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Someone just gave me a new laptop. Is anyone using these for music in here? It's an Intel Dual Core with 2 gigs RAM. I read someone say that Cubase is much better with Vista because of the way it handles audio stacks. The one bad thing about this computer is it has a crappy Intel graphics card but I don't know if that will be a problem with music. It uses the CPU for graphics for god's sake.

I'll probably get an Echo Audio Firewire card and use and an external Firewire drive. This will mean having a card with 2 Firewire jacks as this computer has only one slot. Two gigs is enough? The specs on this thing are pretty amazing but I'm not sure in real life how it will perform.

Shared video memory works fine for common tasks like watching a DVD, however for a music workstation laptop I don't think it will work optimaly. A dedicated video processor with dedicated video memory is recomended.
Vista sucks big time. The factory install runs around 60 processes in the background as compared around 30 on XP. You might be able to disable some of those tasks but on Vista this is all new teritory. The audio stack is different that's true, and I heard it is much faster but only new programs will take advantage of this. You probably will use ASIO drivers anyway wich are bypassing Windows drivers. But then again, remember the discussion on new DRM technology implemented in Vista? It is somwhere here in this forum. My recomandation is to back up the drive and install XP. As far as Echo firewire audio card, I do own the Echo Indigo PCMCIA card wich is offers rock solid ASIO drivers and surprsingly low noise. PCMCIA interface is faster than firewire, and consider this before you get a USB or Firewire card: all audio data (including all audio samples and MIDI data) will shlepped back and forth on the firewire link, however the PCMCIA interface is directly tied into the PCI bus with no other bottlenecks. (See the Hammerfall PCMCIA card: http://www.zzounds.com/item--RMEHDSPPCM ). After all this, another issue that you will encounter is fan noise which will most likely happen if you run CPU intensive applications like most software synthesisers. Most mobile Intel CPUs use an energy saving technique called Intel Speed Step that halves (or reduces by a certain amount) the CPU speed under normal load in order to save power. When you run Cubase for example, the CPU will start running at the maximum rated speed with the side effect of getting hot and noisy due to some of the cooling fans.

My recomendation is this, get rid of Vista, install XP, and get a PCMCIA card.

It's a myth that Vista constantly checks for DRM. If your DVD is DRM encrypted, it will be a strain but then why would you be surfing the internet while you watch a DVD?

There is no PCMCIA card slot. It is ExpressCard and I'm going to try Vista first before I do anything and see.


The graphics card is the weak point but according to tests I see, I should be able to easily get 32 tracks of 24 bit audio which my old computer struggles with after the effects are added.

http://rainrecording.co.uk/vista/performance

"Vista 32 is certainly no slouch and if the attraction of the other non-musical features tempts you to Vista then you won't be losing too much DAW performance on a properly configured machine"


It would be a nice computer for live performances, which after all would not tax the system very much.

braincell wrote:
http://rainrecording.co.uk/vista/performance

"Vista 32 is certainly no slouch and if the attraction of the other non-musical features tempts you to Vista then you won't be losing too much DAW performance on a properly configured machine"

The entire quote is the following:

"So, what OS should you choose for your system? The simplest answer is to stick with XP - it's stable, fast and is tried and tested with absolutely everything. Vista 32 brings lots of advantages in terms of ease of use, future compatibility and security but has no advantage in DAW performance terms. However, Vista 32 is certainly no slouch and if the attraction of the other non-musical features tempts you to Vista then you won't be losing too much DAW performance on a properly configured machine. Vista 64 is the way to go in terms of performance and future proofing but only provided that the hardware and software you want to run is compatible - that is most important. But with 64-bit, Vista 64 compatible versions of GigaStudio and other sample based instruments from EastWest and Vienna Symphonic just around the corner the future of Vista 64 is looking quite rosey."


ExpressCard is the new generation PCMCIA.

I told my friend to cancel the order because it doesn't have a good graphics card but if it shipped already I'm going to send it back and pay extra for a better one.

Update:
She won't call them. She says it's fine and I should use it. I'm going to return it and get a better one I think. I could not explain the graphics card thing to her. She says I should use it first and see how I like it.

Update:

For the cost of this computer, I can buy the parts to turn my desktop into a screaming quadcore. I am exchanging it unopened.

"You can return multiple gift items from the same order. We'll issue you store credit in the form of an e-mail gift certificate/card. Don't worry--we won't tell the gift giver about your return!"

Update:
Sneaky!

Well she called tonight. This is my ex-gf from 4 years ago. You are going to see why.

She asked if I was going to return the computer and I said I was thinking about it and then she got really angry. I tried to tell her I want to make music and she said she doesn't want me to spend too much time making music so I have to keep the computer or give it to her and she will give it to someone else.

Why GFs care about such minute tokens? She wants you to prove her that you love her by taking a laptop that you can't use? How does that work? It's not that she made the laptop with her own hands!

Yes it is disappointing but at least I can burn DVDs, it has a large hard drive, and I could use it as a live synthesizer perhaps. My old laptop has a broken LCD so I use a CRT for it. The new one came today. I am not in the mood to open it. I should be really happy. Here is a part of the email I got last night:

"If you still want to send my present back and trade for something else then please forget that idea. You either accept it as the way it is or you will get nothing."

braincell wrote: "If you still want to send my present back and trade for something else then please forget that idea. You either accept it as the way it is or you will get nothing."

I don't know how to deal with this kind of situation.

Women.

The preliminary results are in:

Cubase seems to work alright. I did not test it with a huge song.

The Halion player did not install and the Vienna Instruments and Vienna Ensemble do not see any presets or patches (no sounds at all available). I am working with support on this.

I may have to try installing XP... yet more hours and hours of my time. Vista seems pretty cool though. I have 16 milliseconds delay using the latest ASIO4ALL!

braincell wrote:
The Halion player did not install and the Vienna Instruments and Vienna Ensemble do not see any presets or patches (no sounds at all available). I am working with support on this.

Have you tried running the installer with administrative privileges? Right click on the program and choose Run As Administrator. I know that's a common problem in Vista as the main process runs with reduced privileges.

Nice try but that didn't work. Maybe I have to install the library again. They say you can just move it from another hard drive. It's huge, over 50 gigabytes.

I got everything working Including Cubase and the Vienna Library.

Cubase now requires 3 installations, the Cubase 4.0 DVD, Cubase 4.1.0 and Cubase 4.1.2.

The performance of this notebook is not the best but it can be used. It makes a nice live instrument if you already have Cubase. I did not experience any drop-outs or clicks using the internal sound card with ASIO4ALL. It's not the best sound quality but there is no noise.

Think of how much more it can do than a hardware synthesizer and at a fraction of the cost.

I like Vista. It seems more pro than XP does. Of course I turned off the aero crap etc.. They are trying to make it be like a Mac. I can't see the extensions anymore, instead I see icons. That is for girls!

Do a CTRL-ALT-DEL, choose "Show Processes From All Users" then look in the status bar of the Task Manager and tell me how many processes are running.
The only thing worth something is the search function.

Oh I will improve it later. I don't use it much yet.