Musicians and Techies - Help me buy a laptop!

[Evil]

I recently graduated high school and two days ago was my 18th birthday. For both my birthday and grad gift, my parents are buying me a laptop for college. Anything I want, basically.

Here comes the problem.

My dad works for an IT company, and through his work and clients, he gets discounts on HP and Dells. He suggested (more like requested) that it was an HP, Dell, or IBM. Money is an issue, but quality and reliability, and my overall happiness with it, are more important.

What I want is something I can record music with and use as my Digital Audio Workspace (DAW). My desktop will get handed down to my sister, so this thing needs to do everything else too.

I've got the hardware to record, but I need speed and memory to work efficiently. I work mainly with recording, but I'm also getting into using samples. Working on the go with a little keyboard and a bunch of samples would be ideal.

Macs are pretty much out of the question. And even though they're probably perfectly good computers, I don't want a Dell. Two reasons, every one I've ever worked with made me want to kill myself, and I don't want to be mocked for it, especially with a catch phrase like "DUDE!"

Are there any music artists out there, or laptop gurus, who can give me some suggestions?

Also, I'm going on vacation mid July, and I'd love to be able to relax and compose on my trip, so I'm kind of in a rush.

[juncmodule]

Three suggestions:

1. A REAL Video card
-  Not an intel video card, ATI or Nvidia only. Laptop video cards are actually really nice right now, except for the ones that you find in almost all laptops, intel super-crap. Almost all of the ATI and Nvidia cards seem to perform very well. I wouldn't accept anything less than those two though.
2. A built in keypad
- Since you are replacing your desktop you may find this incredibly useful. It will increase the width of the laptop a great deal, and weight, but I feel that it is worth it if you are replacing your main computer.
3. Music - Sound card - Do your research
- I've never really looked at laptop soundcards but you may want to attempt to find something with a name you recognize. Personally, as far as music is concerned having lots of USB ports is all that usually concerns me. I think most newer brand name laptops just come with really good middle of the road sound cards, which for me would be good enough. Just get loads of RAM (go for 2GB and don't forget that most video RAM is shared so deduct 512MB right off the top of whatever is on the sticker) and the fastest processor you can find. I think dual core and 64bit are all the rage right now, but they don't really DO anything because most software isn't taking advantage of it. Odds are you will end up in the 2.2GHZ range right now I think.

I know for a fact that HP makes a nice laptop with the keypad. I must say, your choice of manufacturers is not top notch, but then again, you are stuck with it. Honestly, I would buy one an HP or Dell simply for the price, so it is sad that price is not an issue for you, yet you are stuck with those manufacturers.

I can't say much about IBM. Aren't they really poorly built Lenovos now? Be sure you get some sort of two year warranty type thing, which may be easy since your dad can purchase it through work. The HPs can kind of be hit or miss as far as I know. Some people say they are great machines and last forever. I've seen them die after a year. We have a bunch of Dells at work and I must say, they are little tanks. We lend them out to faculty and staff and they actually work when they come back.

Good luck.

later,
-junc

[Gregjazz]

What sort of recording hardware do you have? If you don't already have something, look into a firewire audio device (soundcard, basically). One with ASIO would be a plus, but be sure to get firewire rather than USB, since it works with audio better (since firewire works by stream rather than packets, basically, it makes it more suitable for audio work). I would recommend a Firepod/Firebox.

The M-Audio Ozone is a 2-octave keyboard, XLR input and 1/4" input (which can be used simultaneously), and soundcard with ASIO all in one, but it's USB and not too great at working as a soundcard. It's convenient, though.

[mouthuvmine]

I just bought an HP laptop the end of last year for the same purpose, and I'm completely happy with it. A few suggestions...

For recording, NOTHING less than 2GB ram. The guy at Bestbuy was preaching about Vista, and how I wouldn't need so much memory for recording if I had Vista, and blah. No. Damn Vista, and Damn that guy.

The GeForceGo video cards are better on laptops. The chip dosen't run as hot as the Radeons do. This is a laptop and everything is close to everything under the hood, so cooler = much better.

And as stated earlier, definitely try to get a numeric pad.

Have fun!

Eric

[Gregjazz]

I just bought an HP laptop the end of last year for the same purpose, and I'm completely happy with it. A few suggestions...

