Help with computers!

[barks]

I am thinking of buying a lap top computer (maybe a Mac) to use just for music ie. iTunes and hopefully to use for some recording.

I'm not very technical when it comes to IT issues so could anyone give me an idea of the kind of spec I should be looking for ?

Neil

[yorick]

Minimum 2gb RAM for processing speed. Minimum 100gb hard drive storage. The world's your oyster for music software!

[budget bassist]

You want to spend a good £500 on a good laptop i'd think.

Min specs:
dual core processor, quad core if you can get one. Intel if possible, not AMD. 2.5-3.0GHZ
2-4GB of RAM (this is easily upgradable though)
I'd say at least 250GB hard drive, raw music files can take up a lot of space.
Also DVD rewriter and all that gubbins, but it usually comes standard these days.

Don't forget, the more you spend, the more future-proof it will be. This is why i prefer desktop PCs, when parts become obsolete, a lot of the other stuff in them is still salvagable, particularly things like monitors, sound cards, hard drives etc. Essentially on a desktop PC the only things that become obsolete particularly fast are things like motherboards and CPUs whereas on a laptop, you'll have to chuck the whole thing.

Edited December 14, 2008 by budget bassist

[BigRedX]

Get a Mac

It comes with Garageband which is all the recording/writing software you need until your ready for the really serious stuff.

Plus iTunes on the Mac is far better than the Windows version.
(I always think the poor performance of iTunes for Windows is Apple's revenge for MS Office being such a dog on the Mac!)

Edited December 14, 2008 by BigRedX

[Danbass7]

[quote name='BigRedX' post='354566' date='Dec 14 2008, 08:43 PM']Get a Mac

It comes with Garageband which is all the recording/writing software you need until your ready for the really serious stuff.

Plus iTunes on the Mac is far better than the Windows version.
(I always think the poor performance of iTunes for Windows is Apple's revenge for MS Office being such a dog on the Mac!)[/quote]


Couple of problems there.

1. The itunes thing is not a big deal and should not determine which machine you purchase, be it a Macbook or a Laptop.

2.Macbooks have a massive mark up and you will pay over £1000 for the most basic of new models if you want them to handle music software smoothly.

Laptops are less user friendly in this area but will come at a significantly lower cost. Its annoying that I dont have time to link some spec's for you as i've got work to do, but basically if you did decide to spend £1000+ that you would on a mac.

You can get a decent laptop for the job for around £500 - £700 being more 'futureproof' if you spend anything above that.

You can, indeed, spend less than that, although this isnt really a great idea as you start to see more significant performance gains past the £500 mark

Macbooks = for extreme ease of use and good software packages but much more expensive

Laptops = less £ for the amount of power and build quality youll get, fairly simple to use, massive range of compatible software

I know this is a bit of a blind argument missing many points but im in a rush and just thought i'd whack something down





ps. DO NOT GET A MAC. Although I do really like mac's, with the current range of dual core and now quad core laptop cpu's now available for £1000 you can get a very powerfull workhorse of a laptop for the same as a low/mid range specced macbook

Edited December 14, 2008 by Danbass7

[jmesa]

Mac

[YouMa]

Dont get a mac,they look pretty but your computer will have nothing in common with your mates, software will be harder to obtain/swap/borrow and if you just want an easy life with out constantly having to trawl around the net looking for things that are compatible with your computer get a p.c. honest.I dont know why everyone raves about garageband there are much better programs out there which are easy to use,sony acid,ableton live etc.

Edited December 14, 2008 by YouMa

[stingrayfan]

[quote name='YouMa' post='354667' date='Dec 14 2008, 11:11 PM']if you just want an easy life with out constantly having to trawl around the net looking for things that are compatible with your computer get a p.c. honest.I dont know why everyone raves about garageband there are much better programs out there which are easy to use,sony acid,ableton live etc.[/quote]
As someone who's converted from PC to Mac recently, that sentence above doesn't make sense. I've not used an easier computer. GarageBand is a breeze to use, real plug-and-play kind of thing (eg 1-click mixdowns that export your finished track to iTunes) and you can always get Logic if you want to be more advanced. I was recording in minutes, rather than the hours faffing about with my old PC. Plus with all the other software you get pre-loaded, I've designed a website, done a couple of DVDs and a video showreel.

[~tl]

While you do pay a premium for a Mac, in my opinion it's worth the extra cash. The new, aluminium, MacBooks are rather nice computers, but the lack of Firewire may be a slight hindrance if you're planning on doing any professional recording with it. But there are a fairly good choice of USB interfaces these days – so I guess it shouldn't be too much of a problem.

