Custom built laptops

[flyscots]

Does anyone know much about the custom built systems such as those from Making Waves Audio and Phil Rees ?

 

Having your laptop already configured for optimum audio performance is an attractive sales pitch but is it as good as it sounds?

 

Making Waves' systems also come with their own software, anyone know much about it?

 

Thanks

 

John Scotsman

[Dylan]

Hey John,

 

I havent used any pre-configured music laptops, but Id imagine that they are essentially just custom tweaked production systems. My personal choice of PC laptop is IBM. You can configure a decent P4 or Centrino Thinkpad w/1GB of RAM and XP Pro for around $1500. Id recommend replacing the internal HD (4200 PRM) with a 5400 or 7200 RPM HD and purchasing an external Firewire HD for your audio. After all of the upgrades youre probably looking at spending around $2000. FWIW, most of the laptops Ive used that were bought off the shelf at places like Compusa, Frys, etc., are complete shite. They usually have crappy displays, chassis, short warranties, and onboard video that eats up 64 MB of your system RAM. As far as OS tweaking goes, there is not a whole lot you have to do with XP to get it music friendly. I will usually just set a fixed swap file and turn off all of XPs visual enhancements. You can go further by disabling unused services and tweaking a few registry settings, but thats usually overkill, IMO.

[theblue1]

That's a good general info write up at Phil Rees ... laptop HDs have moved ahead a bit, I think it's reasonable to hold out for a 7200 rpm drive, now. There are still 4200 and 5400 machines (and plenty of them) out there, but if you root around you can usually get the faster drive in the same general price range. (A lot of people who buy laptops don't even know to ask about HD speed, looks like. So it's not much of a selling point. You almost never see HD speed in ads and often not on spec pages. IBM, Sony, and Dell are a few brands where it was fairly easy to get the specs on the HDs (and they all had at least some 7200 rpm machines.)

[jcskid]

Hey John,

in my opinion there is only one good audio laptop

Clevo!

several vendors sell them.

what to look for in a laptop

Texas Instruments firewire and Cardbus chipset.

P4 800 FSB

DDR 400 Memory

at least 1 preferably 2 internal 7200 60G Hdd.

 

thats really it.

 

Scott

ADK

[flyscots]

Thanks people

 

A lot of people who buy laptops don't even know to ask about HD speed, looks like. So it's not much of a selling point. You almost never see HD speed in ads and often not on spec pages

I know. To put it to the test I went in a computer store in Glasgow yesterday and asked what the HD speeds were in a couple of their laptops. "Don't Know" was the reply. "Well could you find out?" I asked "We don't have those details listed you'd have to look up the websites." What!? The guy's look and tone of voice suggested he thought the HD speed was irrelevant.

 

It looks like I may be going for it with Making Waves.

 

1.5GHz Centrino

512MB RAM (I can't afford 1G yet, but I'll upgrade hopefully)

60GB 7200rpm HD

etc etc

 

This will cost me roughly $1600/$1700 which is far better than any other deal I can find. Of course an external Firewire drive is another future purchase as soon as finances allow it.

 

By the way EQ people, I missed the Laptop special editon because it's very hard to find EQ Mag here in Scotland. Infact, I know of only ONE store that stocks it (Border's in Glasgow) and they don't keep many. What's the best way to get a back issue copy?

 

Thanks again,

 

John

[Super 8]

Hey Fly,

 

I don't think you would regret using a Toshiba for music. Valky and I both have the same Satellite model. She could probably give you better info on it's performance for music than I could since I use stand alone recorders. I can tell you that my laptop has been used regularly for the past year and has performed quite well during that time.

 

Hey, it even has firwire along with a bunch of USB ports, and a decent sized screen.

 

I also prefer the touchpad pointer device over IBM's little pencil eraser dealie in the middle of the keyboard. But that's just a preference issue.

[theblue1]

John

 

I was able to get a Dell (here in the states) refurbished (it really was like new) a couple months ago with roughly those specs for a base price of $1500 (I tossed on a 3 year onsite warranty per all my laptop pals' recommendations).

 

Centrino 1.4 (Pentium M w/ 802.11b wi-fi chip)

60 GB 7200 rpm drive

DVD+RW

512 MB RAM

15.4 1280x 800 screen

[Alndln]

Originally posted by flyscots:

This will cost me roughly $1600/$1700 which is far better than any other deal I can find. Of course an external Firewire drive is another future purchase as soon as finances allow it.

