New laptop for small scale computer music - recommendations

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Hi all, after getting to the point of shoving my existing laptop off the sofa onto the floor in frustration last night (no i'm not proud of myself), I am now having to accept that I need a new laptop, and would like some recommendations if possible from a computer music point of view.

Current laptop is an HP from around 2012 it's an i3 from around that time I guess, 6gb ram. I had to restore it back to W7 via clean install as it couldn't cope with W10. I installed a solid state drive already, no better really.

Problems I'm currently having that I would like to avoid with a new computer:
- Whilst running Cubase, it often freezes out for about 20 seconds then returns to normal. Very frustrating
- USB interfaces seem patchy when I use them for playing back and recording, there are four ports but only 1 works fully, the others work partially.
- I seem to have to reinstall something every time I want to use the music software, but it's not usually the same thing each time. Cubase, Native Instruments, USB interfaces, Line 6 monkey, ilok licence manager - they've all gone at different key moments and made a 30 minute blast into a 2 hour slog.

My budget is only about £400, I can't justify more than that for my level. If it can't be done for this then it's fine, I might have to look at different solutions. Has to be a laptop as I've nowhere to set up a desktop. Has to be windows as I've loads of VSTs and I'm not sure they'll work easily on Apple (could be wrong, but I've no tech knowledge of apple to work it out), oh and £400 in Apple world buys you a mouse only doesn't it?

Also, would I be better not using the laptop for anything except music and photos, then getting a big screen tablet to use for mundane stuff to stop it slowing down?

I run:
Cubase elements 8
Loads of vst plug ins - largely free ones but also: Native Instruments Kontakt Player and few paid for instruments in that, Line 6 Pod Farm, Bias amp, couple of eventide fx
Audacity for recording (has always worked better than a DAW for me)
I do have the Reaper trial installed but have never used it due to the learning curve

Any recommendations for specific models that will work would be gratefully received, but general advice also would be great.

Many thanks all
Matt
 
Please note my communication is not very good, so please be patient with me
soundcloud.com/thecolourbox-1
youtube.com/@TheColourboxMusic
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Comments

  • Paul7926Paul7926 Frets: 227
    first place to start I think is getting the requirements for Cubase Elements 8. (and whatever else you run).  Bear in mind you usually get minimum and recommended specs and they are usually for the software running on it's own.

    For Cubase I think they are:

    OS SupportWindows 7/8.x, Mac OS X 10.9/10.10
    Minimum CPUIntel Core or AMD dual core
    Minimum GPU1366x768 minimum resolution
    Minimum RAM4GB (8GB recommended)
    Hard disk space15GB

    So with that in mind I'd be trying to get at least 8 probably 16GB RAM on the new machine by the time it's trying to use multiple plug-ins (although I obviously don't know how they have coded that).  I would have thought that the processor on anything new(ish) will be good enough as they are not very specific about what's needed.  I'm guessing but perhaps a lot of your freezing issues might be driver related.  Always make sure you have the latest patch and drivers for your software and your laptop.  It's usually an ongoing job of keeping up with driver upgrades but that is par for the course these days.

    Audacity seems to have less system requirements than Cubase so that can probably be ignored.

    I'm sure that people with more experience will be along soon with better answers.

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  • notanonnotanon Frets: 604
    Friend had a desktop with 24GB ram and a decent drive, i5. Cubase was unusable with the version he had free with a zoom g5.

    There were known issues and lots of YouTube videos out there demonstrating the issue. In the end we used reaper for PC + Mac collaboration. Works well.
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  • thecolourboxthecolourbox Frets: 9654
    edited December 2018
    Paul7926 said:
    first place to start I think is getting the requirements for Cubase Elements 8. (and whatever else you run).  Bear in mind you usually get minimum and recommended specs and they are usually for the software running on it's own.

    For Cubase I think they are:

    OS SupportWindows 7/8.x, Mac OS X 10.9/10.10
    Minimum CPUIntel Core or AMD dual core
    Minimum GPU1366x768 minimum resolution
    Minimum RAM4GB (8GB recommended)
    Hard disk space15GB

    So with that in mind I'd be trying to get at least 8 probably 16GB RAM on the new machine by the time it's trying to use multiple plug-ins (although I obviously don't know how they have coded that).  I would have thought that the processor on anything new(ish) will be good enough as they are not very specific about what's needed.  I'm guessing but perhaps a lot of your freezing issues might be driver related.  Always make sure you have the latest patch and drivers for your software and your laptop.  It's usually an ongoing job of keeping up with driver upgrades but that is par for the course these days.