For recording, NOTHING less than 2GB ram. The guy at Bestbuy was preaching about Vista, and how I wouldn't need so much memory for recording if I had Vista, and blah. No. Damn Vista, and Damn that guy.

Yeah, HP laptops are great. And yes, Vista is terrible, especially for recording.

2+ gigs of RAM will be useful if you're into samples. You might also want to have an external harddrive from which to contain all your audio recording data and samples. This is a must if you're going to be using DFD sample playback.

[Evil]

I'm trying to get ahold of another PC to use for storage. I've got 200 gigs worth of hard drive space on my desktop that I'll get to keep and enough resources that all I'll need is a new motherboard to put a simple desktop together. It'll hold all of my music and crap, and I'll probably by an external drive for my laptop anyway, so disk space isn't a big deal.

I've got a Tascam USB device that I use. Two XLRs, two 1/4s, midi ins and outs. I bought it off someone for cheap.

I've only worked with samples a few times, so I don't know a lot. I'm not going to use Vista, even if it comes with it. I'll load XP no matter what. A GeForce card and 2 gig of ram are on my list, and I'd really like a built in keypad too.  Not sure about processor speed. How important would it be?

Although the M-Audio is nice, I've already got all of the other stuff. All I really need is the keyboard. Any suggestions on those? Good programs for using samples?

[Nikolas]

Sequencers:


Audacity You know this one, probably. Free, and so on. I believe that reaper, bellow, is much better.

Reaper Shareware, no limit, starts free, the license is dead cheap as well

Cubase series For a beginner the Cubase 4 Studio, or even Cubase SE3 is fine I think. Not as cheap, but they are better...

Sonar Again comes at a pro level, and degraded versions... Not bad at all as well (both Cubase and Sonar are pretty much the same I think. I prefer Cubase myself but it's up to anyone really...)

Fruity Loops As the name suggests it was destined for more loopy tracks, but this hasn't stoped anyone from using it exactly as a sequencer like the above two mentioned... Comes at various versions as well.

Reason 3 Yet again it started as something, a bit different from sequencers, and still I'm not sure it's the best sequencer to get really. It has some GREAT stuff, but not sequencer stuff really...

I'm not going into Mac, right?


Samplers:


GigaStudio. Yes the most powerful sampler Period, according to them, but GVI comes with some nice little bugs, as far as I know, and additionally more and more companies prefer the following sampler. Usually Giga is used on whole computers dedicated to sampling (for example I have 1 TB (not GB) of samples on a PC, and giga, nothing else. A stripped version of windows, or not even that somehow, and save as much as possible to connect it to my DAW, and save memory.

Kontakt2 It is the best sampler around today! Everyone is using it (everyone I know), but most importantly all companies work with them and provide editions for k2. K2 comes with some amazing tools, where you can script yourself, or get free scripts and make even better work. It also comes at a expensive price of around 250$ (I think! Haven't cheked lately), but also with 15 GB of samples, which is definatly something...

Halion something from Steinberg (creator of Cubase, mentioned above) It is not THAT famous really, and I can see why with not so many options as K2 and Giga... Still I've used v. 2 for a little while, and I can say that I liked it. Dead simple to use, and play with the raw samples.

Wusikstation A more indie sampler, which can handle... a lot, along with some help from friends (for example sample converters...) The amazing thing with this product is that it's on group buy (Click for further information) Which if succesful (150,000 buys *ahem*) will have a 98% discount! Pay for 2$ something worth 100$! something to think about I guess...


Sample libraries

Now what are we talking about here? Orchestral? Rock? Choirs? Industrial... That's a bit too much info but I'm in a great mood for posting today, so I might as well post some information instead of other bullshit I sometimes do 

So

Home of EastWest & Quantum Leap. It has some of the best samples around. A multimillion company (probably the most succesful in financial terms). Has samples, from Beatles sound, to weird drums, to huge orchestras, to  realistic choirs, to voices, to synths, to... you name it...

EastWestQuantumLeap (EWQL from now) symphonic orchetsra (SO from now) has 3 versions. Silver, Gold and Platinum. There are many differences between them, on of which is the price. Silver doesn't have chormatically taken samples, is at 16-bit and lacks some articulations. It is also 1 mic position (I'll explain later). Gold is at 16-bit, but is chormatically sampled, and has all articualtions as Platinum, but is only again 1 mic position. Platinum is rather big... at 70 GB (and another 60 GB for the xp pro edition), you are talking about a hard disk for them, alone. It is micked from 3 positions (which means that every single sound, was captuerd from in front, a bit on the back, and back at the hall, to caputer the natural reverb. limited editions only have 1 mic position, while Platinum has three, so you can mix and make better sound). It is also at 24-bit, instead of 16... Prices start from around 200$ for silver to 2000$ for Platinum.

