Fonts of all knowledge, what say thou? Please share your experiences

 

I found this "best of" list. Some are windows based. http://www.sysprobs.com/10-best-laptops-for-music-production-and-recording

 

any asus

 

It's not truly about the laptop, more so about the components imo.. The latest gen I7, atleast 3 usb 3.0, with a usb 3.1/thunderbolt port, and hopefully 1 or 2 m.2 nvme slots, and atleast 16gb ram.

Those were my necessities. I have an asus g752VL built by XoticPC. I7 6700, 32gb ram, 256gb Samsung 950 for the OS, 1tb samsung 950 and 2 1tb 850 evos for all my libraries, and all internal. I had them replace my bluray optical with an ssd.

Don't spend crazy money on anything with an overpowered video card, unless you're a gamer. Those things hike the price up. I needed a portable setup that was as powerful or more than my desktop. And this baby is handling everything very nicely.

 

Not know what you looking for as anything recent paired with an ssd and at least 8gb of ram will do the job well.
I dont notice the difference between a regular ssd and a pcie, all that latest stuff is mainly hype in my opinion, unless you really need that thunderbolt port.

I personally like the new surface book, but be prepared to sell one of your kidneys as it costs more then a MBP

Dell xps 13 is really cool, but i dont know about its soundsystem, had problems with several dells and the headphone jack giving me electrical noise. Buy something you can return since some unexpected noises may come up.

There are some great lenovo business notebooks, good battery life, really sturdy, lightweight, upgradable and with a great screen.

Best one on paper id say Lenv X1 yoga, but i have never seen one as they dont have a sales presence where i live.

 

Try this http://www.razerzone.com/gaming-systems/razer-blade-pro

 

How about Looking for one with Firewire, since USB is piece of crap due to Latency and horrible Jitter. To think that regular old 80's Midi is still better than USB3!! with latency and Jitter LOL.

USB was never designed for Audio or Midi, it was later revised for it. Firewire was intended for those Audio, Drive and high bandwidth applications. Look at USB3 Audio Interfaces LOL barely none as everyone is still on Firewire and now coming up Thunderbolt.

Again unless the Laptop has built in Firewire ( SEPARATE plug) or Thunderbolt ( Separate Plug) toss it.

 

Don't spread bullshit. I've had many interfaces - both FireWire and USB. 10-12 years ago USB was always a problem, but it is no longer nowadays (unless some manufacturers write crappy drivers, like Focusrite). I own several M-Audio (FT Ultra) and RME devices and they run great on USB. I had MUCH MORE problems with FireWire (because interfaces were very picky about controller chipset and sometimes were giving me problems even with recommended TI chipset).

 

thats such bullshit these statments that usb3 is a piece of crap... working now for years with usb and never had an issue...neither usb1, 2 or 3... and there are quite good usb3 interfaces.. look at rme for example.. so dont just spill unfounded technical statements just because u are probably an apple fan...:P no pun intended .;)

 

@Piszpunta ...hehe same thought same time..;)

 

...just...why? what kind of problems have Focusrite drivers?

 

About interfaces.. I have to agree that USB 2.0 and up was never a problem for me IF the drivers were sorted. And I was very skeptical because laptop did not have FW.. Now as I'd like to get a new audio interface - what is your opinion/ experience with USB 2.0 vs 3.0. I don't see manufacturers really jumping on USB 3.0 (?). There is RME, one or two presonus, the ZOOM uac-2 (/w crazy price).. But I think no Scarlet, NIs or even higher range stuff. My main problem is latency (playing piano) - would a 3.0 USB audio interface make a big difference?? (like with external disks..)

 

Try playing guitar sims with USB!!! LMFAO!! what 20 MS are you out of your mind LOL.
My edirol Fa101 runs 3.2 MS roundtrip and that is okay for me to play fast guitar runs, but if I start doing Guitar tapping, I have to adjust for that minute difference. Yes I can feel it on the string attack. So even a 3.2 MS latency is still really not real time ( hard to really do that)

This is why Vdrums sucks ass because you need Midi out on the Drum brain or else you are stuck using shitty USB which has horrible jitter as high as 5 to 20 MS!!!. USB is even worse for Midi than Audio since Audio jitter is acceptable on playback but not while monitoring FX during recording.

For piano or keyboards you really can not go over 10 ms round trip ( 5ms in and 5ms out) or else you will start to have to adjust your playing.

For me and my ears and my sanity:
Keyboards nothing over 10 ms for VSTi monitoring period!!
Guitar Sims ( live monitoring playing) 3.2 ms MINIMUM
Electronic Drum kit 3.2 MS ( Eazy Drummer or Cakewalk Session Drummer)

This is why I do not screw around with USB audio interfaces!!
Firewire and anything with Agere or Ti chipset is perfect.

