I'm in desperate need of a laptop as I can't haul my tower to the club every week haha, it's almost not worth it!
I was wondering laptops the lot of you prefer. Please note what hardware (i.e. VCI) and software you're also using to DJ.
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I'm in desperate need of a laptop as I can't haul my tower to the club every week haha, it's almost not worth it!
I was wondering laptops the lot of you prefer. Please note what hardware (i.e. VCI) and software you're also using to DJ.
Macbook Pro 15.4" / 2.6 Ghz / 4 gig ram
Audio Kontrol 1
Remote SL 25
Turntable (ammobox soon! omgyay!)
Running Ableton.
Personally i'd say mac all the way, except you have to buy the software if your a pirate then probably not for you (although you can install bootcamp - parallels doesnt work so hot for audio stuff). Also MBP are fkn expensive ($4k). A macbook is easily enough for you, i got a MBP cos i'm a graphic designer. But i love mine, its sooo pretty.
Dell Inspiron E1505/ 2.8 Ghz/ 2 gig ram
X-session pro
M-Audio oxygen
Ableton live
I love my dell it works fine running ableton and all my effects. But I am thinking about upgrading to a mac book pro to use strictly for music. Cause I use my dell for school and also internet.
honestly bro, unless you need the 15.4" screen over the 13" dont spend extra $1500 to get a MBP, its not really worth it, a macbook can run everything musicwise sweet.
Alternatively Unless your really buying for the look..
Acer aspire 3110 1,6 Ghz,2Gb ram
Xponent
Traktor
the Acer is not realy good,the qality is a little bit less good.but it does the job realy well.
So i will in a few months change to an Toshiba satellite
CDuo 2.2/15.4/4GB/400/i hope with Xp
Just bought myself a
DELL VOSTRO 1000
German: http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/pr...dt1&l=de&s=bsd
US:
http://www.dell.com/content/products...tab=bundlestab
(seems to be more expensive)
because they are really cheap at the moment and as someone said very stable. You can buy them cheaper as a Business, so the price is 329€ instead of 370€ (i bought the middle one).
I use a Dell, it works fine. Just take care of it. I have enough screen space for Traktor to be clear, and everything works fine. It doesn't need to be a Mac, trust me.
my new Dell xps m1530 is only 1280x800 resolution. i'm so pissed.
so i'm selling it.
my old dell works fine still...that's 1280x1024. i love small.
Get a macbook !!!!!
Best quality price ratio out there !
Powerfull, best OS, light, really portable, sexy, fast....plus tons of little extra that are soooo cool ( finger scrolling, huge trackpad, battery cable.....)
As you were asking, here's what i got
macbook 2 ghz, 2go ram
vestax vci
presonus firebox
Dude, buy your software! You get support, updates and documentation. It's worth it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter Willis
Seriously, do it today.
(DJTT Editors: can we make a strong statement against cracked software on this site? I think it needs to be stated clearly and from the top.)
Macbook man!
Dell Inspiron 6400/2.0Ghz/2GB ram
2*XP5/UC-33e/BCD2000
Echo AudioFire 4
Traktor/VirtualDJ/Ableton Live(beginner)
everthing no problem.
hi orca, you should do a check on the native traktor forum for toshiba notebooks before you buy one as the have a few proplems with running traktor.Quote:
Originally Posted by orca
My backup notebook is an Acer 5050(amd turion 2ghz),
i originaly bought it for carrying around as it is small,light and very cheap, it ended being my main notebook i use for dj-ing, video production,graphics and performing live with my band.
Dell Inpiron 1720 - 2.5ghz 45nm Penryn - 4gb RAM - 1920 x 1200 17".
VCI-100 + Midi Keyboard.
Id highly recommend it.
As for software, thats up in the air at the moment as i am exploring some different possibilities ;)
Which midi keyboard?Quote:
Originally Posted by BentoSan
Sony Vaio 1.8ghz, 2 Gig Ram,
MAudio 410 , Terratec 24Fw (BackUp)
Kontrol DJ 500, Maudio O2..
Thanks a lot for the advice i'll check it!Quote:
Originally Posted by -dIm-
:( it vould make me sad,this TOSHIBA is an excelent machine.
I had problems wit my motherboad and now is a problem vith the HD(i'm helples ewerything checked annd i still hawent found the exact problem).exept this i like it!it runs 1,5 years Djing,performing with my band :p ,and homework...
i heard that toshiba is top quality but if it should not run good with the soft i use it would be a pity...
Dell E1505 2.0GHz 2G Ram XP SP2
Torq 1.04 Rewired into Ableton 6 / Xponent, Midi Keyboard, ect...
The Dell is pretty solid, has your normal PC quirks. I gig with it and do my normal daily tasks on it. Haven't had a problem playing out with it. The next comp I buy will be a MAC Book, but that'll probably be a long time down the road since the Dell has treated me very well thus far.
