Johnbee58
If the day ever comes when I have to record on something as small as a smart phone that will be the end of my recording days.  I refuse to work on something that small.
 
JB

Amen to that! And this is something that worries me greatly. The music composition, music innovation leads to new music technology and next great thing in music equation has broken down. So Beethoven writes or envisions Moonlight Sonata, which needs a better piano...so the piano forte comes into being. This leads to Wagner taking up the challange a few years later, which leads to The Ring Cycle. The Beatle's take or their producer, engineers take the sonic arts techniques of the avant-gardes, primitive pop songwriting and early recording technology which they push to the limits. Leading to the expansion of the studio and said technology. No one is pushing composition to the next level...meaning no one is pushing music technology to the next level...and so there isn't much innovation going on in regards to music technology. And hence music making starts to contract, which means some fool will and already have started to make music with their phone.

As for Jim - we'll agree to disagree. I know what you're saying about heat and all the other stuff...I've built PCs for myself in the past. But I've just filmed a sequence with the main character is on a dragon flying through the sunset. There's wind in the characters hair, and clothes which I created through the physics engine. Amazing.

I read something really interesting too this morn...at 2 in the morn when I couldn't sleep - that it took Disney Pixar an amazing and inordinate amount of render hours to create some of their well known flicks. All on massive desktop render machines too - I created an 8 minute 3d animation and sonata accompanying this animation...some 100 odd tracks in 5 months. And I didn't put my foot down till the last 2 weeks. So 9-4 in the morn to finish. I'm about to go to the next level with my Arthurian legend piece I'm working on - and I've swallowed all the information on HDR and 10bit color depth now...this was last night...and I have done all this with nothing more than a mid range gaming laptop.

Now The Incredible Bulk my 8 minute 3d animation is still a little rough around the edges - I was learning as I went...but I will deliver in a piece or two, and when I can get my hands on some more 10 bit video tech a HDR 4k Hollywood 3d animation...and only with a gaming laptop.

But then again - I'm willing to take risks with the tech.

No offense was meant - even if I was jousting a bit with you Jim.

Ben

I think the last laptop I bought for myself was 2006. At the time I bought a nice one and I do still use it sometimes. I can record 16 24 bit tracks indefinitely on it.

I also have a USB ssd with Ubuntu studio on it and I can boot most computers to that. This saves me the trouble of having to bring my own computer. I have done large multitrack live recordings using that ssd and Linux on random laptops. I can use any handy laptop with the ssd and it works like it is my personal computer with all my programs.

For home recording, I have a rack mountable studio-cat which is getting old now. Jim probably knows how old. Six years? More? My only issue is not the fault of the computer. I like to use rapture pro with high voice counts and this can drive one processor to the point of glitching.

I don't use sonar in the field. There are two reasons.

1. If a dropout occurs sonar doesn't recover and keep going. This is fine in the studio but when recording and mixing a band live, this is unacceptable. There are too many ways a recording can be ruined. Adding fx live etc.

2. Rapture pro entices me. I have so much fun with it I would love to take it out with me. But it is too hard to bypass. I can't bypass it with act. I've given up. And at times when I'm playing, it must be bypassed or it will go glitchy. I can bypass it by touching the touch screen but this is hardly a performance level solution.

So i have never needed to put my studio-cat rack-ears on. I have manually carried it out unracked maybe 4 times to do remote web broadcasts.

For field recordings, I tend to use rme digicheck [definite favorite] or mixbus with my rme in class compliant mode

It is nowhere on my list to buy more computer hardware.

As soon as my current one turns sour.  I try to use it up before the expiration date.
 
Kind regards,
 
tecknot

I left the thread over the holiday and came back to great points. Glad we live in a day when we have choices on what DAW rig we buy and how often, based on our own unique workflow style and needs.