EWQL Symphonic Choirs (SC from now). I think that it's the only sample that can recreate realistic choir results that sing in English, Latin, French, or whatever. What they did was that they recorded all letters, and sounds, and made a nice little program to succesfully blend those sounds into words. Damn difficult to learn, the choirs come at 40 GB (!) and it is highly difficult to make succesfuly choir sounds in the end. Additionally some problems with the range of the sopranos and basses have turned many users away, until an update comes. Priced at 600$

It has some nice synths and drum loops at 50$ nowadays, and some older stuff are 90% off, which are great to get...

For some further information. EW just launched their new custom made sample player (named, ingeniously PLAY ) and it has many bugs. But it is the new sampler for a new era, no doubt about it! Not out yet, but 6 new products come with it as a default player.

Also, very important, all the above products, and generally all products in Soundsonline site, come with their own player, there is no need for a sampler.

Other companies for orchestra stuff:

Vienna Symphonic Library (VSL from now. It is regarded as the most realistic library. It has custom made player (VI=Virtual Instrument), and can create amazing stuff. Their top library is at 750 GB, if not mistaken (!!!!) and 10,000$ (!!!)Other smaller packs, can come down at 500-1000$ and smaller size. Opus 1 and 2 are their older stuff. But the sound is simply STUNNING! Yet it takes far more than a laptop to get the job done...

Garritan Good old Gary  (<-Only Greg will get that probably...) His libraries are not THAT amazing but are dead cheap. GPO (Garritan Personal Orchestra) costs 250$ only, and is a full symphonic library. The JABB (Jazz library) is again at 200$ (I think), and is a full Jazz library. Contrary to what most people believe you CAN get decent sound out of these libraries, no matter the price or size (both are at around 4 GB at most... which is tiny for todays standard) He also has some AMAZING solo strings, rather pricey compaired to his whol orchestra (!) but they work amazingly well! He has things up his sleeve in 2007 I believe... *ahem*, and he has an ever growing community. He is present, and when you dial his number, he often answers himself! That's something, ain't it?

Kirk Hunter Kirk has been around for a long long time... But he still remains a bit underground for some reason... Don't know why. Still he has some great orchestral libraries, to work with, that are easy to use, come at a reasonable size (around 20GB) and are reasonably priced. They can produced some great suonds, if you know what you're doing (which goes without saying for everything really... :p)

Sonivox Previously known as Sonic Implants, they have again, some great orchestral libraries, right about the price of 2000-3000$ for the whole package (at least this WAS the price I checked last year  ) Great sound, and I don't have much more information. sorry.... Still many people like their sound.

Halion, MOTU, and a couple of more have also made orchestral samples, but I have to say that I don't trust them a lot...


DRUMS


You can find drums and drum loops everywhere. Top libraries include Drumkit from Hell superior and 36 GB (!!!!!!!!) for drum samples, and 300$. Smaller come at nicer packages, and all come at nice prices (http://www.soundsonline.com/EZ-Drummer-pr-TT106.html , and actually many others, which I don't know the links )


PIANOS...


Many great companies have made pianos.
EWQL has one Yup! It is a beast of 270 GB (!!!!!!!!!) total, and 4 pianos. Comes at 495$ (450$ now). No demos out yet, but it is said to be amazing. Still I wouldn't wast 1-2 hard disks for a single piano sound.

Synthogy Ivory is another one. THAT I have! It is 45 GB for 3 pianos (and I just erased the two pianos to save me a bit of space :'() Sound is great, but needs great computing power, hard disk at 10,000 rpm and 2 GB RAM to run properly without many problems... Demos still sound SWEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeet!

Native Instruments (NI) has made a piano as well, and a pretty good one as well Smaller than Ivory, yet almost as good, it is a great choice!

Sampletekk and PMI have some great ranges for pianos. From dead cheap to rather expensive, all sampled with love and care, actually. Worra is an extra nice guy! Many people sweat on these libraries actually, and their sound is really really warm!

