.laptopsdirect.ie/

All laptops (especially pc ones) suffer from one common ailment - the firewire and usb can be grim for reliability if you start using hardware - some suffer from bottle necks and power management issues, so worth looking at second hand / cheaper macs that won't glitch in that way.

If the person is a 'power user' and knows how to maintain a pc and adjust the settings, then you'd get more for your money from a pc based laptop (just).

maccored

its not really the machine as much as the OS. I'd think the hassle of viruses (and cost) and the less stability of windows systems would make forking out a few hundred extra for a mac worthwhile.

catho_monster

+1 Mac.

FYI - refurbished macbook on sale directly from Apple for 849:
http://store.apple.com/ie/product/FC516B/A?mco=MTg0NzA2MTU

I always think these decisions are much easier when there are tangible figures involved...

studiorat

Using Pro-Tools there's the added expense of the program and the hardware. PT will not work without the right sound card, more money.

The college might lend him the sound card, but they shouldn't really let him have the software. Thing is CuBase and all the rest all cost money and are licenced, though there are Open Source applications which all do the same job.

No matter what computer you go for make sure it has a firewire 400 or 800 port and leave a few quid to get an external hard drive later on.

Personally I'd keep an eye out for a Mac Book Pro, it must be a Pro model, the others don't have firewire. Try Adverts.ie though it's quite overpriced IMO.
Otherwise try and get a laptop that comes with Windows 7 Professional.

That said the College really should have the equipment necessary for him to complete the course, in fact they wouldn't be allowed run the course if they didn't.

Maybe a decent Tower computer for home would be a better plan?

iceage

Thanks guys for the replys. Mac seems to be the way to go then..Also now looking at the prices of the afore-mentioned software. Interesting reading .

I'll give those sites a look fellas, cheers.

studiorat

Also for a Mac, it should have at least version 10.5.8 of the operating system. Otherwise it's going to get obsolete very quickly.

Paolo_M

IMO, Mac becomes very relevant for audio if you neither have the knowledge or patience to set up a PC (that may never operate correctly, btw).

I've personally had a painful experience with a Toshiba Satellite Pro that met all of the requirements to run PTLE. It popped and clicked regularly, after weeks of trying to find the problem, and a completely useless tech support group, I discovered myself via DPC Latency Checker that it was the fan starting and stopping. I was told that running the fan constantly via the bios settings would render my warranty void and obviously it can't be shut of completely.
It took my a long time and lots of calls and emails to get them to accept my test results and give me a my money back.

I'm a regular PC user, know them very well and have no problems with them otherwise. In fact I prefer them for general usage.
However MAC OSx will work for audio, assuming you meet the CPU and RAM requirement of the software.
Windows/PC most likely will work. In the hands of the right guy it will actually perform better than a MAC for audio. However usually requires set-up and frequently doesn't work at all.

If you do buy a PC ensure that the supplier sells it to you for the stated purpose of running recording software, or at least will give a full refund if it does not perform as required. Find out what period this is covered for, often it's only for seven days.
This stuff is not covered by standard terms of purchase. A PC/laptop can perform exactly as stated and not support recording software. Therefore the seller would not be obliged to offer you anything.

iceage

Thanks for that Paulo. We're re-evaluating the whole PC/Mac thing.

PMI

Any model as long as it has excel on it so you can get into accounting

Neurojazz

PMI wrote: »

Any model as long as it has excel on it so you can get into accounting

Or get office software free from Open Office .org for doing your accounts!

Quiggers

you can have both, buy a laptop and install OSX on it, if you google osX86 there is a wikipedia article that lists all the pc laptops that are same guts as a macbook pro
just no shine white apple logo on the lid,

as for pro tools, the mbox mini is a way to run it or m-audio cards, pretty sure m-audio do a
system that will allow you to run m-powered protools, hard ware was about a ton and as a student you can get software cheaper as all the developers do cheap student licences to get you on board and away from pirated stuff, i've seen discounts of upto 50%.

just search digital village's website for educational or student licences.

Also if you use a pc just for music, you should never have issues, its the web surfing for porn that make pc's unreliable.

maccored

considering the good thing about macs are the stability and the fact that the software is designed specifically for the hardware, doing the above is probably a receipe for disaster

Quiggers

yes you are right, shiny shiny is better, forgive me for trying to lead a fellow student astray.

Still its fun to imagine that i have OSx running on a hand built pc, just like those
peeps who pretend they can run windows inside osX, and all of us pretending that the hardware is fully compatible. What larks!!!

GTE

I run Cubase 5, Sony Vegas 8, Sony Soundforge 8 and Reason 4 on a Toshiba Satellite P300-150, its two or three years old and it runs very well.
4gb of ram and a dual core 2.4ghz CPU.

I dual boot. XP for my audio stuff and Windows 7 for my everyday things.

The laptop has never failed me to be perfectly honest. Ive chucked a lot at it in the last two years of a Music Production course and it hasn't hit any problems during that time.

I did have to get a Firewire Express card for it though. As has already been said the downside to Windows based machines is that some makes of firewire cards arent up for it when they are connected to audio interfaces. A Texas Instruments firewire express card cost about 30 euro and it works perfectly.

Secondly, I had to get an external hard drive with a 7200 rpm speed so I could run multitrack projects properly. I cant stress enough that this can be the downfall of any computer based system.

Laptops generally run on 5400 rpm hard drive speeds. This means that the read and write speed of the disk is less than their 7200rpm counterparts. What that means is that for serious sound work you will need the 7200rpm external drive and an extra firewire port to run it off (no point using USB, too slow)

So it ended up I needed the Firewire express card anyway which totally cancelled out the fact the internal slot isnt up for use with audio interfaces. This let me use the bad firewire slot for the drive and the good one for the interface. Remember that the only reason the bad port is bad is because they dont always agree with audio interfaces, for harddrives I have never had a problem.


The setup I use:
External drive with project files--> Internal Firewire slot --> Laptop <-- Express Card FW port <--- Audio interface

Taking this industry standard stuff out of the equation (which Im not totally convinced is the right way to learn) I am not convinced by the hands down Mac is better then Windows debate.

As I have said I have never had a problem with the Windows based systems but I do admit they needed tweaking to get running to the best of their potential. Personally I am glad I had to do that in a way because it gave me a better understanding of what I was using to run my programs. I am sure that if I ever switched to Mac it would be beneficial to me that I can have the understanding of it all.

It depends what the user prefers in the end but if you cant afford a good Mac and you get a PC then at the end of the day if the user has to learn a bit about how the computer runs and how to make it run better its my opinion that you wouldnt be worse off starting out on a PC.

I have used both PC and Mac and just prefer PC's.

To me its not a hands down win for either side. Also, for future systems a 64 bit Windows 7 computer I think will make the Mac vs Pc debate much more even from the start.

On a final point I found that during my research the reason Windows based computers can fall down so much when it comes to internal firewire ports is because since Macs are all built by one company all the parts are in the same family. When you see an Aldi laptop compared to one built for audio applications there is a world of different brands of firewire cards to choose from. So rather then Windows being the problem its down to the quality of the parts the manufacture used.

seannash

Neurojazz wrote: »

Or get office software free from Open Office .org for doing your accounts!

excellent programme that,highly recommend it

Boogienights

Macbook, all the way... worth stretching the budget in the long run

Zak Flaps

Boogienights wrote: »

Macbook, all the way... worth stretching the budget in the long run

good choice...you won't regret it....