Recommend me a laptop for er live er live

I'm probably looking at about a budget of £500. I need to get a laptop essentially for Ableton. Currently I borrow a laptop but really I need my own.

What sort of spec would be good enough to run Live 5 on for a lappy? As a comparitive currently I get to use a P4 2.8ghz with about 512mb and it very smooth to use. Cheers.

whatever you do, dont get a celeron, they are pants, a gig of ram should see you right for ages, you could consider dual core aswell or "core duo" as its known.

i got a dual core and my ableton still lags like a bitch, i reconnmend getting over 2 gigs of ram, and more than 1.86 ghz than i do.

btw does anyone know how to stop this anoying fucking clipping sound when i'm using ableton?

  môak said:

i got a dual core and my ableton still lags like a bitch, i reconnmend getting over 2 gigs of ram, and more than 1.86 ghz than i do.

 

 

 

 

btw does anyone know how to stop this anoying fucking clipping sound when i'm using ableton?

What audio drivers are you using? Make sure you're using good, current ASIO drivers or ASIO4all. Up the latency a bit, especially if you don't have any outboard gear.

I don't know why you would get any latency at all with an Intel E6300. I get less than 1ms latency solid on my E6600 with 2 gigs of RAM, and the extra few hundred mhz shouldn't account for that.

Also kinda dur but close everything before you play. Firefox will sometimes reside in memory after you close it, so ctrl-alt-del and kill the process if it is.

get one that won't overheat, otherwise your 2.8GHz laptop will actually be working at 1.4GHz. Or keep a hoover attached to the fan like i do. It's very noisy though and makes it hard to make music, but my laptop is nice and cool.

macbook pro totally maxed out

  môak said:

i got a dual core and my ableton still lags like a bitch, i reconnmend getting over 2 gigs of ram, and more than 1.86 ghz than i do.

weird... my pentium M 1.7 with a gig of ram plays ableton just fine... no lag that ive experienced, thought i've only used up to 8 channels and i'm a computer nut that likes to keep processes to a minimum and a registry clean enough to eat bits off of.

you take care of your 'puter and it will take care of you.

  môak said:

i got a dual core and my ableton still lags like a bitch, i reconnmend getting over 2 gigs of ram, and more than 1.86 ghz than i do.

 

 

 

 

btw does anyone know how to stop this anoying fucking clipping sound when i'm using ableton?

What's the combined latency?

  ten fingers ten toes said:

  môak said:

i got a dual core and my ableton still lags like a bitch, i reconnmend getting over 2 gigs of ram, and more than 1.86 ghz than i do.

 

 

 

 

btw does anyone know how to stop this anoying fucking clipping sound when i'm using ableton?

 

What audio drivers are you using? Make sure you're using good, current ASIO drivers or ASIO4all. Up the latency a bit, especially if you don't have any outboard gear.

 

I don't know why you would get any latency at all with an Intel E6300. I get less than 1ms latency solid on my E6600 with 2 gigs of RAM, and the extra few hundred mhz shouldn't account for that.

 

Also kinda dur but close everything before you play. Firefox will sometimes reside in memory after you close it, so ctrl-alt-del and kill the process if it is.

What's the actual processor speed on yours?

I'm looking at getting this: http://configure.euro.dell.com/dellstore/c...sftdppnotebook2

Naturally I'll be using the internal soundcard but I reckon it should do the job for triggering samples etc. The laptop I currently use has a shitty internal soundcard and seems okay. But it is a Pentium 4 with 1gig ram.

Any had any compatibility issues with Ableton 5 and Vista? Seems like the current lappys come with Vista.

i use a powerbook w/ 768 ram only when i use some crazy reaktor plug ins does it lag.

  Promo said:

  ten fingers ten toes said:

  môak said:

i got a dual core and my ableton still lags like a bitch, i reconnmend getting over 2 gigs of ram, and more than 1.86 ghz than i do.

 

 

 

 

btw does anyone know how to stop this anoying fucking clipping sound when i'm using ableton?

 

What audio drivers are you using? Make sure you're using good, current ASIO drivers or ASIO4all. Up the latency a bit, especially if you don't have any outboard gear.

 

I don't know why you would get any latency at all with an Intel E6300. I get less than 1ms latency solid on my E6600 with 2 gigs of RAM, and the extra few hundred mhz shouldn't account for that.

 

Also kinda dur but close everything before you play. Firefox will sometimes reside in memory after you close it, so ctrl-alt-del and kill the process if it is.