The StudioCat desktop I got from Jim two years ago is the single best investment in my music I have ever made.  It is SO rock solid and transparent to the creation process that I can completely focus on the music now.  I'm spoiled.  (BTW, I'm a heavy duty hobbyist and hopeless gearhead, but not a pro.)  When this rig hiccups in the slightest I will get another one from Jim.  But it hasn't been close yet.  So who knows when I'll get another one?  Based on my experience, I'd recommend buying the best you can afford from a pro and using it until it no longer makes sense.

When getting down to the nitty gritty of actual in use performance scenarios between the two it all depends on what you're doing what you need and how much. 
It is possible to use a laptop for many things audio and/or video with great success. Just depends on you and what you want or need.
People have been playing guitar and synth virtual instruments on stage long before the latest Intel chip came out and not everyone that uses soft synths has a super fast cpu. What's really the difference between 1ms and 4ms in terms of actually hearing it and playing it? Maybe not much. Certainly anyone serious in that game will opt for the best they can get, yet many have done it with far less. Buying a new system? Play guitars though a computer? Then go for that fast desktop and interface. I have the I7-7500U in my laptop and it isn't too shabby at 4 cores and 3.5ghz.. NO I don't need it for stage vsti work so I haven't tested my latency. It has been fine running DAWS and recording though. I believe I can go into my bios and take throttling out since it's a gaming laptop. TBH I've never noticed any throttling happening with it. I guess I've never pushed it hard enough. I wouldn't be afraid to hook a midi keyboard to it and play sample libraries. I wouldn't trust it to run a bluetooth keyboard though.
 
I mainly use my desktop. Not holding one above the other. I'm just making the point that all you need is enough.

I'll get a smartphone or laptop when they become available with 43" displays

Starise
 I believe I can go into my bios and take throttling out since it's a gaming laptop. TBH I've never noticed any throttling happening with it. I guess I've never pushed it hard enough. I wouldn't be afraid to hook a midi keyboard to it and play sample libraries. I wouldn't trust it to run a bluetooth keyboard though.
 

If the laptop is running a "Mobile" CPU (most do), by very definition, that is performance-throttling.
You can use a small utility like CPUID's "HW Monitor" to see if your CPU's clock-speed is being throttled.
I'm almost positive that's the case... but it's easy to verify.
Many "Gaming" laptops still don't expose most of the BIOS settings available in a quality desktop motherboard.
 
It's down to Thermodynamics.
You can only generate/dissipate so much heat in a super tight enclosure.
There's obviously no physical space for the equivalent of a large Noctua cooler.
 
If you absolutely need mobility, it is what it is... 
If you can afford a laptop that uses a desktop CPU (and don't mind the size/weight and shorter battery-life), that'll get you closer to desktop performance.
 
Extended battery-life means (significant) performance-throttling.
Needless to say, run off the power-adapter when working with Audio/Video.
 

Thank you for those tips Jim!
As chance would have it I needed a large pipe organ on stage Sunday. I tried two, the Kontakt Factory sounds preset and the "Full Pipe" organ in the Korg M-1 on the laptop. Surprisingly in a side by side comparison the M-1 sounded more detailed than the Kontakt sample. 
FYI I used the M-1 in my laptop with the standard internal sound and a midi keyboard controller. I could detect some slight delay. It was so nil that it didn't hinder me. I never took the time to see what the latency actually was. I'm sure I could have done better with an outboard interface.

I recently went from an older laptop to a new desktop because the requirements has changed on my part. Wont be upgrading this for quite a while I hope, if nothing breaks that is. 
 
With some basic knowledge anyone can put together a PC that is more than good enough for 99% of the usecases out there. I realize many people dont want to mess with putting one together, but these days it is rather simple so why spend that extra money on having someone do it for you?  I am not sure why one of those specialist PC's would be better than one you put together yourself or buy prebuilt from any store as long as you get teh parts you want/need?  Are there unique parts involved or something else I am missing? 
Maybe it is NOT more expensive, I am only guessing :)