good laptops for Recording??

[jmather]

Hey everyone - pretty soon I'll be in the market for a laptop to do off sight recording. I use Sonar and plan to use a 2 input interface with it. Any advice as far as brands, good deals and what to look for internally in the computer when purchasing? Thank you!Justin

[ncc1701]

Well, I can tell you the SigmaTel Audio sound card that comes in the Dell XPS M140 laptop does NOT work with Sonar.Grrrr. Kathleen

[guscave]

Quote:If you're considering a Windows machine, I'd strongly suggest buying a machine that is purpose-built for audio. The folks that do this all day long really know how to tweak the machine, OS and soundcards so when it shows up at your doorstep, it's plug and play. You don't want to have to troubleshoot .dll files when you should be recording, particularly live shows! MazzTotally agree with Mazz here. I've seen too many cases where Windows based laptop can not handle the man hours involved in mobile recording, and either crash or get stuck somewhere in the middle of the project.I as well as some other friends have used mac laptops for live mobile recording (5 to 7 hours) and they never gave us any trouble.I really don't know of any laptop off the shelf that is as reliable for what you want. If you're going to go with Windows, definitely get an audio specific system. p.s. Don't flame me for being a mac boy

[che]

NickBatzdorf,Thanks for the insight. I will pass along the Expresscard info to the husband. When I mentioned that the SATA is more stable, that's based on the fact that our IDE HD use to crash more often than this SATA. NO blue screens of death. We keep toying with the idea of a mac, but think we might still be too chicken Uncharted waters can be scary!!!! We are pretty fluent with the whole PC thing and are afraid to rock the boat. A mac will most likely be something we do as an extra down the line when it's not so time sensitive. Can't imagine getting familiar with everything we need to master before we leave town. however; we do understand Mac's greatness!!!!!!

[slideboardouts]

Quote:We keep toying with the idea of a mac, but think we might still be too chicken Uncharted waters can be scary!!!! We are pretty fluent with the whole PC thing and are afraid to rock the boat. A mac will most likely be something we do as an extra down the line when it's not so time sensitive. Can't imagine getting familiar with everything we need to master before we leave town. I'm not going to try to convince you to get a mac or anything (though it will probably seem that way), but I do want to point out that it doesn't take any time to learn OSX. Seriously. Everything is pretty much the same as it is in windows except the organization is better IMO, the close/minimize/maximize buttons are on the other side of the screen, and you have a few cool features that make your workflow better. You can still "right" click and on laptops its really cool. You just tap the track pad with 2 fingers If you can't learn how to work OSX within 5 minutes then you have no business doing digital recording as learning to work a DAW is much, much harder. Where your problem would be is that Sonar does not run on macs, so you would have to switch DAWs. Now THAT would be a bit time consuming. Of course you could still use Sonar in windows via bootcamp or parallels, but then what is the point in having a mac if you are going to be playing in windows all day The first night I came home with my mac book pro I had learned my way around OSX, made a beat in garage band, and made a movie with effects within 2 hours. Cake. I personally think that an MBP is the way to go for mobile recording because mac laptops are very competitively priced for what you get and they have a proven track record for audio work right out of the box. Desktop computers I could go either way on, but in the laptop section I think the MBP wins hands down. -Steve

[nickbatzdorf]

"The main thing is that we aren't ready to commit to a DAW change. We like Sonar and want to stick with it for now. And like you mentioned, there's no real point to getting a mac if I'm gonna run Windows on it. If we get a mac system we would probably use Pro Tools with it. "Just to put an even finer point on the spike we've been pounding into your rear end YOU CAN RUN SONAR ON AN APPLE LAPTOP! You don't have to switch DAWs; Justin asked about laptops and these are probably the best ones for what he wants to do.As a matter of fact you can't run Pro Tools LE on the latest Mac OS X (10.5), the ones that today's computers come with. But you can run it under Windows on an MBP.

[che]

NickBatzdorf,yeah i feel the tip of that spike diggin in pretty deep I think I mentioned that we weren't really sure what the point is of getting an apple/mac and running windows programs on it. If I want to run windows, why not get a machine made for windows????? So, are you saying that the mac's hardware is superior? Not trying to make this a mac vs pc debate....just trying to get a clear understanding why I would want to run windows on a mac? Hopefully Justin checks back and gets something out of this.

[mazz]

My wife recently picked up a refurbished MacBook Pro from Apple.com and just finished installing Windows XP on it. She got some software called Parallels that basically allows her to seamlessly switch between Mac and Windows programs without re-booting. Now she can use her business software on the Windows side and do e-mail and web stuff on the Mac side without having to worry about the machine becoming a magnet for all kinds of e-detritus like her Toshiba machine did, since she won't ever go online with a Windows machine again (speaking of Windows, I thought more than once she was going to throw her Toshiba laptop out of one!). If for nothing else than peace around the house, I'm glad she switched back to Mac! FWIW,Mazz