The E-machine Athlon 64(3000+) unit goes for about $1300 at best buy and did as well as the desktop 3400's in a recent Sonar DAW test,but you'll need a FW drive though.But that comes out 1 or 200 cheaper than the Intel Jalopy.The Centrino's perform pretty well for the $$$ though.Certainly not my first choice now that there's a slew of A-64 laptops out there.

[Alndln]

Originally posted by flyscots:

 

I went in a computer store in Glasgow yesterday and asked what the HD speeds were in a couple of their laptops. "Don't Know" was the reply.

Practically all laptops in the $800-$1500 range have 4200 RPM drives which is passable for OS/Programs ect,and with large FW drives going in the $150-200 range it pays to have a dedicated audio drive anyway.

[Phil B]

Originally posted by jcskid:

Hey John,

in my opinion there is only one good audio laptop

Clevo!

several vendors sell them.

what to look for in a laptop

Texas Instruments firewire and Cardbus chipset.

P4 800 FSB

DDR 400 Memory

at least 1 preferably 2 internal 7200 60G Hdd.

 

thats really it.

 

Scott

ADK

Hey Scott,

 

I know this post is old already, but now that you're carrying Centrino laptops, I was wondering what your thoughts are on them as far as soft-synth performance and stability.

[John Sayers]

there is a cardbus unit with SATA outputs so you can run two SATA drives using cardbus.

 

cheers

john

[jcskid]

Hey Phil,

 

i finally put up a Centrino system on our website!

i have been going back and forth for a yr on them. tested several etc.

 

one of the issues i had with them is most Centrinos only have DDR 266 (pc 2100) memory.

while this doesn't really effect audio tracks it sucks for VST/VSTi.

 

another issue i had is as always i am trying to push the system to the limit. i could get farther with a standard P4 laptop than a Centrino.

while battery life may be great for heavy loads they seems to poop out.. again in part due to ram.

 

of course having only a single internal drive bugs me. (spoiled now with the Clevo having 2)

 

the last issue was LCD resolution, they all seemed to only have 1024 and only 14-15"

try having Nuendo open with Halion, Trilogy and total mix(rme). then try zooming to track, all on the little 15" and 1024 arrggh...

 

so to answer you since you noticed the Centrino..

the Clevo uses DDR 333 and has up to WUxga (1920)

 

for Sampling it seems pretty robust, track count seems pretty awesome with just the 1 internal drive partitioned.

we went back and forth with samples on the External vs internal and recording the same.

we found using a LaCie firewire drive to record to and partitioning the internal 60G using the second partition for samples works pretty dang good.

i hate to toss out sample count but over 20 was no issue.

all in all not bad.

i still favor its bigger brother, but thats the "Tim Taylor" in me!

 

hope that helps..

Scott

ADK

[John Sayers]

the last issue was LCD resolution, they all seemed to only have 1024 and only 14-15"

try having Nuendo open with Halion, Trilogy and total mix(rme). then try zooming to track, all on the little 15" and 1024 arrggh...

 

mine is the new wide screen 15" and runs at 1200 x 800 res- these new LCD screens are the closest I've ever had to my original 17" CRT.

 

cheers

john

[PlugHead]

Originally posted by jcskid:

Hey Phil,

 

i finally put up a Centrino system on our website!

i have been going back and forth for a yr on them. tested several etc.

 

one of the issues i had with them is most Centrinos only have DDR 266 (pc 2100) memory.

while this doesn't really effect audio tracks it sucks for VST/VSTi.

 

another issue i had is as always i am trying to push the system to the limit. i could get farther with a standard P4 laptop than a Centrino.

while battery life may be great for heavy loads they seems to poop out.. again in part due to ram.

 

of course having only a single internal drive bugs me. (spoiled now with the Clevo having 2)

 

the last issue was LCD resolution, they all seemed to only have 1024 and only 14-15"

try having Nuendo open with Halion, Trilogy and total mix(rme). then try zooming to track, all on the little 15" and 1024 arrggh...

