What laptop spec for home recording?

funkyfraz

My old desktop pc is on its last legs. It's an xp, 2gb ram, pentium d processor.. it's probably a decade old and it wasn't too of the range even then.  I'm toying with getting a laptop instead of another desktop but I'm so out of touch that I've no idea what the specs are all about.  There seems to be alot around 200-300 quid mark, with 8gb ram  and a tetrabyte hdd. Would something around this price range give me details decent performance? Or does windows10   take up alot if the resources?

Should say,  I'd be using reaper and I literally would be recording half a dozen tracks at most... All for just a bit of fun, not going to be releasing my solo album anytime soon.

Fretwired

funkyfraz said:

My old desktop pc is on its last legs. It's an xp, 2gb ram, pentium d processor.. it's probably a decade old and it wasn't too of the range even then.  I'm toying with getting a laptop instead of another desktop but I'm so out of touch that I've no idea what the specs are all about.  There seems to be alot around 200-300 quid mark, with 8gb ram  and a tetrabyte hdd. Would something around this price range give me details decent performance? Or does windows10   take up alot if the resources?

Should say,  I'd be using reaper and I literally would be recording half a dozen tracks at most... All for just a bit of fun, not going to be releasing my solo album anytime soon.

It will be fine - just get yourself a decent USB audio interface. Windows 10 is vastly superior to previous versions ... you'd have to go back to XP to find something as good. If you can afford more RAM then do it, but six tracks is nothing.

Winny_Pooh

Most new processors will be radically faster, esp with Reaper. For low fan noise get a SSD and an Intel U series processor. 

spark240

This often changes when you get into it, get the best spec possible for your budget, SSD and 16G ram will help lots... 

Should say,  I'd be using reaper and I literally would be recording half a dozen tracks at most... All for just a bit of fun, not going to be releasing my solo album anytime soon.

digitalscream

Expand your budget and go second-hand - you'll get something with a decent screen (1080p minimum for recording, really), 8GB RAM, SSD and i7 CPU for £300-£400.

Worth noting that a lot of laptops only come with a couple of USB ports these days, which isn't sufficient really. You'll want one with at least one USB 2.0 port (some audio interfaces don't like USB 3.0) and at least one USB 3.0 port (for external storage). Failing that, use the USB 2.0 port for the interface and a USB 3.0 hub for everything else.

I got my Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro from Sporky for £400 a year or two ago, with its bonkers 13.3" 3200x1800 touchscreen, 128GB SSD, 8GB RAM and a 2.1GHz i7 CPU. It runs Reaper (under Linux) absolutely brilliantly - heading into the studio with it later this week to record drums.

funkyfraz

I understand 2nd hand would be I good idea for me to st things but I've always been a bit dubious about it on computer stuff.... Not sure why... 


But, I work for Tesco and I occasionally get 20% discount so ideally I'd be getting g it from there but that's obviously on the assumption it'll do. 

How about something like this as an example? 

https://www.tesco.com/direct/acer-aspire-a315-21-3-156-amd-a4-8gb-ram-1tb-hdd-laptop-black/173-2658.prd?skuId=173-2658


All the other things look good... But I don't know about the processor 

funkyfraz

Apologies for that last post. It reads like it's been written by a 6 year old. 

digitalscream

That's a fairly low-spec laptop. Sure, it's got plenty of RAM, but the CPU is anaemic at best. It doesn't even have as much grunt as a Pentium Dual Core (to find an Intel CPU it'd beat, you'd have to go back 7 or 8 years). I'd hazard a guess that the screen will be pretty low-spec as well - it's already low-resolution, but it's pretty likely the viewing angle will be so low that even a slight deviation from head-on will show colour distortion.

funkyfraz

That's the kind of feedback I was wanting! Cheers! Perhaps I will consider 2nd hand! 

digitalscream

funkyfraz said:

That's the kind of feedback I was wanting! Cheers! Perhaps I will consider 2nd hand! 

It's also worth considering the storage...in low-end laptops like that one, the hard drive will likely not be at the top end of the speed charts, even for spinning rust (as opposed to SSD). In any machine, the hard drive is always the slowest component...and the computer is only as fast as the slowest component.

I've always considered storage in laptops to be "whatever I'm working on at the moment". My laptop has a 256GB SSD, which means not-too-many audio/video projects. I store everything on an external drive, and copy the stuff I want to work on at any given time to the SSD as and when I need it. That means a wait of up to 10 minutes at the beginning of the day - during which I'm making coffee - and at the end, but minimal frustration while I'm actually working.

funkyfraz

That's interesting, as I was only really looking at ones with big internal HDs but as you've pointed out perhaps a better quality smaller ssd might be more suitable. 

Definitely more to think about! 

close2u

Check out my recent thread, partly using some of the ideas I read here as inspiration. I got some great advice. http://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/110749/need-help-finding-selecting-a-laptop-for-approx-350-refurb

funkyfraz

I didn't want to start a new thread, I'm buying a desktop instead off a mate, for not alot of cash with this spec... Should that be decent enough to keep me going for a few years? 

It'll be reaper, and no big sessions... 

Intel i5 3470 3.6ghz turbo
16g ram
64gb ssd boot drive
500gb HD drive
USB 3


Thanks

Heartfeltdawn

Yes to the above.maybe throw in another SSD. A wee 120gb one for recording is peanuts now it's the sale season.

funkyfraz

Heartfeltdawn said:

Yes to the above.maybe throw in another SSD. A wee 120gb one for recording is peanuts now it's the sale season.

funkyfraz

As in a third drive? 

Heartfeltdawn

I would. One SSD for system, one for recording, HDd for backup use and anything else.

eSully

digitalscream said:

Expand your budget and go second-hand - you'll get something with a decent screen (1080p minimum for recording, really), 8GB RAM, SSD and i7 CPU for £300-£400.

Just to re-iterate the point above. I'm running a 6 year old Lenova laptop. i5 with 8gb and it runs reaper no problem. The annoyance is the screen size. My Max resolution is 1366x768 and while usable it's annoyingly small for Reaper, I'm sure most laptops come with better than that now anyway but just to bare in mind.

robgilmo

You will get a lot more for your money with a PC desktop, and they are more customisable should you feel the need at a later date. 

Jez6345789

As said I would stay away from laptops for recording unless you need it to be portable far more options with a desktop.

again as you are on a budget small SSD to speed up the work in hand bigger hard drive for archive.

min 8gb mem

again if you are looking to do just a few track a dual core will probably do but a good old quad core is much better if you are going to use a few plugin for reverb virtual instruments etc.

goldtop

funkyfraz said:

I didn't want to start a new thread, I'm buying a desktop instead off a mate, for not alot of cash with this spec... Should that be decent enough to keep me going for a few years? 

It'll be reaper, and no big sessions... 

Intel i5 3470 3.6ghz turbo
16g ram
64gb ssd boot drive
500gb HD drive
USB 3


Thanks

No monitor spec mentioned, but it's no problem these days. I picked up a used ultrawide a few months ago: 2560x1080.