What's the actual processor speed on yours?

 

I'm looking at getting this: http://configure.euro.dell.com/dellstore/c...sftdppnotebook2

 

Naturally I'll be using the internal soundcard but I reckon it should do the job for triggering samples etc. The laptop I currently use has a shitty internal soundcard and seems okay. But it is a Pentium 4 with 1gig ram.

Mine is 2.4 Ghz (the E6600), it's a desktop processor not a lappy one though.

I would go with the Core 2 Duo and skimp cash elsewhere. It's well worth it for the performance increase.

I wouldn't use the stock laptop card but that's your choice I suppose. Be sure to use ASIO4all or else the latency is going to be horrendoes. Even still, I don't think you're going to see the best performance you can out of the machine, latencywise, with the stock soundchip. It's just crappy and slow basically.

Also, you don't want Vista, at all. Seriously do not even touch it. Ableton may run ok but drivers for audio, your othe programs, and the fact that you're paying for so much DRM it makes my head spin is ludicrous. Especially what Vista does to the audio path to make sure "no premium content leaks to an unsecured interface", is just apalling.

  ten fingers ten toes said:

  Promo said:

  ten fingers ten toes said:

  môak said:

i got a dual core and my ableton still lags like a bitch, i reconnmend getting over 2 gigs of ram, and more than 1.86 ghz than i do.

 

 

 

 

btw does anyone know how to stop this anoying fucking clipping sound when i'm using ableton?

 

What audio drivers are you using? Make sure you're using good, current ASIO drivers or ASIO4all. Up the latency a bit, especially if you don't have any outboard gear.

 

I don't know why you would get any latency at all with an Intel E6300. I get less than 1ms latency solid on my E6600 with 2 gigs of RAM, and the extra few hundred mhz shouldn't account for that.

 

Also kinda dur but close everything before you play. Firefox will sometimes reside in memory after you close it, so ctrl-alt-del and kill the process if it is.

What's the actual processor speed on yours?

 

I'm looking at getting this: http://configure.euro.dell.com/dellstore/c...sftdppnotebook2

 

Naturally I'll be using the internal soundcard but I reckon it should do the job for triggering samples etc. The laptop I currently use has a shitty internal soundcard and seems okay. But it is a Pentium 4 with 1gig ram.

 

Mine is 2.4 Ghz (the E6600), it's a desktop processor not a lappy one though.

 

I would go with the Core 2 Duo and skimp cash elsewhere. It's well worth it for the performance increase.

 

I wouldn't use the stock laptop card but that's your choice I suppose. Be sure to use ASIO4all or else the latency is going to be horrendoes. Even still, I don't think you're going to see the best performance you can out of the machine, latencywise, with the stock soundchip. It's just crappy and slow basically.

 

 

 

Also, you don't want Vista, at all. Seriously do not even touch it. Ableton may run ok but drivers for audio, your othe programs, and the fact that you're paying for so much DRM it makes my head spin is ludicrous. Especially what Vista does to the audio path to make sure "no premium content leaks to an unsecured interface", is just apalling.

Really that's sounds fuckin' shite!! I need to get a laptop with just XP then. I've really got to sort it soonish 'cause I don't have long until I'm gonna need it.

So you've heard of people running Live on Vista and it being a pile of dogshit?

I havent heard anything specific about Vista and Ableton, no, but Vista's DRM model for the audio path is really fucked up. Basically, to bend over backwards to content providers, MS made a ton of behind the scenes codeto monitor the signal path of audio/video, to make sure that nothing marked as "premium" content by a content proivder leaks out to an "unsecure" interface (like an analog output or a digital one that has no hardware controllable means of doing copy protection).

I can't imagine that this makes for a very speedy audio path, especially on top of Vista's already ridiculous memory demands (2 gigs+ for smoothe operation in Aqu-I mean Aero). Especially since you're on more of a budget, I would steer very clear of Vista.

Mmm looks like stupid Dell are only doing laptops with Vista. Hopefully the retards can give me one with XP on it.

  môak said:

i got a dual core and my ableton still lags like a bitch, i reconnmend getting over 2 gigs of ram, and more than 1.86 ghz than i do.

 

 

 

 

btw does anyone know how to stop this anoying fucking clipping sound when i'm using ableton?

Really? A extra gig of ram bumps up the price by £120 odd :( but are you using a pro soundcard and how much are u pushing Ableton?