Hi guys, i use a :
2.4GHz macbook pro 15"
M-audio Firewire 410
Vestax VCI-100
Traktor 3.3
and if i want to, i add my trigger finger or 25 key midi keyboard.
In my opinion, all PC laptops no matter what brand you get are all the same. No matter what, even if you take extra steps to take care of it and call it your "DJ Only Laptop", there will always be little glitches.
PC laptops just dont compare to Mac because mac is a whole new world. With a mac, You can Check your email, be online, DJ with Traktor, and even buy music on itunes all at the same time during a gig! its pretty crazy!
For sure on a PC youll get some kind of lag when trying to do those things. Trust me ive been a PC user for years and hated mac, but once i saw what mac could do, i switched over. I really did all the tweaks and made sure my dell laptop was running perfectly, but i would still be worried. But with a mac, i hardly worry about anything. i just make sure i have a backup in case something goes wrong.
as per my post on the Native-Instruments forum:
Asus F3SC
Traktor
BCD3000
P.S. you mac fanboys are ridiculous.Quote:
any laptop pc with some decent specs should work fine.
By decent specs i don't just mean greater than the recommended requirements of traktor in the cpu/ram department.
I mean, dedicated video ram, decent mainboard chipset etc.
e.g. I have an Asus F3SC, this has a 2GHz core2duo, 2GB Ram, nVidia 8400M graphics with 128MB of dedicated video ram and the mainboard chipset is intels 965 express. It came with Windows Vista installed and on top of nvidias stupid turbo cache system ram allocation a fresh boot gave me about 600MB of ram free.
I formatted it to a nice clean XP install and was left with ~1.8GB of ram at my disposal.
By comparison a cheaper laptop would have an intel 945 chipset or worse with intel X3100 integrated graphics, stealing 128MB of system memory and slowing down the memory that was left for windows/traktor. While this is still sufficient, it's not awesome and the difference it boiled down to for me was around $300 - and the cheaper option had 1GB of ram not 2.
With this setup i can keep key lock on constantly and run maximum time stretch quality and deck caching in traktor and have plenty of cpu/ram headroom.
It's up to you what brands you prefer (based on your experience or others) or what is more available. I happen to work at a computer store and we stock mainly Asus, I purchased this particular model knowing there are XP drivers for every single component.
The above mentioned Dell M1530/1730 range would definitely be suited - even more so if you have the option of ordering it with windows XP. Vista is a waste of time and microsoft has basically acknowledged this themselves by pushing forward the next version of windows release date to 2009.
I'm not saying macs are crap, i'm saying PCs aren't
To the guy that said "it doesn't need to be a mac"..... Of coarse it doesn't need to be mac, but if your serious about music, then i'm afraid it does....... Sorry if i sound like a dick but my mac made me feel this way...
I really don't want to turn any thread here into a "Mac vs PC" debate. Tempers can run hot and all.
Both options have advantages and disadvantages. Can we just settle on that?
@ Chilly - Yamaha PSR-730 its had a lot of use over the years producing, but i would like to get a Novation 25SL to use instead
As for the "Mac vs PC" war lets not go there at all please.
..in reality, any laptop made in the last 3 years with a gig of ram would be fine. we're just getting a little beyond ourselves here. "mac vs. pc" will always go on as long as one person favors the other.
i got mine off of ebay...i really really like it (the Novation)Quote:
Originally Posted by BentoSan
I love my Remote SL25, its the ownage. Has everything. + Automap is awesome.
Shouldn't comment... But.. Cant... Resist.
Mac v PC war is basically made up of 2 sorts of people, people who have used ever owned a mac (recently) and people who havent. If youve owned one you become a fan, thats just how it works.
PCs are fine, I've owned PCS for most my life. I have built more PCs then I can count. Yes they do have their advantages (mostly you can pirate software and get lots of aps for it - ie more versatile). Macs on the other hand just work more fluidly, less problems generally, nicer to work on.
In any creative industry Macs are just superior for several reasons. Most creatives don't need the versatility as reliability and workflow are more important (not saying PCs cant be reliable, just they generally aren't as much so as Macs). DJTT members being on the tech end of creative is somewhat different, as the flexability of PCs can be useful for max customisation. So its basically up to you.
PC:
Versatile
Cheap
Hax
Mac:
Workflow
Reliable
Pretty
A little off-topic, but I was in a car accident last night. Nothing serious as in, everyone is all right, but my front-end is shite and the accident will be ruled as being my fault...so any plans for a laptop are definitely on the backburner :(
And I was so close to getting a Dell M1550!
that sucks bro :'[
i just made the jump to a macbook pro 15.4 2.4 gig core 2 duo . i still have a kickass pc tower and a laptop that have all my production stuff , protools , vegas, acid, sound forge, fl studio , and live 7. so i am still gonna use all o that stuff....but on the mac just tractor, dekadance and live. right now im behind. my workflow is off cause i havta learn the mac way of doin things but i think it will b worth it once i get it all sorted out. anyhoo it all comes down to what your comfortable with .
BUMP!
