Help ! Laptop For Ableton

[Ramnba]

Hey there thanks in advance so i am about to start my music production (ableton) stuff for that I primarily need a laptop in my personal experience i have used windows a bit never used mac kinda curious as "THEY" say Mac always & okay its a pretty simple expensive machine but i am buying 2016 high spec 512gb model (kinda budgetary) :
(Correct me if i am wrong)

-it's kinda cheap from 2017 and its like 10 % performance ? Right

-as my main concern is music production i really don't want to compromise on performance the requirements of ableton changes rarely ? so i think macbook would be more than enough and can handle stuff really well ? And will lead me few good years after i become pro :p

- (If budget is low) on 256gb model any suggestions on managment of 256gb capacity with ableton ?

-or should i buy windows 7700hq laptops(dell 7577/asus zenbook pro ux550vw /xps 15/yoga920) or 8th gen which can outperform macbook and give me bang for the buck ? I know os but they say its okaish
Please share your personal experiences and opinions and surely let me know asap

[mgw38]

I am using Ableton on a late 2016 MacBook Pro (maxed out 13 inch with touchbar) and am very happy with it. Windows vs Mac is a bit of a personal preference. I have some Windows machines as well, but I find Windows generally extremely annoying. On Mac things simply work right away (or never ). Performance wise you will get more bang for the buck from a Windows system. I would recommend Macs primarily of you subscribe to the entire Apple ecosystem. The various Apple platforms just work together extremely well.

[V0RT3X]

Sorry sorry gosh uhh no more cracks or plugins but please help i am stuck with my laptop decision ;(

I’d recommend finding a used late-2016 mbp with these specs.


https://www.notebookcheck.net/Apple-Mac ... 702.0.html

Still plenty useful and powerful enough for most music software. It will run Ableton just fine.

[Ramnba]

Alright thanks apart from just fine to good any other recommendations? ?

[mgw38]

What bout 15inch i think man it will give me decent years to grow and be a professional?

13inch vs 15inch is really a question in terms of mobility. If you plan to move around a lot, a 13inch is better. I have an external 27inch monitor at home, so laptop screen size is really a very secondary decision. Imo overall weight of the laptop is more important because you will very likely carry it around a lot.

The system will not make you a professional, btw. Any reasonably current system will be powerful enough to allow you to practice in order to become a professional.

[Ramnba]

Cmon man 13 inch dual core 15 inch quad core dude ????

[mgw38]

If performance is your only concern than Mac is the wrong choice to begin with.

[thecontrolcentre]

17" quad core here running Live nice and smooth, with 24gb ram & 3 SSDs. I'd recommend getting one built by SCAN or any quality custom builder.

[Jax Pok]

Go for more cores but good cores ableton runs each track on it's own thread if it can find enough. Ram is secondary if you're not using lots of sample based plugins don't get less than 4GB RAM if it's for none sample based for sample based like Keyscape and SSD4 I would at least have 8GB RAM

[generaldiomedes]

If money is no object, go for a workstation with an overclocked HK processer (single thread performance is your ultimate bottleneck) otherwise yes go for a 7700-HQ. 4 cores is the minimum for any processor intensive application these days in my opinion.

Personally I am waiting until the next gen of HQ processors come out. I have a 4720HQ laptop, and if the CPU benchmarks can be believed, the latest 7700HQ processors are only 20% faster. Jury seems to be out on whether higher clocked memory makes that much of a difference (maybe only in loading large sample files??).

SSD helps a lot for loading those giant sample libraries and saving your projects, but not for rendering and VST count before crackling. I would get a minimum 128 GB SSD for application and system files, really does save a lot of time. One advantage of PC - you can get a 128 SSD + 1 TB HDD combo, not possible in Macbooks.

Ensure you have at least 16 GB of RAM esp. if you use a lot of sample libs. Ableton seems to use at least 6 GB like nothing.

Hidef screen I think I would use a lot as those DAW screens get very busy, but not before a I got the processor, SSD and RAM I wanted. 15" vs 17"? Tough to say. 15" is easier to use on an airplane or a crowded bus for example. You can always get a second monitor for home use.

If you ever want to use it for gaming someday, look at a gaming laptop with a current gen video card.

Mac is only slightly faster I think if you are concerned about round trip latency with your audio interface (we are talking like 3-4 ms) because of core audio. Personally, I don't think they are worth the extra $$$ but are definitely nice.

[kevinstarc7]

10 Best Laptops for Music Production and Recording

Apple 15" MacBook Pro
MSI GE72MVR APACHE
MacBook Air (Latest and Cheap
Lenovo Y520
Acer Aspire VX 15
HP 15-ay018nr 15.6-Inch
ASUS ZenBook Pro
HP Spectre x360
ASUS ROG Strix GL753VD
Dell Inspiron 15

[Apratim]

I am using a hp laptop from 2015 with an amd quadcore cpu and its more than engouh for my current use

So yours might be enough too

But the battery life is awful needs to be plugged in all the time(as it is with all other gaming laptop)

[neverenoughfunk]

just purchased a HP Spectra with 8 generation i7, 16 gb of ram, 512 gb ssd with external 512 gb ssd, etc... i run komplete ultimate (mainly the sampled instruments), specstrasonics stuff (omnisphere, trillian, keyscapes, stylus rmx), etc... and i am totally satisfied... basically, it is a entry/entry level gaming machine i.e. have a 2 gb dedicated video card... but it purrrrrrrrrrrrrs...

[re23071998]

New 8th gen coffee lake h (8750h) cpu just released, its 6 cores, 12 threads and it is 50% faster than 7th gen kaby lake hq (7700hq) in terms of multi core performance.

availabe laptop with 8750h:
https://www.notebookcheck.net/Gigabyte- ... 594.0.html
https://www.notebookcheck.net/Asus-ROG- ... 956.0.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_2ptII-7DY

[re23071998]

just purchased a HP Spectra with 8 generation i7, 16 gb of ram, 512 gb ssd with external 512 gb ssd, etc... i run komplete ultimate (mainly the sampled instruments), specstrasonics stuff (omnisphere, trillian, keyscapes, stylus rmx), etc... and i am totally satisfied... basically, it is a entry/entry level gaming machine i.e. have a 2 gb dedicated video card... but it purrrrrrrrrrrrrs...

i7-8550u??
how big is your project?

interested with Lenovo IdeaPad 720u-14ikb which has the same cpu