For simple iTunes/e-mail/web browsing/etc, the Mac is just an easier platform to live with and is more stable in my experience. Not having to run constant virus & spyware scans is rather refreshing! You can get equivalents for pretty much any Windows program – and a lot of them a free! Or you can install Windows (natively or in a virtual machine) for those that don't have an equivalent Mac version. The "iLife" bundle that comes with the Mac is pretty great for photos/videos/music/websites/etc.

I would recommend you go and try one out at an Apple store and see how they work in person before you make any decisions. Oh, and if you are a student (or know any) then you can get some pretty nice discounts from Apple – you can get about £130 off the new MacBooks currently. They're still £800 odd though

[b]Edit:[/b] Oh – and my advice to you – shell out the extra money for the AppleCare support plan. It's well worth the money when your battery dies or you have some random problem with your machine. They give you three years of warranty and phone support, so if you have any problems you can just phone them up or take it in to a store to get it fixed.

Edited December 14, 2008 by ~tl

[YouMa]

Yeah good idea lets all have apples stamped on our heads,ok go get a mac there great! hope you are a graphic designer and the company pays for the computer and the software. Get a mac and once you have got bored of the limited expensive software and you have decided to learn a bit more about real computers but cant on one of these machines, blame these guys.(bloody hairdressers computers,lovely pastel shades though.)

Edited December 14, 2008 by YouMa

[budget bassist]

[quote name='stingrayfan' post='354693' date='Dec 14 2008, 11:38 PM']As someone who's converted from PC to Mac recently, that sentence above doesn't make sense. I've not used an easier computer. GarageBand is a breeze to use, real plug-and-play kind of thing (eg 1-click mixdowns that export your finished track to iTunes) and you can always get Logic if you want to be more advanced. I was recording in minutes, rather than the hours faffing about with my old PC. Plus with all the other software you get pre-loaded, I've designed a website, done a couple of DVDs and a video showreel.[/quote]
I don't think that's what he was saying at all. What he meant was, as good as macs may be, they're expensive and hence not particularly commonplace. What that means is, it will be harder for you to share files with your friends etc such as sequencing files that may need editing or something and other such things. There are also a lot of programs that are incompatible with macs which may be handy. Personally, unless everyone around you has one, i don't think there's much point.

[[al]]

+1 for a mac. Yep it's a bit more expensive, but it's rock solid kit, easy to use, as well as being based on a proven operating system (if you did want to go on and learn a bit more about real computers you'd do a lot worse than starting with a mac and exploring what's underneath the shiny desktop). Anecdotally, I've never met anyone who switched back...

Anyway, whichever way you decide to go you might want to check out [url="http://www.reaper.fm/"]Reaper[/url]...
It's a pretty decent multitrack recorder, supports VST effects etc.

It runs on both OS X and that other "operating system", and the downloadable 'demo' is a fully functional version of the software which doesn't expire, if you use it and decide you like it (or your conscience gets the better of you), a non-commercial license costs all of $50 (which is painfully close to £50 these days, but that's another story), cheap as chips for what it does.

[thisnameistaken]

[quote name='~tl' post='354697' date='Dec 14 2008, 11:40 PM']While you do pay a premium for a Mac, in my opinion it's worth the extra cash. The new, aluminium, MacBooks are rather nice computers, but the lack of Firewire may be a slight hindrance if you're planning on doing any professional recording with it.[/quote]

Yeah I completely fail to understand why they've nixed firewire on the new Mactops. IMO the one good thing about the new ones is they've only recently come out, so all the tragic Mac fanboys are busy selling their old-model Mactops to buy the new one, so you should be able to get a decent deal on a used older model.

[quote name='YouMa' post='354703' date='Dec 14 2008, 11:47 PM']Yeah good idea lets all have apples stamped on our heads,ok go get a mac there great! hope you are a graphic designer and the company pays for the computer and the software. Get a mac and once you have got bored of the limited expensive software and you have decided to learn a bit more about real computers but cant on one of these machines, blame these guys.(bloody hairdressers computers,lovely pastel shades though.)[/quote]

Bleh. I've been using PCs for 15 years, Windoze derivatives of 9x for most of that time, and I am sick of it. The Mac OS is worth the price of admission IMHO.

[Tracer]

+1 for Reaper! I've been using it for a year or so now the stability has come on leaps and bounds in that time. It's starting to look like a serious competitor in the DAW market now, which at $50 for a non-commercial licence is borderline hilarious. That said, when you buy an audio interface they'll come with plenty of demo software.

-1 for the Mac Tax, but with a tentative +1 if you really don't mind paying the extra in exchange for having Steve Jobs hold your hand in the scary world of computers.