 

so to answer you since you noticed the Centrino..

the Clevo uses DDR 333 and has up to WUxga (1920)

 

for Sampling it seems pretty robust, track count seems pretty awesome with just the 1 internal drive partitioned.

we went back and forth with samples on the External vs internal and recording the same.

we found using a LaCie firewire drive to record to and partitioning the internal 60G using the second partition for samples works pretty dang good.

i hate to toss out sample count but over 20 was no issue.

all in all not bad.

i still favor its bigger brother, but thats the "Tim Taylor" in me!

 

hope that helps..

Scott

ADK

Scott,

 

Have you tried out the Clevo AMD 64 yet? I'm serious about one, but need to know how they handle - FW, chip/brand and compatibility, and if they're up to snuff for audio needs. I think the model # is NP4780, and/or R4750 - neither of which are shown on their website. Am I missing something? Do you know how they work, and what FW specs, as I can't find any, even from the re-sellers...

 

Cheers,

[PlugHead]

bump...

[jcskid]

Hey Jay,

 

got one coming in next week.

i have been putting off getting an AMD laptop as they all seem to be Via chipsets. while most of the issues are gone with VIa it still raises the hair on my neck hearing that word...

 

having now tried a couple of regular mobos with via with mixed results but mostly ok and then CLevo coming out with the AMD i thought i would try one.

my biggest concern is the firewire/PCMCIA. i am a big fan of TI firewire and Via had well VIa chipset for firewire.

the Clevo uses the ENE carbus which used to be an issue but now has much improved drivers..

works great with RME. Echo is still a no go however..

 

with firewire being more often the choice for interface i am more concerned with it.

 

so i will have an answer in the very near future..

 

Scott

ADK

[Phil B]

Thanks for the scoop. I'll be in touch soon, but while I got you here, what about the P4 denormal issues? To be honest that's what's keeping me away from the P4 and drawing me to the Centrino or the AMD. I want to be able to use the laptop in a live setting and I'd like to minimize the potential for spikes and dropouts. Has anything changed along those lines? And, yes, two internal drives would be nice.

 

[EDIT]

 

Also, keep in mind I do use a MOTU 828mkII so I guess I'd need that TI chipset, although I think I'll probably get an Indigo card for when I just want to portability, so I guess I'd need whatever cardbus Echo requires too.

[jcskid]

Hey Phil,

 

a "Centrino" is not an actual processor. but a way to indentify a set of requirements to be called a "Centrino" laptop.

basically intel 855 mobo, WIFI built in, extended battery life, thin and light.

all centrinos use the P4 mobile chip. which comes in 1meg and 2meg (Dothan) versions. the older 512k do not qualify for Centrino..

 

there are many laptops that use the mobile chip but cant be called Centrino due to some small change.. usually they are Sis or Via or ATI chipsets.

 

so any P4 chip will suffer the Denorm issues.

as far as i know there are only a handful of older programs that still suffer from this.

 

the Clevo Centrino has TI cardbus and Firewire!!!

 

Scott

ADK

[PlugHead]

Originally posted by jcskid:

Hey Jay,

 

got one coming in next week.

i have been putting off getting an AMD laptop as they all seem to be Via chipsets. while most of the issues are gone with VIa it still raises the hair on my neck hearing that word...

 

having now tried a couple of regular mobos with via with mixed results but mostly ok and then CLevo coming out with the AMD i thought i would try one.

my biggest concern is the firewire/PCMCIA. i am a big fan of TI firewire and Via had well VIa chipset for firewire.

the Clevo uses the ENE carbus which used to be an issue but now has much improved drivers..

works great with RME. Echo is still a no go however..

 

with firewire being more often the choice for interface i am more concerned with it.

 

so i will have an answer in the very near future..

 

Scott

ADK

Thanks for the info, Scott. Am I correct in thinking the host FW is poor(er) performance, and to go with cardbus (PCMCIA) for FW connection? I'm looking at a Fireface as the frontend for the system, through the host FW port, but if it's reliant on the cardbus slot to work, I'm not sure - I'd hate to have a useless FW port on a high end machine like that... Are there any issues with (DV)cameras as well? This would totally steer me away from getting this unit: I need a hassle-free recording-ready rig. If need be, I'll continue on this tired old Ti PowerBook till either it, or I die first

[John Sayers]

And, yes, two internal drives would be nice.

the Toshiba satelite P20 series has a removeable bay for either a second HD or a burner.

 

cheers

john