laptop DAW - help needed

[unsane]

hey guys..this is where i eat humble pie and grovel for assistance because i know next to nothing about laptops :wink:

i need to get a laptop soon, mainly for DAW and home use (internet/word processing etc).

i'll be using my current audio interface (M-Audio Firewire 410). It's only 2 inputs so thats the most tracks i'll be recording at once. I'm looking to get something that has enough processing power for mixing big multitrack projects with lots of inserted plugins though.

most of my initial searches have been falling short of my requirements, however i did manage to find this one on hardwarezone's price guide:

ACER TravelMate 4103WLMi (Pentium-M 750 1.86GHz/Centrino) 15.4" Wide TFT

1GB DDR2 / 80GB HDD(5400rpm) / DVD Double Layer Writer / ATI Mobility Radeon X700 64MB Graphics / Wireless B+G / Bluetooth / Win XP Pro / 1yr warranty

i'm liking the 1GB RAM and 5400rpm HD, would this be adequate for my needs? is there anything else i should be looking out for?

 

[jbarks]

the travelmates are good... i'm using mine for graphics work though, so i can't say much for the latency though if you go to sim lim there's a very high chance you can bump up the ram (among other things) if you bargain. i got mine upped from 256 to 1.25gb.

the 5400rpm is iffy though... you should look (or upgrade) to a 7200 if you intend to do recording.

you might also want to take a look at the new macbooks, especially since it comes with garageband so you can start off light and install the mac equivalent of fruityloops or something when you get the $.

 

[Cheez]

I will stay with P4 or AMD. People using Centrino as DAW can input here whether it can give enough processing power.

DAW must ALWAYS be dedicated to music and nothing else. You want maximum processing power. Best way is to dual boot your notebook. One OS for your everyday use, one OS only as a DAW. And make sure everything else is disabled in your DAW OS (any ports that are not used, LAN, remove internet explorer, don't install any other programs except necessary for your DAW). That will also mean you need one XP Home and one XP Pro to dual boot without using other software like Partition Magic.

7200rpm is minimal if you want to do multi-track recording. I will suggest an external 7200rpm drive. The build-in drive is already running the OS and the audio software - so we want a hard-drive that does nothing except recording. That will give you maximum number of tracks. Internal notebook drives are usually 2.5" - which are usually slower than 3.5" drives (even though they may have the same rpm). Don't just look at the rpm, although 7200rpm is the minimum. Look at the other specs (esp "write time" which will be the bottleneck in recording). Since your firewire port is already used by your M-audio, you have to get a USB 2.0 external drive. Seagate is pretty good and fast. External USB2.0 casings are not that expensive.

To maximise the number of plug-ins, you will need lots of RAM. More the merrier. I will suggest more than 1GB.

Lastly, tweak your DAW notebook to optimise it. www.musicxp.net has good tips on tweaking DAWs. Other's include: XPLite to remove entirely all of internet explorer + other unnecessary (usually unremovable) Windows items, and registry cleaning with registry cleaner. Then you'll have a DAW with maximum processing power dedicated only to music.

 

[unsane]

ah,just the man i was looking to hear from. thanks for the reply...

just as a frame of reference,my current desktop system is a P4 3.0Ghz with 1GB RAM and 2 (SATA i believe) 7200RPM drives. i use one of them solely for audio data. i'm pretty happy enough with this setup apart from some minor slowdown on plugin intensive projects. a laptop system that would give me equivalent performance would be good enough.

i think i'll definately be getting something with a 7200rpm drive. then again, the most i record simultaneously is 2 tracks,usually at 16bit 48khz so its not as if theres a huge flow of data going in..am i mistaken here? i've never had any latency problems or anything with my current setup. i've heard of people on other forums doing 2 track recording with a 5400rpm drive with no problems,that's why i assumed it would be sufficient.

i'm aware of the benefits of having a dedicated DAW system but given that the laptop will be my only computer when i move to melbourne, its not all that practical an option. will look into dual booting it though.
like i said,my current system is used for everything else including recording and it runs fine..im just worried if it will turn out to be more of a problem on a laptop setup.

could you elaborate on the drawbacks of centrino VS P4 though?
all the notebooks im looking at seem to be using centrino these days..

it seems i'll have to be customizing a notebook myself..so much for getting something off the shelf. was hoping to avoid the trouble because i hate dealing with computer hardware and all that heh..


superkicky, dont think i'll be going mac anytime soon heh..was never my thing really.

 

[unsane]

another thing..does anyone have an opinion on Dell notebooks?

they have a fairly easy way to customize a system on their website and it appears to have everything i want at a semi-decent price. P4 processors as well.

i have owned a Dell desktop PC before though and i wasnt too happy with it, maybe their laptops will be different?

 

[jbarks]

their laptops are HEAVY. i don't know about reliability though.

you might want to check out the toshibas, they're pretty solid. of course if you want to go all out, you should buy alienware

 

[Cheez]

There are horror stories re: Dell notebooks. I wouldn't touch them.

As for fast drives, I really think you should get it since they are not that expensive. Even though you will be recording 2 tracks simulataneously, you may end up with more tracks in the overall mix (ie recording multiple sessions of 2 tracks). Playing back the tracks and mixing down with your plug-ins will also tax your HD - in this case, make sure that the read and seek times are fast. The standard Seagate 7200rpm ones are usually sufficient.

Don't know about Centrino as a DAW.

 

[Sean]

Hey Cedric.. are you going to do any location recording? If not...why don't you just bring your computer without the casing, My brother did that when he was studying in UK.

 

[iansoh]

my laptop is a first generation centrino, no problems doing recording or sequencing or playing VSTis. and it's not greatly outfitted either. just 512MB pc2100 DDR RAM, and i think my hard disk is only 5400 rpm. and i'm using a USB soundcard too.

IMO it's still mainly how u tweak your OS for optimum performance.

 

[unsane]

Hey Cedric.. are you going to do any location recording? If not...why don't you just bring your computer without the casing, My brother did that when he was studying in UK.

heh thats the problem la..i can forsee myself dragging it around quite alot.

 

[binderdonedat]

quick newsflash:

Dell just bought Alienware. Doh!

 

[kithsa]

I run a mobile recording "studio" with a hp laptop. Compaq nx8220, with 1GB ram. I agree, the 5400rpm HDD is a problem, but so far, the issues I have are with playing stuff, not recording. I've done 5 tracks in at 24/44.1 without problems on a Presonus Firepod.

And I strongly recommend you devote the laptop purely to audio work. Don't go on the internet with it, don't install games or other unneccessary software, tweak it for max performance, etc.

Actually, what I want to know is, if you use an external drive, wouldn't it still be slower, since your data transmission rate is limited to USB 2 or FW?

 

[Cheez]

Actually, what I want to know is, if you use an external drive, wouldn't it still be slower, since your data transmission rate is limited to USB 2 or FW?

Transmission rate of USB2.0 and firewire is fast - it's the read and seek time of the HD that's the bottleneck in terms of speed. Don't just look at the rpm - it gives you a rough idea of how fast it is. Maybe at recording, it doesn't really matter. But after recording and mixing down when multiple tracks need to be manipulated simultaneously, the read and seek time may be important. For me (sample streaming), it read and seek time is extremely important.