How do Producers Find the RIGHT computer

Status
Not open for further replies.
?

-/-

Member
I've made a few threads on this topic lately and if you look at my recent posts you can tell im struggling with running things smoothly in Fruity Loops...Which really got me thinking...Do you think these producers run into latency issues or slow/crashing plugins? Like i've seen various videos of dudes like cardiak,metro, sonny digital, whole 808 mafia making bangers on LAPTOPS with no glitchy static in the background...And we all know those dudes rape nexus,gladiator, etc...So basically how can I get a setup like theirs? Im not a beginner I know what I'm doing, I have an i7 laptop and I run into crashing with this music software at least once a day...it wack as hell
 
Last edited:
guys like that pay techies to customise and fine tune their settings

in some cases you may find that they are using carillion or similar music purposed machines to do the job

me, salem and holland amongst many others have obviously spent time tuning our own systems

there are various hits for tune insert-your-os for music production at google, read a few and start applying the ideas

use sata drives rather than usb drives. If you must use external storage use network connected drives

comparison table for various peripheral busses theoretical speed for data transfer.....

USB 1.0192kb/s
10 base T Etherenet1.25mb/s
USB 2.01.5mb/s
100 base T Ethernet12.5mb/s
ATA-13316.7mb/s
Firewire 40050mb/s
USB 2.0 High60mb/s
Firewire 80080mb/s
1000 base T Ethernet100mb/s
SATA-300375mb/s
USB 3.0625mb/s

and whilst USB 3.0 offers the highest theoretical speeds, it is still lumbered with a few layers of os protocol that will stifle that speed

use internally connected soundcards (PCI slots and variants thereof) or at least soundcards that connect via firewire or ethernet (less common, but available)

only configure your machine for essential tasks - i.e have a second machine for lyrics, a 3rd machine for internetz and sh1te
 
this is a cool thread. really nice read, though its only 1 reply haha :)

I also hate it when my samples get crushy and my ableton is stuttering at 80% cpu load. Im running a 2007 mac book pro - I know - very old.

I wanna get a macbook air 11" with core i5 - from what i've read on ableton's forums, this is a good chose. not perfect, but good. sooner or later i want to buy an iMac but for now i invest in a small/light notebook so i can make music under the way.
 
Yo man Im gonna consult you and Salem when Im looking into my next machine...Probably gonna go with a desktop but Im really leaning towards a Mac just because i mean come on, its gotta be the industry standard for some reason.
 
EDIT* Im looking at this carillon website...Is this stuff legit? And random question but is 32 gigs of ram ever necessary?
 
its incredibly overpriced. Give me a reason to throw down over 2X's as much as a the same spec pc for a mac. If theres a significant performance difference in terms of music production ill save up
 
not only that but lots of ram costs lots of money

I'm intrigued as to which one you are saying is overpriced? can you link tho the one you are considering - prices seem to start at £600 which is reasonable for the value attached to the device in terms of being suited for purpose and customised for purpose
 
One of the things that makes a Mac an attractive proposition to those of us who make music is the fact that there is a very professional digital audio protocol called Core Audio built into the operating system, whereas a protocol such as ASIO must be added to Windows in order to allow your DAW direct access to your audio interface.......So the big question is which is best, Core Audio or ASIO?

If you are using a laptop without an audio interface having a low latency protocol such as Core Audio in place is a no-brainer really, but it only really makes sense if you are actually playing something via a connected MIDI controller as opposed to drawing notes into a piano roll....using a Windows laptop in a similar fashion requires something like ASIO4ALL which I would equate to wearing one size fits all flip flops instead of wearing sneakers that fit, mind you adding an audio interface with proper ASIO drivers changes things quite a bit.
 
I just bought an Audio Interface (supercheap) but to be completely honest, I dont notice a difference between ASIO and TraktorAudio2, and it sorta adds to the inconvenient clutter of USB connections to my laptop. Btw I use a Midi Keyboard and Maschine. Not much of a note-drawer
 
Last edited:
funny thing is with traktor you are probably using asio any way so you wont notice much difference at all
 
jazjetson said:
im willing to bet thats what they are using.

and while they may have same specs doesnt mean they are the same thing. the OS is the real difference.
Click to expand...

Linux is generally available for free, but Apple's flavor of *nix (Mac OS X) is just so special that it's worth the price tag of the computer hardware itself.

(End sarcasm)

jazjetson said:
have fun with driver issues and crashes...
Click to expand...

Have fun spending 70 extra hours of burger-flipping to afford a $600 price premium for equivalent hardware. For many of the people on this forum who make $8-$12 per hour during their day jobs, spending even up to 10 hours configuring a PC to run optimally is a much better value proposition.

If you make enough money that you're using 100 dollar bills to light cigars and wipe your a$$, by all means, buy a Mac. It's a good value proposition for wealthy people who consider their time to be worth much more than their money.

chartgo.png

^ What the chart illustrates is that a Mac is better tuned from the get-go, but a PC has more performance potential.

