Members bluehuricane Posted April 14, 2008 Members Share Posted April 14, 2008 i have a lexicon omega interface and i want to spend about 600 bucks on a laptop (probably an ebay refurb, to maximize what i can get). I'd also like to run windows xp instead of any other OS. thanks :-d oh, on a side note; I found a laptop with 2 gigs of ram, an AMD dual core processor, and 160 gigs of memory for about 600 bucks on ebay. good buy? it has vista installed, but I can change that :-d here's the link: http://cgi.ebay.com/HP-COMPAQ-LAPTOP-PC-Notebook-DVDRW-2-GB-AMD-DUAL-CORE_W0QQitemZ190214112604QQihZ009QQcategoryZ177QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil O'Keefe Posted April 14, 2008 Share Posted April 14, 2008 It's usually a good idea to check with the manufacturer of both your audio interface (Lexicon) and DAW software company to check what their minimum and recommended system specs are. "Minimum requirements" should be considered just that - the program may run, but not optimally or particularly capably. The more RAM (you want at LEAST 1GB, preferably 2GB when running Win XP), and the faster the CPU (again, dual cores are generally "better") and HDD speed (and if you're going to record to a "C" drive on a laptop, drive speed is more important that size IMO), the more tracks you'll be able to record / play back simultaneously, and the more plug-in processing "horsepower" you'll have available. When you check out their websites, make sure to pay particular attention to CPU type and chipset restrictions / recommendations. I had a client buy two laptops for use with Pro Tools LE and an MBox, and both were "known" to have compatibility issues. If he would have checked first, he could have saved himself a lot of time and trouble... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members HeartfeltDawn Posted April 14, 2008 Members Share Posted April 14, 2008 One of the main problems with laptop DAWs is problems using Firewire interfaces. There's lots of problems there with certain chipsets. Look about online to see if the model you linked to has issues with a noisy fan. If you're home recording, fan noise can be a real pain. Some of the Toshiba range are stupidly noisy. My ex's laptop was really noisy in this department. Would this laptop be for recording only? If so, you can strip out a fair bit of the Windows XP bloatware. In terms of recording software, I'd recommend Reaper because it's nicer than Cubase (to me anyway), it doesn't take up much installation space and it's gret (yes, a shallow reason but it is). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members mrweems Posted April 14, 2008 Members Share Posted April 14, 2008 Also grab an external hard drive for securing your song writing on. When writing in a document like that it eats space up QUICK. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members fist Posted April 14, 2008 Members Share Posted April 14, 2008 soundcard? Oh yeah, with Vista, there's no 'stereo mix' or 'wat u hear' or whatever they call it. Probably won't bother you, but it was my primitive way of converting midi drums to an audio file in cubase..and now its gone.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members SammyHawk Posted April 14, 2008 Members Share Posted April 14, 2008 soundcard? Oh yeah, with Vista, there's no 'stereo mix' or 'wat u hear' or whatever they call it. Probably won't bother you, but it was my primitive way of converting midi drums to an audio file in cubase..and now its gone.. Just export the track as an audio file then drag the outputted audio file into a new project file? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members fist Posted April 14, 2008 Members Share Posted April 14, 2008 i dont think you can export a midi file as an audio file though. needs to be converted or something Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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