Lap Top or Home CPU

I am looking to purchase a computer I think I want a windows based cpu but mac isnt out of the Question. Depends on the money. But what should I look for in a good cpu dedicated to music production. How fast, how much ram, front side bus, sound card,hard drive space, burner,usb or firewire, are there any good lap tops that will cover all the bases PC and MAC or is it best to get a home computer. And is a studio mixer and a track recorder neccesary or could it be replaced by pro tools M-Box or the Digi 001.Basically I'm asking for suggestions on a small studio set-up.Im also looking at a Motif ES6.Rack sampler,virtual or sampler keyboard. All opinions appreciated. THANX P.S I have 2000XL and I'M into Hip Hop and RnB.

im not tech guy but i know enuff from my own past to better my future in computers and one thing you should do is get a desktop not laptop...now days laptops are as good as desktops but there easy to break and are not upgradeable and in this everychanging tech world you want something that you can keep up with the other guys with and a desktop is where its at. You should have good size hardrive but i advice you to get another harddrive just for music production and never save anything on you system harddrive just incase you computer locks up and they need to erasy you whole system drive you dont lose all your work.....they say 512mb of ram is good..me and someother have about a good GIG of ram. as far as a proscesor go you should look at a penti 4 or amd xp...the amd xp chips are kind of good and run just as hard as a penti 4... i have the mbox...its real good but if i was you and had a desktop or was gona get a desktop i would get the digi 001 or 002 rack...just to get the most out of the mpc and the 8 out puts or what ever you use. if you do decide to go pro tools you should go to the www.digidesign.com and check out the windows and mac forums and read a lil about what computers works...on the windows side you should see a post stuck up as the first that tells whats the best for pro tools on the windows pc side of things.

This really depends on what hardware/software you want to use. For Pro Tools the best performance is coming from Athlon XP's for desktops and Centrino processors for laptops(the centrino's are actually out peforming desktops right now!). The best advice I could give is to figure out what software/hardware you want to use and then see what computer configurations are working best with it.

I myself have a XP based laptop that manages 32 audio tracks(max for PT le) w/ 6 aux tracks running 190 fx plug-ins. Now as an example of the different kind of performance you can get with different setups I can also get 48 audio tracks w/ 240 fx plug ins in Sonar 3 on the same laptop. These are just torture tests I run to test the limits of my gear, needless to say I would never actually use that many plug ins. Our main setup is a Mac G4 dual 1.25 w/ digi 002 that ironicaly is only capable of 27 audio tracks w/135 plug ins, it handles "real world" sessions well enough though. As far as what hardware to go with, I'd recommend a firewire interface as opposed to a USB interface(USB is finicky and somewhat limited compared to firewire).

I'd suggest downloading demos of all the top multi-track software and trying them out to see what works best for you as some of these programs are easier to use then others but of course it's really all subjective to the person using it. Also the websites for the hardware/software companies usually list what computers are working best with their equipment.

Im also looking at a Motif ES6.Rack sampler,virtual or sampler keyboard

The Motif ES is all of those, I just gave mine to my cousin for his birthday but it's a great machine, tons of great sounds, a gig of sample ram, crazy re-sampling features, tons of fx, USB storage and with the mLan option a 14 channel audio interface. I was gonna get another one but decided on another MPC 2000XL, E-MU modules and Korg MS2000(I needed a new "home" setup cuz we just moved all of our equipment to a new spot, no more luggin' gear back and forth thank god!) A lot of people think that the Motif is a pain in the ass to use but I found it easy enough except for the file arcitecture, they set that up ass first as far as I'm concerned.

Just take your time (prices will only get lower) and do A LOT of research! You also might want to wait for the winter NAMM show, a lot of people think that Korg is going to introduce a new workstation which means prices could drop even more. Good luck!

Laptop or PC, depends on if your going to be traveling with it or not.

Protools can be used as a software mixer.

Motif ES6 is a good choice in my opinion.

Processor: Pentium with HT or a Mac are the best available for DAW (Athlon's can't compare in MHZ) Although, Athlon64 will be the shit once they make music appz in 64bit.

Hard Drive: You should have two. One for your OS, you shouldn't need more than 10 gig if this PC is just for music. If you plan on using it for other things get a bigger hd and run a dual OS system. And another hd at least 7200rpm with 8mb cache (this is where you store your tunes), I have an 80 gig for music. You also have the option of raid if you want to make your hd run faster or if you want to back up your music.

Ram: At least 512mb (CAS latency 2)

Burner: My Lite-on 48x24x48 burns 700mb cds in 3min

A laptop is great if you want to take it to gigs or something, but you will pay a premium for a comparable desktop system. I cannot address FSB speed until you finalize on a processor and MB

Get an P111 900 with 1.5gb ram and 2 x HDD

Many tracks...32

Works for Me...

If It 'aint broke don't fix it..

famekeyz wrote:not upgradeable

They are upgradable but not as easy and cheap as a desktop.