A modelled piano named Truepianos is the new generation. It comes extra small in size (less than 100 MB) and has a great sound. It is not sampled, but modelled, which makes all the difference inthe world!

Pianoteq, from MORDATT also have a modelled piano, which sounds great (I have this). It is 13 MB!!!!! (!!!!)!!!?!!!!

Both the above have great demos and great trial versions that last 30-45 days, with little to no restrictions. So just download them and toy around!


OTHER...


For some alternative stuff. Boys choirs, Solo sopranos, rock kits, guitars, and GREAT AMAZING ETHNIC STUFF, produced by TARI, go here: http://www.beladmedia.com/ .

Bela D. Media is one of my favourite companies! Great sound, very reasonable prices. THEY ALSO HAVE 25% OFF STUDENTS, WHICH HAS THE NORMAL LICENSE. All other software creators, when they offer student discounts, they forbide the commercial use of their software, but not Bela. Additionally Bela D. Media customer care is nothing short of amazing!


GREGJAZZ stuff...


Manytone Music. Greg won't say it but I will! Geoffkhan (the above poster, now known as GregJazz) is an avid, amazing sample maker! he is working closely with Paul from Manytone (another very cool guy) and is publishing his stuff at http://www.manytone.com/ ! Guitars, Bass, Contrbass, and the latest Manybass. Priced at 139.95$, is at a presale. They were also kind enough to sponsor the 9th CGempire Music Competition (you didn't think I'll leave without mentioning it, right? )

Note that Greg also has some great frebbies over at his site at http://www.gregjazz.com .




I think that's all the info I can give on a Sunday morning...



Evil, if you want to deal with samples, I would propose not going for a laptop at all. May I ask why a laptop and not a nice desktop? Is it a size issue? A traveling often issue? A space issue?

With samples you do need a rather fast hard drive. Often 7200 rpm SATA won't be enough... you also need great RAM (2 GB the least...) and so on. And firewird will also come at a burden to a laptop, more than a desktop.

That's all from me.


EDIT: There could be some tiny misaccurasies (for example prices, or size of libraries, namely the Kirk hunter one, which I think is 40 GB and not 20... :S) so do check the links and don't base everything of my post. Plus the above are merely links with personal opinions. There is nothing from stoping you checking demos and real hard facts to get more info...

[Gregjazz]

Thanks for the mention, Nikolas. Great post with lots of valuable information!

Evil, as for keyboards, how many keys do you need? Will you use it for auditioning samples or playing in single lines? Or do you need a full keyboard?

[juncmodule]

First of all, if you want to learn about samples, read this:

http://www.juncmodule.com/pub/Sound on Sound - The Lost Art Of Sampling.pdf

I strongly suggest you read the entire thing. It brings up a lot of issues I have with electronic musicians today. Mostly that they have never used hardware, know nothing about hardware, and act like it doesn't matter. Your laptop is perfectly fine for making sample based music. You just need to learn how to scale your sampling to fit your laptop.  Sorry folk, this isn't an attack on anyone in particular, I feel that actually you may be a victim of this trend.

One other thing regarding sample libraries. Never, ever, use sample loops of drums or melodies. Single shots of everything and sequence it yourself. I learned this the hard way. Found a melody loop that I really liked, used it in a song, and a year later that same loop was featured in a Honda commercial. It was horrible and embarrassing. So now I preach against sample libraries. Make your own samples. The only exception being samples of instruments such as pianos, orchestral instruments, vintage synths, drums, and anything you can not get access to yourself. Most VST plugins should eliminate a lot of the need for the base instruments however.

There is a lot of personal bias in there but, I do honestly think it is good advice. Hardware can never limit you, and if you think of your laptop as hardware and not just software, then it won't limit you either. Those "limits" should inspire you. Being backed into a corner by technology has produced the greatest electronic musicians and music of our age.

Oh, and you still seemed lost on processor power. Bigger numbers are better in all cases. The reason I mentioned 2GHZ is because that is really the minimum you should accept (I believe it is the current minimum for most laptops). If you can get something faster, do.

Oh, the only advice I can offer on MIDI keyboards: Don't buy anything Behringer. Really nice feel to the keys, but horrible knobs and uncharacteristically large for a 2 octave keyboard. I will second the M-Audio recommendation, they really seem to have their stuff together.

