KVR Audio

keyman_sam · Post by **keyman_sam** » Fri Oct 06, 2017 3:25 pm

How do I put a Dell D630 Inspiron laptop to good use? It has 3.5GB of RAM, 2Ghz Core2Duo, 70GB HDD. I'm thinking of installing Reason or some such.

Perhaps Energy XT 1.6? Or Cakewalk Sonar 3 (if there's even a license for it)? Something simple and works out of the box.

Some software I have that'll run great in it: Guru, Sample tank, t-racks 1.6, Gigastudio 3, shortcircuit, rubberfilter.

Or I could keep it minimalistic with Energy XT + shortcircuit + z3ta + edison.

Thoughts?

Michael L · Post by **Michael L** » Fri Oct 06, 2017 3:53 pm

MuLab & samples

thecontrolcentre · Post by **thecontrolcentre** » Fri Oct 06, 2017 4:25 pm

I was running Live 9 Suite on a similar spec HP laptop until Ableton dropped support for XP, so if you're on Win7 upward Live should work fine.

paradisebunny · Post by **paradisebunny** » Fri Oct 06, 2017 4:31 pm

How about Reaper + Air Instrument Expansion? Fairly cheap setup that is VERY efficient and the air collection contains some great instruments and all the effects you’ll ever need. I am a big fan and the fact that some of the included things are a bit older only works to your advantage. You can get xpand 2 for about 5€ in the marketplace and from there you can get Instrument expansion upgrade for 60€ or so!

Zexila · Post by **Zexila** » Fri Oct 06, 2017 5:34 pm

Michael L wrote:MuLab & samples

Yeah, MuLab could be just the ticket, resource usage is phenomenal and if you delve deeper into modular side of it, it can be it + some samples as suggested.

dformd · Post by **dformd** » Fri Oct 06, 2017 5:35 pm

Hey keyman_sam:
I imagine Renoise will work smoothly; it's quite light on the CPU, and very stable in my experience.

http://renoise.com

Keeping it really simple: Soundplant works great on older computers. An updated version just came out, but older versions are available on the site. Just QWERTY keyboard sound triggering, but it's solid, well thought out, and fun for jamming.

https://soundplant.org

musical android · Post by **musical android** » Fri Oct 06, 2017 5:42 pm

Going more esoteric- SunVox.
Very cpu efficient. Modular with a lot of creative possibilities effects and instruments.
Free and the song files are interchangeable with the Android ios versions plus Linux and some other O.S
Actively developed as well...

dformd · Post by **dformd** » Fri Oct 06, 2017 6:26 pm

musical android wrote:Going more esoteric- SunVox.
Very cpu efficient. Modular with a lot of creative possibilities effects and instruments.
Free and the song files are interchangeable with the Android ios versions plus Linux and some other O.S
Actively developed as well...

I can second that.
Actually, many trackers will likely work quite well.
Renoise and SunVox being among the most robust.

In this light I'm wondering if Radium could also be a cool solution. I don't have much experience with it yet, but "on paper" it sure looks cool, and innovative.

http://users.notam02.no/~kjetism/radium/

Buzz and (the much much simpler) milkytracker, among others could also be worth giving a spin.

http://jeskola.net/buzz/
http://milkytracker.titandemo.org

festeringheap · Post by **festeringheap** » Fri Oct 06, 2017 7:41 pm

I have a similarly specced laptop.

I had Reason/Record on it, but I couldn't get too many audio tracks happening.

Reaper could handle 3X as many audio tracks, so I left Reaper on, dumped Record and have Reason 5.

I also test various plugins through Reaper.

Mathematics · Post by **Mathematics** » Sun Oct 08, 2017 5:14 am

You could run it as a slave with Vienna Ensemble Pro.

Pytchblend · Post by **Pytchblend** » Sun Oct 08, 2017 12:22 pm

Another vote vote for Reaper. I have mixed 24-tracks on same CPU and RAM.

bharris22 · Post by **bharris22** » Sun Oct 08, 2017 1:18 pm

I have been running Tracktion Waveform on a lower-powered windows tablet (32 bit) and it is very efficient. I also installed LinPlug Alpha 3, Virsyn Cube and some other older, great sounding synths. Low CPU and sounds great!

LawrenceF · Post by **LawrenceF** » Sun Oct 08, 2017 1:42 pm

How do I put a Dell D630 Inspiron laptop to good use?

My first thought was "porn", but that's not appropriate.

CTStump · Post by **CTStump** » Sun Oct 08, 2017 4:14 pm

bharris22 wrote:I have been running Tracktion Waveform on a lower-powered windows tablet (32 bit) and it is very efficient. I also installed LinPlug Alpha 3, Virsyn Cube and some other older, great sounding synths. Low CPU and sounds great!

Now that T6 is free I highly recommend trying it out. Very efficient on my old core 2 duo system and the color editor is still included. The workflow is a little different(no mixer) but the rack filter is as modular as all get up. The download is a mere 8 mb but the functionality equals about every DAW I'm familiar with minus the onboard effects with full Vst support.

Boy that sounds a little like I'm throwing a sales pitch but as a free download it's quite impressive. If it works out the price of Waveform is really reasonable as well.

Pitch over.

Schmidi · Post by **Schmidi** » Mon Oct 09, 2017 3:19 am

Live/Launchpad and a used apc40?

Find one VSTi and dedicate a midi controller to it.

I treat my old laptops like they are dedicated to 1-2 instruments only. If one crashes in a live setting, I still have others running.

Keep It Simple - what can I do with an old laptop