Dedicated laptop for Dj-gigging, and one for everything else? Pointless or good idea?

Hello! I found this great place some month ago and now i have a question.

This is the thing, i have been creating my own electronic music for many years and the last year started getting into DJ:ing. I will soon move to a new location and are making my current studio portable by switching from big computer + big soundcard to small laptop, soundcard & controllers.

So with this laptop setup i can continue with music creation - but also engage in DJ:ing when i get the oppurtunity. No matter what size or kind of party, i just love to play my music for people.

So my question now is to those who are already gigging as DJ`s. Is it bad idea to bring about your one and only "master" computer to gigs and such? How risky is it? I dont know since i have only used computers within my home.

Right now i have an old macbook wich works fine for Dj-use, but is a bit slow for heavy music creation. So i have decided to get a more powerful Macbook Pro.

Now the question is: should i keep the old macbook and use it as an dedicated DJ/Travel laptop, suited for more rough use. And have the Macbook Pro be the creative machine for use at home, safer an exposed to less risks.

Or should i just not worry about it and sell the old Macbook when i buy the macbook pro and have it as a do all station? It would be more convienient to only have one computer to travel around with. But it would also feel more risky.
In case of damage/theft/drunk people spilling beer etc it would be great if the computer that it happens to is an older one that doesnt contain all the possibility to music creation wich is vital to me.
It maybe seems as i answered my own question here, but i am still feeling confused about what would be best.

Some advice would be nice.

+1 for dedicated DJ laptop with a backup!

Carrying two laptops is hardly as bad as lugging a crate of records. I've held a very lengthy residence and I always had a backup.

I'm guessing this is the reason why Native Instruments let's you install TS on two computers.

2 words

dual boot

How does dual booting help you if your hard drive crashes?

It doesn't, but how does having two laptops help you in a car accident?

Two laptops is ideal, if you can afford it. But there are many dj's who have only one..

Quote:

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Originally Posted by sj03w4t

It doesn't, but how does having two laptops help you in a car accident?

Two laptops is ideal, if you can afford it. But there are many dj's who have only one..

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hence why i said dual boot.

just use an external for back up. much cheaper

i don't even gig professionally and i have a dedicated laptop and a second 2.5" hdd with a backup of my whole laptop drive so i can swap it out if need be (mind you its not up to date at the moment but i havn't done a house party in months)

i dual boot with windows 7, followed the guide on this site to strip the other boot profile to practically nothing, and loads traktor into the shell... or whatever it does :P

is like running a brand new computer, works perfectly

wait you can dual boot with a program that isnt an OS? are we talking about that article titled "streamline your pc/mac?"
i've given that articles advice a chance on 3 different times on 3 different XP machines - created new profiles, went into the new profiles, stripped everything away, and yeah it ran alot better but for whatever reason whatever changes i made in the music profile - it also applied to the main profile. so everytime i ended up having to go back to a restore point.

i find this very effective that someone on here recommended this program called gamebooster. it allows you to temporarily disable EVERYTHING that may be slowing down your computers performance

you created two different user profiles, not a dual boot system... a dual boot system is like two sperate computers in one, using a seperate hard drive partition, not just creating different user profiles