I hate to bump an old thread but it seems like all the regulars already posted in this thread, and I doubt you guys have new laptops already :)
Anyway I wanted to say that I just bought a Lenovo X61. If you don't know, Lenovos are IBM Thinkpads. If you're older you'll probably know that ThinkPads have been around forever, and are still known for their build quality.
From what I was told, the X61 used to be the flagship, ultraportable Thinkpad. It's been replaced by the X200 and X300 and in turn, X61s are now cheaper than ever. I decided on it because it's small (12.1") and built like a tank, and doesn't come with much bloatware.
Specs-wise, I will be running on a Core 2 Duo (I think it's 2.4 Ghz, I'm forgetting right now) with 2 GB RAM (DDR2). The battery life is nice too, I believe about 5-6 hours.
The only downside is the resolution - 1024x768. I don't mind that so much though because I don't plan on using Ableton (at least, not yet) and in Traktor I can work at that resolution without any problems.
In total, I paid $1100 CDN with shipping. Discounts included 50% off all upgrades and 25% off the final price as well (though I can't find a coupon for that anymore).
Right now the laptop is in the mail and will arrive in a couple weeks. If you have any questions, feel free to ask.
I should note, however, I'm sure I could've paid half the price to get a laptop that would do the same thing. But I'm sort of an impulse buyer :-\
does anyone know if an Eee PC or similar can run traktor? then can just hook it up to a bigger monitor if i need to.
specs here:
http://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/Asus_...7X/version.asp
Eee PC should be able to run Traktor, though that wouldnt be giving you much room at all to grow. Say if you wanted to also route your audio to Ableton you would need more processing power and more ram.
and aldo make sure that that pc have a cd drive....many small models like that they dont come wit cd drive:mad:
Just adding my two cents, i have a toshiba satellite a205, it is intel dual core, with only 1gb (9will upgrade soon), I am running traktor le, and have used it for 4 gigs with no problems at all, running traktor all night (7 hours) each time, I was very impressed, especially with all of the concerns with vista ( i did get rid of the garbage software and optimize). I also have a dell tower with traktor 3.3 which also performs well. My toshiba purchase was a quick fix to not transport my tower to each gig, but a mac is my goal, I have been blessed with the opportunity to use my friends mac and i was really impressed, however I can't see the difference from what I know regarding my satellite's tested performance, am I a hype victim?
You're a total victim for the hype, I'm not being sarcastic.Quote:
Originally Posted by newvintage
I mean, you've had NO problems with your Windows laptop, why the hell would you want to switch? If anything I'd rather run it on XP, but since you're fine on Vista I'd even leave the OS alone for now too.
I am starting to believe this myself, maybe I can re-allocate funds to building my PA system. it's kind of enlightening to read your own thoughts, even though I am starting to question my own logic.
Completely no use for using mac man. Why would you..
Nowadays, hardwarematically, a mac is just the same as another PC. The built in soundcard isn't even that great. The only thing you'd buy a mac for is the operating system. Some people say it is more stable than XP. But what do they compare it to? If you shut off all unneeded background processes on XP and only run traktor, i am pretty sure it'll be just as stable.
It's just the old idea people got about macs since the nineties, when microsoft was doing crap stuff and apple came with some pretty neet ideas.
It's not just that, it's also people who don't know what they're talking about spreading the hype that Macs are the way to go. Especially when you see big name DJs using them live.
Alot of PC's and Macs nowdays are using the exact same sound chipsets, so there's no difference in audio quality at all. For example, i have the same chipset that you would find in a macbook pro.Quote:
Originally Posted by barf
You are pretty right with that statement, but thats not a negative or minor thing, the OS is what makes macs so freakn good. I mean the hardware is also really nicely built with heaps of nice features etc.Quote:
Originally Posted by barf
If you use MacOS much you will understand why it is so good, and the fact that MacOS is my experience has been more stable/reliable then any of my PCs (or which I have had many), but not by heaps. The main thing ive found is that issues with MacOS have been easy to solve, on my windows comps has often ment a reinstall of windows. Virus's also dont really cause a problem for Macs, where as I've had a few of my windows installs fuck over / get slow / die cos of spyware/virii.
For me the workflow on a mac because of some of the features is far better (spaces, hotcorners, expose, timemachine, screencap, etc etc), but thats mostly as I use it as a graphic designer where that functionality is actually quite important. Its helpful for music performance but not as vital.
In terms of hardware mac has a few nice things.
First they are way more pretty then any PC laptop... imo
Second the touch pad is fucking brilliant, especially for ableton the multi-touch functionality are awesome! I waaaay prefer it over a mouse.
.. thats about it actually, other then that its the same as a PC except faaar more expensive (macbook pro anyway), macbooks arent too bad, worth it imo if you have the $ to spend.
Most people dont need a mac for music stuff, its purely nice to have, and personally for my main comp I wouldnt have anything else as its is just sooooo much nicer to use then windows imo. In saying that I will always have a PC machine as well.