Oh, and if you ever want to make real music. Buy an Akai MPC 

later,
-junc

[Nikolas]

Interesting article Junc,

You just need to learn how to scale your sampling to fit your laptop.

Can you ellaborate a bit here? Because in the end, things do move forward and of course one can be resourceful and create masterpieces on tiny hardware, but in the end, if he is buying something new, why not buy something good instead?

I have simmilar issues (bias issues) with todays musicians, but more towards the knowledge of music than using hardware...

On the loops, indeed what you say could be true, but then again if it works and is legal, why not? Loops come in 1000s and are royalty free to use. Of course I agree that note by note is better, but then again for a fast project, why not...

[juncmodule]

Can you elaborate a bit here?

A lot of people push their computers harder than they need to be pushed. Sample rate is the biggest example of this. Using more VSTs than may actually be needed could be another example. Basically, just inefficient use with the assumption that the computer can handle it. You just need to learn how to make sure you are using the computer like a professional tool. Having AOL IM open and downloading porn while trying to run your music apps might lead to some latency issues...maybe

EDIT:

if he is buying something new, why not buy something good instead?

-sorry, didn't address this. I'm not saying that he shouldn't buy something good, in fact I think he should buy the best he can. My argument was against the theory that a desktop can do it better than a laptop. If he buys the best laptop he can it should be perfect for all of his needs, so long as he is willing to learn to scale things to his hardware.

... knowledge of music ...

... fast project ...

Kind of a contradiction there eh?

I agree that if you are doing something you don't really care about, sure, loops can be great. But if you are really making music...well, can you make music or not? If you can make music then you don't need prebuilt loops.

My problem really comes from the whole "I know how to use Fruity Loops and Reason so I'm a musician" problem. It sounds like we have similar bias issues in many cases.

Of course, I do fall into that "knowledge of music" problem you have. However, it is a conscious decision. I have taken music theory classes and piano classes at college and passed them all with excellent grades, however, I chose to reject that form of composition. Unfortunately with todays music software people are able to reject traditionally composed music because they are simply too lazy to learn it. Yet they still claim to be musicians. Personally, I think they are playing video games, not making music. As a result I'm lost in a world of contradictions however. How is my music any more art than someone who bangs out something in some crap software? Because I claim to be an artist does that make it more art? I don't really think so. I think that conflict with electronic musicians and electronic music hobbyists is why electronic music as a genre has kind of died off. Anybody can make Techno, just watch some TV Commercials.

later,
-junc

[Nikolas]

Kind of a contradiction there eh?

hehe... more like real life experience... 

Yes, we do seem to share ideas...

I do strongly believe (or hope if you will) that in the end people who do know have a 1% extra maybe, but I also think that a large part of "making it" is promotion and personality (as well as luch of course)... In the end I have no doubts at my personal music and "art", but I don't really care if it is art or not. I don't bother... It just happens that people like my music (even the more difficult genres... :S) and... yes, ok... But about art, or better or whatever... I think that in the end, if it comes down to some interview between 2 people (trying to get the job that is), then knowldege might play a part. dunno...

Anyone can make anything really, but few can make good at anything ,even techno if you will

[Evil]

Not going to attack music as art, but the real reason I want to get into sampling, is mainly for drums and percussion.

I can play and record all of the other parts of my music, but drums and piano (even vocals) aren't really my thing, so sampling is a better option, so I can take my time.

Though, I do agree that whatever laptop I get, I will make suit my needs.

[Evil]

New laptop is on it's way. Keeping my old computer too. But now, I'm in sort of a-...I dunno. Confused state.

I bought an M-Audio Axiom 25 this afternoon, and after fucking about with the thing, I still cant get it to work.

It came with no manual, only drivers and some dumpy program, and as far as the Quick Start manual goes, it basically tells me to put the CD in the drive, and install the drivers.

I've downloaded the PDF from their website, but it's for a different model, much different than mine.

Then, I downloaded several sampling programs, along with samples, and went through the help files. No where does it tell me how to set this thing up to work.

I've been mucking with this thing for 6 hours and haven't heard a peep from my speakers, other than the dozens of dings from all of the crap I've downloaded. Gigastudio, Live, Cubase. I have no idea what I'm doing. I know "WHAT" should be happening, but I can't get it to do anything. On one program, I've gotten volume signals from the device, but nothing other than that. So it's not drivers or a broken device.

Eek. Help me please. I have no idea what I'm doing.