10 years setup and never needed to change anything.
My guitar fx is ran inside Reaper with Guitar sims. I output the Monitoring to the House PA.
No amps, No floor Fx crap. Guitar, Ediro Fa101 and Reaper PC = An old AMD dual Athlon HP Desktop with WinXPSp3 along with a backup system running another Fa101 with Reaper duplicated projects so both systems run at the same time and I can switch the Audio with a floor pedal ( home made audio switch) to the other system in CASE anything happens. Both Desktops are on a Router which has Wifi running so that my Ipad can VNC to the Desktops in case I need to change something on the projects playing or change the faders if needed in Reaper.
Nothing fancy.

By the way you get much lower Latency with Windows XP vs Win7 , Win8 and Win10 and that is certaintly not bullshit as the Windows XP Kernel was much better for Audio than Windows 7. Windows XP also ran with much lower hardware requirements so you Could make it run really lean.

That is my setup for 10 years. Except for the Ipad addition so that my Desktops can be accessed with VNC remote desktop. Really like the IPAD integration.

 

Last edited: Dec 2, 2016

Very bad latency (RTL to be exact) when compared to other manufacturers.
Have a look at the tables on this page:
https://www.gearslutz.com/board/mus...ace-low-latency-performance-data-base-26.html

 

Just get a decent laptop, like 8 gigs of ram , 4th generation i5, intel hd 4000+ series cpu or some nvidia GPU, a SDD is a must personally for me,. And also, a good audio interface with ASIO drivers. Good luck.
Im running W7 btw.

Edit: you don't have to spend much for a quality laptop if your producing. Unless, your running 20 plugins at the same time, which is just plain stupid.

 

I have been working with an Behringer x32 (usb). 32 solid channel in and out to an i7 Asus 2gen without any problem at all + fat channel (Studio One) on all channel + 4 send rev and also some flanger, chorus, comp (heavy on cpu) and other fun fx on many channels and on busses. Still lot of cpu over for extra fun

Now I want an Soundcraft 22 mtk signature for some pure analog power for tracking ... But go for any Asus with i7 and 17 inch screen and 2 HD.
AND win 7/64 ;)

This is a nice piece of hardware for the bucks, not the latest edition so you might find them in stock at a nice price online ...
ASUS ROG GL752VW-T4004T

 

So, the rest of the world somehow manages to successfully record music using modern USB devices, yet you alone say they are useless. OMG.
I have done many sessions with guitars playing precisely timed double (and more times) tracked riffs, and solos - using both FireWire and USB devices. No problems with latency, although using VST amp sims etc.

Also, it turns you obviously must have problems when playing with a real guitar amp/speaker and standing more than a few meters away form it. Every 1 meter more = circa 3 ms more real life latency (the speed of sound is roughly 340 m/s). So, following your logic, you must be unable to play your solos when you are 3 meters away form the amp speaker. How then you play any gigs? With your ear next to the amp speaker??

 

i have ableton running fairly well on an old 2010 dell 1,6ghz core two duo with 5gb of ram and an ssd

you wont be able to run diva or serum in hq mode unless you get a more recent cpu. But pretty much any machine with an ssd will do well for audio

any cheap new audio interface will record in high quality, some even have good midi latency

w7 is still almost the same as w10 besides the visual style and less integrated crapception


most great songs were made with much worse hardware

 

guys let's divide producing by playing live. the OP statement was "best Windows laptop for audio", so I imagine he would like to have a name, model and so on. Of course the best laptop for "audio" should have everything good: a good CPU, a lot of RAM, an SSD, and a GPU that does not weigh too much on the system (integrated). But the point which I'd like to come to, is: does a "live gig laptop" need the same CPU power of a "producing" laptop? We are talking about a machine that should handle about 2 or 3 tracks together at the same time (depending on how many MIDI controllers you play at the same time and depending on your need to play audio tracks - e.g. sequences - throughout the gig, while you play): for example, if I use my laptop in live gigs and I use 2 MIDI controllers (a Roland A-800 PRO and a Studiologic SL88) which control an instance of Omnisphere (with Keyscape library, divided on these 2 controllers - so, e.g. a Clavinet on channel 2 and a Rhodes on channel 1) and - at the same time - a sequence with click to drummer, do I need the same amount of CPU power of a "producer" who runs 20 tracks at a time, full of plugins and stuff?

Then, I could say that the support given by a manifacturer is not equal to others: Acer did not supported Windows 10 on my laptop, so I am without good drivers. This is fucking awful.

It should be said that latency have a major impact on playing live, but not when producing ITB (without the need of record anything of course).

Let's differentiate please.

Thanks.

 

Get an apple laptop then I suppose, if your up to playing live. Because its a fact that OS X runs audio smoother compared to windows. eg. latency.

But thats not your point I guess, you want a windows laptop.
Fine, but I have to tell you, there is no crazy amount of latency between lets say a crazy good Asus laptop, or a midrange Dell laptop, its like 5 ms tops. A good audio interface makes alot of the difference aswel, as I stated earlier.

If you used a laptop , which the plugins you describe, there are a zillion laptops which will do the job just fine. I can spell them all out for you but i dont have the time for that.

So again, go for a decent brand, like asus, acer, Dell for example. Those who are reliable for not falling apart in your live session. That with a mid-high range CPU. Like a 4th or 5th generation i5. This will be fine for either live, or producing at home.