    Audacity seems to have less system requirements than Cubase so that can probably be ignored.

    I'm sure that people with more experience will be along soon with better answers.

    Thanks for this.

    However my laptop should be able to run it based on the minimum requirements. I've just run a CMD to list the drivers on there as there are 238... Hope would I know where to start to work out which aren't up to date? The time it would take to do that i'd rather just buy a new one that works
    Please note my communication is not very good, so please be patient with me
    soundcloud.com/thecolourbox-1
    youtube.com/@TheColourboxMusic
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  • Paul7926Paul7926 Frets: 227
    @thecolourbox yeah it can be a real pain getting drivers up to date. First place to start would probably be any that are provided by the software you use. So go to the sites that sell it and download the latest. Then I guess start looking at anything you have added but on a laptop I doubt you have changed much hardware. Then perhaps the patches for Windows.

    I must admit that being in the industry so to speak we often find it faster to wipe a machine and install what we need from fresh than bothering to try and make sure everything is up to date.  Not what you want to hear I know.

    Sadly I have no experience with the software you are using so I can't really be much more help.  One thing I would do before experimenting is save any important files to somewhere you can get them back from.  
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  • I did do a clean install though, as even notepad and paint were unusable on w10, so I wiped the lot and installed w7 from disc image, but it's still lane really. I'll keep going anyway, thanks
    Please note my communication is not very good, so please be patient with me
    soundcloud.com/thecolourbox-1
    youtube.com/@TheColourboxMusic
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  • Paul7926Paul7926 Frets: 227
    Did you sit through all the boring windows  updates?  To be honest I'm struggling to help much. Sorry.
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  • Paul7926 said:
    Did you sit through all the boring windows  updates?  To be honest I'm struggling to help much. Sorry.
    I do appreciate the help, I went through every driver and wimdows said they were all up to date, installed a driver checker and 25 of them had updates... Nightmare!

    Still doing the save in cubase though, blasted thing
    Please note my communication is not very good, so please be patient with me
    soundcloud.com/thecolourbox-1
    youtube.com/@TheColourboxMusic
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  • Ram and ssd look ok to me, are you using any antivirus software? 
    “Ken sent me.”
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  • JalapenoJalapeno Frets: 6378
    Cubase is a beast, I'd look for something more lightweight like Tracktion.

    SSD and as much RAM as you can afford.

    Highest res screen you can afford

    Disconnect (wireless too) and disable anti-virus when you record.

    Single USB device, not via hubs etc

    £400 should get you a decent spec laptop
    Imagine something sharp and witty here ......

    Feedback
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  • wave100wave100 Frets: 150
    Just as a matter of interest, what was wrong with W10? Did you just not like it or did it not work?
    Have you checked the USB ports with different a different device and cable to confirm they are not working? Have you checked the interface with a different computer to confirm it IS working? 

    If you can confirm the USB ports are knackered, that is most likely a hardware fault and not worth getting fixed. If the processor is a low power model designed primarily to save power, there is a strong chance it's not going to work well for recording - same goes for a new machine.

    You need to optimise a Windows laptop for recording to get the best results, mostly this involves changing the power saving settings so it never does any power saving. Robin Vincent's Molten Music channel on youtube has details of this - he focuses on W10 tablets, but I imagine the principals are the same on W7.

    DPC latency (not the same as audio latency) can cause issues on windows machines - more info here.

    It's also worth disabling un-needed programs which run at startup - if you don't know what a program does, just google it.

    Don't know what anti-virus you are running, but some of them are worse than a virus and can really mess up performance. I just use the default Windows one which seems to be relatively low on system resource hogging and so far I haven't had any viruses (as far as I know).

    My advice would be to spend an evening doing the above checks and configuration on your current laptop before buying a new one, but if you still have problems (or just want a new laptop) go for one with i5 or i7 non low power processor, 8 gigs of RAM and an SSD. And then do the above.

    As @Jalapeno says, don't connect your interface through a hub.


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  • ecc83ecc83 Frets: 1589
    Not read through all this but...My son is back from France and using his prezzie, a Lenovo T430 laptop. i5 cpu, 8g RAM and a 250G SSD. Win 10. He has Samplitude Pro X 3 and loads of other stuff on it now and LOVES it. It easily plays the multitrack, pluggin laden Samplitude demo.  Cost me a bit under £400 from a refurb firm on Amazon, 1 yrs warranty and it is "as new" Oh? Optical drive as well.  14.1" screen but you can always connect a telly!

    Bit of a warning about W10. Do not get an email account! Go for a "local account". Also get a GF or similar to buy you "ten for dummies".

    Dave.
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