Good recording laptop for $500?

[Aloe]

I don't know how a Dell XPS has a worse DPC latency than any other computer,

oh, it's a long story. many things affect DPC latency, software and hardware. at first Dell thought that it was a software problem and promised to customers it will solve it. but some years after it appeared that they just cannot fix it.

this said, bad DPC latency isn't specific to Dell or nVidia, it just happens sometimes.

Regarding nVidia drivers, it isn't the fault of Windows then, it's the fault of badly designing drivers by other manufacturing of hardware you are using in your computer.

yeah, but my main point was: there's some hardware in Windows world that you just cannot use for realtime audio. if you buy a laptop with nVidia it's not possible to swap this card for something else (and in some cases you cannot disable it). so my advice was to google DPC latency on the exact configuration OP's eyeing.

 

[monsterthompson]

Today that’s usually more an issue due to the coding of the individual plug-in rather than the DAW from what I’ve seen.

The second SOS magazine article you’re citing also dates back to 2008. Quite a bit has happened on the OS and coding front in the intervening 12 years since then. Multicore support is enabled by default in Windows 10. Same goes for Linux which also has a real time kernal most DAW users and all music oriented distros install by default. The only time multicore support would ever need to be turned off or adjusted is for certain applications for compatibility reasons because their authors haven’t updated their code to modern standards. Lord knows why. They've certainly had enough advanced notice and dev time to do it.

Yeah. I know that article is old, but it was the best article I could find on my morning web search. Lots of other results were discussion forum threads.

Yes, plugins and DAWs have different coding for multi, which is why I linked the Ableton page about how that software handles it. Adding plugins is another layer of complexity where processing bottlenecks can occur. I’ve certainly found my Ableton projects bogging down and generating glitches and artifacts where similar projects in Logic tolerate the processing load better.

 

[TexasHeat]

Last summer, I bought a refurbished HP G1. Recorded a 4 hour gig with it, 16 channels. It worked perfect. I use Cubase, but most DAW software are similar in features. Ableton is geared more towards live performance, loops, triggers, etc, though it is fully capable of recording.

Here's a link to the laptop I bought. (It's refurbished but is good as new.)
Refurbished: HP Laptop EliteBook 840 G1 Intel Core i7 4th Gen 4600U (2.10 GHz) 8 GB Memory 500 GB HDD Intel HD Graphics 4400 14.0" Windows 10 Pro 64-Bit (Multi-Language Support English / Spanish) - Newegg.com

Also check out homerecording.com if you are looking for more advice on setting up a home studio.

 

[Aloe]

I have a question that I hope is relevant to the OP's question. Regarding integrated audio "card/chip" on Windows laptop. Is this like graphics where you see NVidia/AMD/Intel versions on different laptops with different capabilities? Is there a specific integrated audio component that would be favored on a laptop for most DAWs?

first thing to say is that likely you won't use the integrated audio card when working with audio. and this has nothing to do with recent (latest 5 years) decline of anything above 48kHz in them, they just don't have the needed quality. I recently bought a Soundblaster G6 for working with headphones (or away from my rack) and couldn't be happier.

second thing is that sometimes on-board audio has bad drivers or bundled software which will break things up even if you're not using it. just google for "laptop_model dpc latency" and you'll know if it's the case.

 

[CalBuzz51]

Also consider buying a laptop and an additional bigger screen, as for me a laptop screen is too small for mixing anything. You can buy a larger screen used as well.

Agreed. For under $250 I got a 40” TV that I use as a monitor.

Also using a 40" 4k monitor (Vizio V-series) that was under $250 new. Single hdmi cable instead of buying multiple monitors, monitor arms, and docking devices for video outputs.

I found a nice tool for latency testing at the Focus Rite site, although only helpful to test a machine you already have:
Invalid Link Removed

I've got a home office setup already. Just bought the FocusRite Solo and trying to figure out which DAW and issues to avoid.

 

[monsterthompson]

Also using a 40" 4k monitor (Vizio V-series) that was under $250 new. Single hdmi cable instead of buying multiple monitors, monitor arms, and docking devices for video outputs.

The HDMI and adapters and aren’t cheap if you don’t already have them. Once it’s up and running you'll forget about it though.

 

[PrimitiveMan]

This is the reason to go with Ableton.

Ableton is my primary software. I’ve found that Logic manages the CPU and RAM usage better in certain projects. Since you’re going PC, Logic isn’t going to be on your radar, but other DAW software might be.

If you weren’t planning on doing looping, I’d say other software might be a better fit, allowing you to spend more on hardware.

Keep in mind that if you really want to utilize Ableton you’ll want an external controller for triggering the clips. The Push 2 is fancy but I haven’t clicked with it. Novation makes popular hardware controllers for Ableton. There are phone and tablet based apps that will help too (I use Touch-Able).

Thanks, I was looking at some of the novation controllers, they seem pretty good for the price

 

[PrimitiveMan]

Didn't expect this thread to be so popular, I'm learning a lot!

 

[Mushroo]

While we are on the topic of processors and cores, it's worth mentioning for the less techie folks, that most laptops in the $500 price range will have 2-core processors. For a desktop (or high end laptop) at least 4 cores is more typical.

 

[monsterthompson]

Thanks, I was looking at some of the novation controllers, they seem pretty good for the price

Loopop has some good demos. Assuming these are what you’re likely looking at.

 

[TexasHeat]

I'd like to add that if you're recording mostly audio, you don't need a killer machine. Any modest PC/laptop will do. When I first started recording in my little home studio, I ran up to 24 tracks of audio with a Pentium 4. A few plugs on each track and one VSTi (virtual instrument). Never a hiccup.

Sample-based VSTi's (like ezdrummer) will use more ram, while reverb and amp sims will use more CPU resources. Your hard drive speed will limit the number of tracks, but it's not really limiting. Not these days.

I didn't go through the whole thread, but if you're not already considering or even have one, you'll want an audio interface. The built-in audio card won't suffice.

 

[40Hz]

This is not a hill I’m going to die on but that’s the conclusion I’ve arrived at. Though I would be very interested in other opinions... a couple months ago, I was researching how to do a very budget conscious computer upgrade that’s what the internet was suggesting.

Me either.

But just about any i5 will run just about anything unless you really load it down with plug-ins and VSTs. If you’re running Windows 10 there’s also some tweaks and hacks you can do to strip out some of Mictosoft’s nonsense such as Cortana and “phone home” backgrounding to take a load off the CPU.

I should probably qualify what I’m saying because I see a PC provisioned to run a DAW as an appliance. So I don’t use my media machines for anything else. So once they're set up and working to my satisfaction I do my best not to change them at all unless I absolutely have to. If you use your music PC to browse the web or for email you become vulnerable to unexpected surprises. Same goes for OS updates - which are mostly for security fixes, and which you don’t really need that much if you’re not connecting to web. So for music and media, my approach has always been to dedicate a moderately inexpensive PC (or your hand me down after you bought you new main machine) to the task. I’ll usually just spec and build a small desktop type PC for dedicated purposes since I don’t need portability.

 

[byacey]

It all depends on your software, audio interface and how may channels you want to record. My portable recording rig is an old IBM Thinkpad laptop running XP, with and RME Hammerfall DSP Digiface with 3 x ADAT 8 channel optical ins and out, for 24 channels in, and 24 channels out.
The Laptop keeps up fine recording 24 channels, unless I start trying to use DSP plugins during the recording process.

 

[40Hz]

Didn't expect this thread to be so popular, I'm learning a lot!

So are many of us.

Put ten computer geeks in a room and let them start hurling abstractions at each other and everyone involved is bound to discover at least one thing they didn’t already know about.