Help: best laptop for music production

[Hollowway]

Dell's customer service is amazing, at least in parts of europe.

Uhhh, you must live in a nice IT oasis, because in the US Dell’s CS suuuuuucks. It’s “have you tried rebooting” and then “you’ll need to reinstall windows.”

I’ve given up on buying most PCs. Dells don’t reliably last - even XPS. Just too many incidents of track pad issues, weird missing DLL issues (I’m looking at you, bit defender), etc. Same with HP. I absolutely adore MS Surfaces, though. Zero issues over years with them. They remind me of my 9 year old MacBook Air.

I think the take home message here is that if you’re going to use Logic, get the M1 mac. If you can use the M1 Mac in general, and your daw is Mac based, seriously consider the M1 Mac. If not, I’d go PC, as I just can’t rationalize the price of the 16” MBP given that it has the intel chipset still.

 

[Boris_VTR]

Also Logic Pro (now withouth x in the name) is fantastic DAW for reasonable price. around 240 eur/$ you are set for all future updates. And is professional tool. Studio one pro licence is around 500 (not sure about upgrades here). Reaper is more affordable but licence covers 2 major version updates.
Having sad that I believe any mid range laptop + usb interface (focusrite, presonus) could have fantastic results in home recording.

 

[TedEH]

In my experience, almost all IT / customer service is a crap shoot - so I try not to factor that into much if I figure I can source support from elsewhere if needed. Tech stuff has the advantage that most problems can be solved with a google search or asking the right questions on the right forums.

 

[InHiding]

I don't know what people consider fast on a Windows laptop but after debloating I can run Neural DSP standalones at 1.3ms reported latency on a Windows laptop. Roundtrip latency is of course higher and reported is not accurate, but I'd be very surprised if anyone can reach this kind of a system response on a normal Win10. When I'm using Reaper I have to use somewhat higher latencies but it's nowhere near problematic for me.

 

[Ataraxia2320]

I don't know what people consider fast on a Windows laptop but after debloating I can run Neural DSP standalones at 1.3ms reported latency on a Windows laptop. Roundtrip latency is of course higher and reported is not accurate, but I'd be very surprised if anyone can reach this kind of a system response on a normal Win10. When I'm using Reaper I have to use somewhat higher latencies but it's nowhere near problematic for me.

I'm getting 1.1ms of latency on Archetype Nolly @ 48 samples buffer size. No tinkering with windows required. What interface are you using?

 

[InHiding]

I'm getting 1.1ms of latency on Archetype Nolly @ 48 samples buffer size. No tinkering with windows required. What interface are you using?

Antelope Audio Zen Tour. Could you tell me what laptop you are using?

 

[Ataraxia2320]

Antelope Audio Zen Tour. Could you tell me what laptop you are using?

Dell XPS 15 9550 (i7 6700HQ). RME Babyface pro FS interface.

It's definitely not your interface that's the problem. I guess RME just know how to write the fudge out of drivers.

 

[TedEH]

I honestly suspect that some people's issues they have with Windows and latency is more about the fact that they're using a laptop than using Windows. Any desktop I've had barely bats an eye at audio tasks, but I've had laptops before that just didn't quite want to cooperate.

Maybe you could count it as a point in Apple's favour, but I think their advantage in this realm is going to come from the fact that there's much less fragmentation in hardware, so you're maybe more likely to get a combination of hardware and drivers that want to cooperate. Of course, if you're talking M1 specifically, that advantage is a bit negated by how new the platform is.

 

[chipchappy]

ITT: "I know you like windows. They're good too...... but you should get a mac!"

 

[Hollowway]

ITT: "I know you like windows. They're good too...... but you should get a mac!"

It’s not a Mac - it’s specifically the M1 Mac. It’s specifically that chip that we’re excited about, so it’s more of an intel vs M1 discussion.

 

[Ataraxia2320]

ITT: "I know you like windows. They're good too...... but you should get a mac!"

To be fair the new m1 macs are a game changer in low cost performance until the big chip manufacturers step up to the plate.

If I buy a new computer in the next few years I'll definitely be considering a mac for the first time since 2010.

 

[TedEH]

To be fair the new m1 macs are a game changer according to youtubers and some benchmarks but nobody has really tried them for enough time to really get over the novelty

FTFY. It's still kinda weird to push so hard for them - they're still Macs so it's still Mac vs Windows. If you could stick an M1 in a Windows PC, then maybe it would make sense to be so adamant about them.

 

[Lorcan Ward]

Do any of you guys work with a 13" laptop? I need to get a new laptop but it could be summer before the 16" MacBooks are out.

 

[Ataraxia2320]

Do any of you guys work with a 13" laptop? I need to get a new laptop but it could be summer before the 16" MacBooks are out.

15 inch is as small as I would go personally. Cant imagine doing edits in a pinch on a 13 inch screen. I'm usually at a desk where I throw the mix window on the laptop screen and the edit window on a 50 inch tv.

 

[coreysMonster]

Do any of you guys work with a 13" laptop? I need to get a new laptop but it could be summer before the 16" MacBooks are out.

I don't like using 13 inch for casual things, let alone doing any kind of work.

 

[Mathemagician]

Do any of you guys work with a 13" laptop? I need to get a new laptop but it could be summer before the 16" MacBooks are out.

I personally could not. Last had one about a decade ago and I hated even using a word processor on the thing due to screen size. Others however may have no issue.

I’m waiting until the 16”mbp comes out with the new chipset before I buy. Gotta be patient, lol.

 

[DudeManBrother]

I use a 13” mbpro and don’t have any trouble with it. It’s all I’ve ever used though, so maybe I’m missing out? I have it hooked up to a 47” monitor when needed, but I typically only use that if I’m working on someone’s music and they’re in my studio with me. Otherwise it’s just the 13” screen.

 

[budda]

I use a 13” mbpro and don’t have any trouble with it. It’s all I’ve ever used though, so maybe I’m missing out? I have it hooked up to a 47” monitor when needed, but I typically only use that if I’m working on someone’s music and they’re in my studio with me. Otherwise it’s just the 13” screen.

I didnt mind my 13 mbp, and my new 27 feels weird to look at lol.

 

[chipchappy]

i have a 2014 13" mbpro with logic, plugins, spitfire albion one, drum libraries... I use an axe fx 2 instead of amp modeling so that saves some cpu, but i've been making music without a major crashing and/or latency issue for 6 years and havent thought twice about it

 

[Peg Dizzler]

I'm surprised this is already to the 3rd page and almost nothing has been said about inherent latency in different chipsets.

Whatever system you choose, I'd advise to make it an Intel-based one, no matter what OS you like (Windows, Mac, Linux). I don't have any experience with the M1 chip (yet).

AMD chipsets, however, STILL have a terrible inherently bad latency--do the tests yourself! Download DPC Latency Checker (by thesycon) or LatencyMon. Even an old Pentium 4 system has better latency for audio purposes than the newest chipsets that are paired with the Ryzen CPUs. Latency is not worse on systems "just because it's a laptop" either.

It mainly has to do with:
- What chipset you have (and in turn, what CPU--but a faster CPU will not bring down the latency, unless software is bogging something down)
- Whether you have wifi and if it's enabled
- What other devices you have in device manager--USB stuff, touchscreen stuff, disable what you don't need (or even disable stuff you do need, just to test with DPC latency checker and see if that's the problem hardware)
- What software you're running, to the extent of: drivers, audio software, and is anything peaking out your CPUs/other busses on the system