KVR Audio

johnny2johnny · Post by **johnny2johnny** » Wed Aug 22, 2007 7:26 am

hp, lenovo, macbookpro

himalaya · Post by **himalaya** » Wed Aug 22, 2007 1:39 pm

johnny2johnny wrote:hp, lenovo, macbookpro

I'm sorry but you need to specify models, as both, the HP and Lenovo make laptops that are and aren't suitable for audio, particularly if you are going to use a firewire card.

To give you an example :
Lenovo T60 - recommended due to a T.I. chipset
Lenovo r61 - NOT recommended due to a Ricoh chipset

HP Compaq 6510 ( the business line) NOT recommended due to a Ricoh chipset
HP NX7400 - recommended , TI chipset.

etc. etc.

It's not that simple, I'm affraid.

For US residents check out ADK laptops ( made for audio), shame they aren't distributed in the UK, or similar specified laptops made here....

xolax · Post by **xolax** » Thu Aug 23, 2007 4:10 am

I always wondered how Toshiba laptops held up against other ones. I use a Toshiba lappy for all my production (will be getting a brand new one next year) and would like to stick with Toshiba as Ive seen people say that they are quality laptops and mine has held up fairly good over the three years that Ive had it (yes, Im behind the technology with my single core CPU lol). Whats your people's opinnion?

johnny2johnny · Post by **johnny2johnny** » Thu Aug 23, 2007 4:18 am

himalaya wrote:
johnny2johnny wrote:hp, lenovo, macbookpro
I'm sorry but you need to specify models, as both, the HP and Lenovo make laptops that are and aren't suitable for audio, particularly if you are going to use a firewire card.

To give you an example :
Lenovo T60 - recommended due to a T.I. chipset
Lenovo r61 - NOT recommended due to a Ricoh chipset

HP Compaq 6510 ( the business line) NOT recommended due to a Ricoh chipset
HP NX7400 - recommended , TI chipset.

etc. etc.

It's not that simple, I'm affraid.

For US residents check out ADK laptops ( made for audio), shame they aren't distributed in the UK, or similar specified laptops made here....

yeah, your right... i probably shoulda specified the models... the T60 is a great price lappy, and you can get it ( i think ) for less than 1500 dollars with a 7200 rpm disk, and even possibly 4 gigs of ram... we are talking lotsa machine over there for a good price!!!! + that does include most likely a 2.2, or even a 2.4 on the santa rosa chipset... I mean, that is incredible pricing going on at lenovo right now.... gotta take a look at that...

I am gonna say some more...um, I am not too big a fan of the custom built music laptops, I did some reserch, apparently there is only so much that can be done with a laptop... the way its built and all. If you buy a custom built music desktop, you can get a really clean machine with the wires tied down, and stuff really cleaned up. if your going to spend the two thousand dollars on a " custom music laptop " your best bet I think is to go macbook pro....

yeah you lose some software options, but not really if you want to do bootcamp, and you gain the clean engineering of an apple, and the str8 out of the box no confusion on firewire, and also the added benifit of a clean unix bassed os....

kranial · Post by **kranial** » Thu Aug 23, 2007 11:20 am

ground noise on laptops is often caused by the earth wire in the plug. Try opening up the plug and cutting the earth and that should stop the ground noise

himalaya · Post by **himalaya** » Thu Aug 23, 2007 4:49 pm

xolax wrote:I always wondered how Toshiba laptops held up against other ones. I use a Toshiba lappy for all my production (will be getting a brand new one next year) and would like to stick with Toshiba as Ive seen people say that they are quality laptops and mine has held up fairly good over the three years that Ive had it (yes, Im behind the technology with my single core CPU lol). Whats your people's opinnion?

There are accounts of major problems with some Toshibas. This is to do with the fan interfaring with the audio when it comes on, producing dropouts in your DAW.

Do a search for 'Toshiba' on Sound On Sound PC forum:
http://www.soundonsound.com/forum/postl ... oard=PCMus

This is a shame, as I have found a fantastic deal on a Toshiba Tecra A9:
- Texas Instruments firewire chipset + buscard.
- Santa Rosa spec: with C2D T7300, 2GB RAM,
- 160 GB HD
- PCMCIA PC Card ( this is now very rare, most manufacturers now provide Express Card slots, but there are no expres card audiocards yet...not even any news of forthcoming ones)
- 15'4 1680x1050 screen resolution

Just all around brilliant specification, with only the graphics not the best, but still much better than the previous generation of shared graphics, all for £850.

BUT ! Due to the above mentioned problems, it's risky getting one.

UltraJv · Post by **UltraJv** » Thu Aug 23, 2007 5:10 pm

Adambomb337 wrote:What I am most concerned about is the ground noise. I have a dell laptop and either that or the m-audio mobile pre usb is causing A LOT of horrible ground noise.