[budget bassist]

Yeah, i've heard reaper is pretty good. Some people have said it's as good as cubase and cheap as chips.

[Jean-Luc Pickguard]

In my experience Vista is such a shoddy pile of sh*te that my next machine is likely to be a macbook. Vista was terrible for music production when I tried it so I had to make my PC boot into XP to run cubase.

I had no problems mixing an album on cubase 4 on XP which was originally recorded in a studio running cubase SX2 on a mac, so cross-platform compatability is not necessarily an issue. Also with a mac you can run bootcamp to boot into windows while you wean yourself off it, or run windows apps seamlessly using parallels or vmware fusion.

[crez5150]

Mac all the way!!!!! if your serious about your music!

[birdy]

I recently got a Mac after using Windows since it came out and am more than happy with it.

Yes you do pay a bit more but no crashes, viruses etc.

Steve

[xgsjx]

I have a pc laptop & an iMac. I haven't used the laptop for music (or anything else) since getting the mac other than to take files off it. The rest of my band either have or are getting macs.
My other half is an IT consultant & says she prefers windows but is always fighting with me to get on the mac. I think it could be something to do with it being a lot more stable.
There isn't a huge amount of software for osX, but what there is does what you need it to as opposed to having 20 bits of sh*tty pc progs running to try & get the job done only for it to slow right down then crash (been there many times & broke pc's for this).

If you want a pc that's going to compare with a mac you may find yourself spending more than a decent mac with logic.

Now go & buy a pc

[barks]

Thanks for all the info everyone. The mac v PC debate will doubtless rage on! I have used both for my day jobs and confess that i did enjoy my mac experience. Certainly food for thought in all the above replies.

One more thing - How dodgy is it to buy second hand laptops?

Neil.

[crez5150]

Try these guys..... i've used them before and they're pretty good - [url="http://tcsmacs.com/cart.asp?pid=1237&quantity=1"]TCS[/url]

[jmesa]

A 2nd hand Macbook Pro within its first year of warranty would be good if you could find one. Then you'd have the extended Applecare warranty option if anything did fail.

You could also dual boot the Macbook with windows (or use Paralells within osx) to use any other stuff that you cant find for the mac.... the "lack of software" argument isnt really relevant anymore.

Edited December 15, 2008 by jmesa

[Buzz]

A few things I wish to add just as a point of principle.

First: Stop believing all the bullshit about Mac's being rock solid stable when compared to Windows. They're not, they're just much harder to stuff up, which for the majority of users, is the same thing as being stable. Don't take this as pro-windows, for the majority who just want everything to work, yes a mac is the better option.

Second: Apple OS's are no longer virus free paradises they were when they were niche computers. DO NOT RUN A MAC WITHOUT AV + FIREWALL. Period. I loathe Apple for this as although they've stopped tooting the line of "virus free" they're not telling people to protect themselves.

Third: (The alternative option): Buy a normal laptop and put a Linux distribution on it like Kbuntu (KDE) or Ubutu (Gnome) or any of the other current distro's. A bit of learning will be required, but nothing that requires more than a little bit of effort, pretty much all current versions of linux are easy to install and use, they're no longer worthy of the reputation they rightfully gained in the past for being difficult. Not to mention they're mostly free and software is either free or cheap.


Oh, just as a heads up, you don't have to buy a Mac to run any of the Mac OS's now, Apple relased their OS's for normal laptops a couple of years ago. Dual boot as you see fit and get a much better specced laptop for your money.

That's all I'm adding to this topic, everyone else has covered good points and bad points, this was just an alternate view.

Edit: If you go Mac, get a reconditioned one from the Apple UK online store, you'll save around £200-300 on average, netting you a better machine.

Edited December 15, 2008 by Buzz

[saibuster]

If you think about getting a pro sequencer, dont bother with logic(Time stretch in time machine anyone?! ). I've been using logic for the last 10 years and recently switched to cubase. I'd go for a second hand Macbook pro 2.4ghz with 2 gig ram. that should be enough for a big project with cpu hungry plugins like waves.

[Jean-Luc Pickguard]

[quote name='Buzz' post='355218' date='Dec 15 2008, 05:53 PM']Oh, just as a heads up, you don't have to buy a Mac to run any of the Mac OS's now, Apple relased their OS's for normal laptops a couple of years ago. Dual boot as you see fit and get a much better specced laptop for your money.[/quote]
'Fraid not- they only sell the latest version of MacOS as an upgrade for Macs. Any monkey business to make a 'hackintosh' is unlicensed and unsupported.