Laptops and Sonar?

Hey!

I sadly have to move to a way smaller appartement in two months. I have two kids so things will be pretty tight. So I'm concidering getting myself a laptop instead of my beloved stationary computer.

I need a computer that can replace my stationary computer. I'm fully aware of that I wont be able to get the same performance as before since I have a Intel hexacore i970, 24Gb and a bunch of SSD's. But I do have to have a powerful laptop and if it costs me some money thats fine. It just needs to be as good as possible to be able to be able to run Sonar X1 (and soon X2) without problems. And the higher resolution of the screen the better. I need suggestions.

I guess I will have to start freezing tracks etc ;-) Damn....

If this is concidered of topic then please kill the thread. I dont want to be banned or something. I'm desperate here and needs suggestions ;-)

/M

I recommend you get in touch with Jim Roseberry who is a SONAR user and PC builder and general great guy. his company will set you up with a specialist laptop that will do anything you need and certainly more powerful than your current desktop.

http://www.studiocat.com/3/index.php/Home

use the contact page to get in touch with Jim.

For 3 years.... I used a plain old off the shelf Dell Inspiron 1720 and it worked fine. 

The key with a laptop is not to use the built in factory sound card. If you already have a decent USB interface simply install the software and drivers for it and keep on recording.... 

Unless you are composing for orchestra or using lots of synths and tracks..... you should be able to easily run projects with plenty of tracks. 

Freezing might be helpful on the bigger projects. 

there are plenty of i7 based laptops with 1920*1080 displays..none cheap..but that and an extra monitor will do just fine.

tabsel, what keyboard is at the bottom?  I believe I used to have that keyboard but my mind is drawing a blank.  Thanks!

The Masterkeyboard is a Studiologic SL880,
The Mic Arm is a Rode PSA-1

I use this Asus  http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2394833,00.asp It is a i7 with quade 2.7Ghz, 8 gigs of RAM a 750 Gig hard drive and windows7 64 bit. I'm using Sonar X1 Producer 64bit install. I have a Allen & Health Zed 14 USB interface and I can run the Cori Yarckin "Floating" Demo with ease. If you have a good interface and even and external drive you'll be fine with something similar.  

Thats 36 tracks, 16 busses, and around 24 plugin/effects.

Hope that helps!

Mine's a CLEVO based laptop and cost me getting on for £2000 with extra RAM and SSDs, stuff like that. You can't argue that desktop workstations will always wipe the floor with laptops but I'm really glad that I went down the laptop route now. I love being able to set up my studio anywhere I want to...

metz


Hey!

I sadly have to move to a way smaller appartement in two months. I have two kids so things will be pretty tight. So I'm concidering getting myself a laptop instead of my beloved stationary computer.

I need a computer that can replace my stationary computer. I'm fully aware of that I wont be able to get the same performance as before since I have a Intel hexacore i970, 24Gb and a bunch of SSD's. But I do have to have a powerful laptop 

/M

Hi ! 


I too have a very similar workstation as yours (I7-970, 24gbRAM, etc..) very powerful computer, but honestly ... way too powerful !! I could live with half of that... 


 I find myself never finding the limits of my Dell Vostro 3750 17 inch laptop, it has a quadcore i7, 8gb, but can take up to 16. You can even fit a secondary HDD/SSD in place of the DVD drive, and it has a eSata port and USB3, AND expresscard for firewire, UAD2 or whatnot. I took quite some time to shop, and was a bit sckeptical about the Dell, but honestly, it surpasses all my needs, and I beat the he!! out of it.. I took back a HP elitebook to the store with similar specs, 
very noisy, full of crapware, felt flimsy... 


As some have said, it's better to have an external soundcard, but honestly, I can get quite a lot done with the onboard one whenever I feel to lazy to plug one .. make sure you have ASIO4ALL.. 


I hope that helps ! 


Cheers! 


V

How do you guys feel about SSD or the hybrid drive dleuen mentioned for laptops? Really considering an upgrade myself. 

xabiton


This is my laptop it kicks ass. I recommend it to everyone. I have not had to upgrade anything in it and it runs Sonar really well. 
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Samsung+-+15.6%26%2334%3B+Series+7+Laptop+-+8GB+Memory+-+1TB+Hard+Drive+-+Silver/5575679.p?id=1218665501364&skuId=5575679&st=samsung%207%20series&cp=1&lp=2

Kev. That is a nice little laptop and I love the back-lit keyboard (I have no idea why ALL manufactures don't do that).
Only 2 things would make that sweeter.
1. A 17" screen even tho you can and probably do have a 2nd monitor.
2. There's no way I could get away with only 3 USB ports. I need at least 4 or at least an expresscard slot.
I hate the touch-pad so I need a mouse. Then there's the external HD, iLok, MIDISport, and since it seems laptops did away with firewire I need a port for my Interface and one for my MIDI controller. 


My Dell M90 had 6 USB ports, a firewire port and an expresscard slot but unfortunately it wasn't worth the $$ to make it Windows 7 compatible. 


Mike

bapu


>>>>>THIS<<<<< is my laptop. And it kicks butt!!!! I'm one generation behind now but my specs are:

17" (1920 x 1280)
3 hard drives
I7 920 3.1GHz
3xUSB 2 ports 
2xUSB 3 ports
HDMI port
Expresscard slot
TI Firewire

I had to sell my first born but he went to a good home

And lets not forget the back-lit keyboard.


(Drooling) That is one fine lappy ya got there Bapsi.


Mike