What do you all know about ground noise and laptops?

What are the advantages/disadvantages to having a tablet?

What is it like running windows on a macbook pro?

Here's the thread about the interface/sound card:

http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... 84#2668884

Ground noise happens on almost any laptop. You cant specify one that dosnt do it because its not a spec. As was suggested earlier, you will have to remove the ground from the laptop. Theres no point in buying another laptop to get round it. Thats just wasting money.

griels · Post by **griels** » Thu Aug 23, 2007 5:42 pm

Thanks everyone for the info so far - I'm checking out the HP and Lenovo laptop models mentioned.

So, shared memory graphics really isn't an issue at all these days?

It doesn't make clicks/pops even a smidgen more likely?

Sorry, once bitten twice shy.

I'm much happier to compromise on overall performance/features (e.g. an older processor or shorter battery life) if it reduces the risk of audio glitches.

himalaya · Post by **himalaya** » Thu Aug 23, 2007 5:44 pm

Some have suggested that by doing what you say, in case of the power supply breaking down on a laptop with a metal case ( some Lenovo, HP Compaq, Acer TravelMate to name a few) you risk a lethal dose of electric shock.

There is a safer way. Using a DI box ( available from many companies).

ground noise on laptops is often caused by the earth wire in the plug. Try opening up the plug and cutting the earth and that should stop the ground noise

himalaya · Post by **himalaya** » Thu Aug 23, 2007 5:50 pm

Griels,
One very helpful individual on the SOS forums says that the current Santa Rosa shared graphics ( Intel GMA X3100) is all you need for VSTi production. It's only when you throw in video playback to your VSTI mix a more powerful card may be needed.

griels · Post by **griels** » Thu Aug 23, 2007 6:10 pm

himalaya wrote:Griels,
One very helpful individual on the SOS forums says that the current Santa Rosa shared graphics ( Intel GMA X3100) is all you need for VSTi production. It's only when you throw in video playback to your VSTI mix a more powerful card may be needed.

Hmm, that wasn't TableForTwo was it?

I was rather concerned by this post:

"If running muliple VST's and then rendering into audio/wav, then shared graphics is not an issue,
unless one is running lots of samples streaming from RAM.
Rather a fast Intel (not AMD) dual core cpu with sufficient L2 cache would be more useful.
For the mentioned NC6320 that would imply a T72/74/7600 cpu with 4MB L2 cache. "

This implies to me that shared memory graphics do still cause memory bandwidth issues - and as I do use a lot of large samples, this is something I am concerned about.

himalaya · Post by **himalaya** » Thu Aug 23, 2007 6:18 pm

Yes.

I use large sample libraries as well. So... the laptop I have just ordered uses a dedicated garphics card ( albeit a simple one).
I shall report over the weekend if this particlular lappy is staying or going back.
I just need to buy the Echo Indigo card and the testing will begin.

griels · Post by **griels** » Thu Aug 23, 2007 9:58 pm

himalaya wrote:Yes.

I use large sample libraries as well. So... the laptop I have just ordered uses a dedicated garphics card ( albeit a simple one).
I shall report over the weekend if this particlular lappy is staying or going back.
I just need to buy the Echo Indigo card and the testing will begin.

Excellent.. Cheers..

I was looking at some of the cheapo laptops with ATI Radeon Xpress 200M graphics, but it appears most of them are using shared memory, and even if not, I'm not sure how the PCI bandwidth issues are with this chipset. And no idea whether they have the TI chipset. The guy from ADK gave me the impression that the presence of this chipset related to the PCI controller or something, i.e. laptops without it had poor PCI performance?

To reiterate, I really don't want to spend more than £500 (used or new) - I'm happy to compromise on processor speed, just as long as it's a Core 2 Duo of some kind and supports Cardbus. I just want to get the basics right then I can add RAM, replace HDs later,etc etc...

Chuck E. Jesus · Post by **Chuck E. Jesus** » Thu Aug 23, 2007 10:05 pm

kranial wrote:ground noise on laptops is often caused by the earth wire in the plug. Try opening up the plug and cutting the earth and that should stop the ground noise

man, people really don't know much about grounding...don't do what this guy says, there's a reason they put a ground plug on electrical equipment...if you have to in a tight situation, use a ground lift adaptor, but don't cut your ground!

griels · Post by **griels** » Wed Aug 29, 2007 6:08 pm

himalaya wrote:Yes.

I use large sample libraries as well. So... the laptop I have just ordered uses a dedicated garphics card ( albeit a simple one).
I shall report over the weekend if this particlular lappy is staying or going back.
I just need to buy the Echo Indigo card and the testing will begin.

OK dude, fill us in - what's the gossip?

What laptop did you go for? Are there teething troubles?

best laptop for playing live?