With a PC, you have more power to make changes.
If you absolutely refuse to tweak your OS in the slightest or have someone else help you, you will see that the Mac will be better for you.
If you tweak your PC to its limits, the PC will blow the Mac out of the water.

The reason Windows computers require all of this tweaking is that Windows computers are used for an extremely wide variety of tasks -- run-of-the-mill office computing, gaming, web kiosks, library computers, print servers, web hosts, and so on. When you install Windows, it has no idea how you're going to be using the computer, so it defaults to a state which isn't excellent for anything in particular. You also have more manufacturers to choose from, and it's up to you to determine which manufacturers have reliability and performance as their priorities.

Mac OS computers, on the other hand, are generally used for multimedia authoring of some sort (music, video, etc.), and come pre-tweaked with this in mind. Because of this, there isn't much room for improvement from their stock state. Keep in mind that Apple's profit margin is amongst the very highest in the computer industry, and that there's a reason why their stock price is so high. It has more to do with profit margin than it has to do with sales volume.

It might help to think of a $1,200 Macbook Pro as a $600-$800 Windows laptop, and then you spent $400-$600 to have a tech come over and perform some moderate tweaks on it for you. ;)

Compatibility is one reason you might get a Mac -- Modern Mac computers can run any PC operating system via Boot Camp, whereas other PCs can run any PC operating system except Mac OSX. If, for some reason, you need something that's Mac-exclusive (i.e., Logic, Final Cut Pro), then it might make sense to get a Mac in spite of the price gouge.

-Ki
Salem Beats
 
Last edited:
Yeah, Traktor Audio 2 is an audio interface with ASIO drivers.

When you configure a laptop for music production you often do so at the expense of portability, so the most portable PC setup you will get is a laptop where the optical drive has been swapped out for a second hard drive and a 25 key MIDI controller with built in audio interface, but a lot of cats end up using a laptop as though it's desktop in which case they should have just bought a tower system and tucked it out of the way.....so I guess the first thing you need to consider when trying to find the right system is how you will actually be using it as opposed to how you think you will be using it.

Regardless of what kind of PC you are using you must optimize the system for music production, you can't just install software and hardware and expect it to behave, you have to cut away any anchors that affect performance, for example it's a good idea to disable any power saving crap. There is a ton of information on teh interwebz in regard to optimizing operating systems for music production.
 
I can't give a PC vs mac comparison since I haven't used PC in ages but to me I would never go back. I think a lot of people can't afford some of the higher priced macs so they make excuses to justify why they don't have one. I'm not saying PC's aren't good and price to spec wise are "faster". But the car with more horsepower doesn't always win the race. It's about handling too.

In my experience macs handle music programs better. Also if you do some research on macs, you can get a Mac mini for under 800 that will be more than powerful enough for most people on this site. You have to do your research fully, not everybody needs a Ferrari if you're just driving to work. And if you really are doing very big projects all the time and need the top of the line, let's face it your computer would only be a fraction of your studio cost, your monitor chain mic chain and what not are gonna run you more than a Mac Pro anyway, so odds are you won't be penny pinching anyway. But for most people making beats and recording their own stuff even the super powerful PC's are overkill.

If you do go the PC route tho I would definitely recommend building one yourself because the ones you get out the store are also packed full of ish you don't need, and you're paying for that stuff too.
 
Well tbh I really like the portability aspect. I do use this computer as pretty much my one-in-all (web,email,light word-processing for school) AND producing. Was that the smartest choice? Probably not, but its a pretty powerful laptop and i'm making better music than I did on my old one but thats just my opinion..lol. Down the road a desktop dedicated to music is an obvious route, but I'm not as computer-savvy as you guys, I know a little more than the avg person but not the nitty gritty of what things do and how they work within the system.

Btw I keep feeling like the whole Win 8 Gui, Metro watever slows down processes a bit.
 
hollandturbine said:
Yeah, Traktor Audio 2 is an audio interface with ASIO drivers.

When you configure a laptop for music production you often do so at the expense of portability, so the most portable PC setup you will get is a laptop where the optical drive has been swapped out for a second hard drive and a 25 key MIDI controller with built in audio interface, but a lot of cats end up using a laptop as though it's desktop in which case they should have just bought a tower system and tucked it out of the way.....so I guess the first thing you need to consider when trying to find the right system is how you will actually be using it as opposed to how you think you will be using it.

Regardless of what kind of PC you are using you must optimize the system for music production, you can't just install software and hardware and expect it to behave, you have to cut away any anchors that affect performance, for example it's a good idea to disable any power saving crap. There is a ton of information on teh interwebz in regard to optimizing operating systems for music production.
Click to expand...

Where can I get a controller with a built in interface?? Sounds expensive but convenient af
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top