Laptop music studio

We currently have an old iMac attached to a clavinova, allowing our eldest to compose and record material via a USB MIDI interface into Garageband, the free software that comes with iMacs. Unfortunately the iMac is slowly dying. It was already replaced as our family desktop 3 years ago so I don't think it owes us anything.

Anyway, I am in the position of needing to replace a computer that has already been replaced - in short I can't afford to buy a spanking new iMac; in any case, we could probably do with a laptop in the house as our eldest is now in high school.

I have absolutely no knowledge of the PC scene. I haven't bought one for about 20 years. What I need is a laptop that will allow office basics (I'll go the open source route with that), but most particularly, will happily cope with some sort of mid-range music studio package.

Does anyone have any experience of this? What laptop specs should I be looking at, and what are the software titles I should be considering? And how much is this all going to cost ...

[qasdfdsaq]

Pretty much anything with a full-fat x86 processor will do, audio hasn't been computationally challenging to modern computers for a decade or so now. If you're looking to buy new, any old Intel Core iX laptop will do.

[Uncle Peter]

Have a look at Reaper DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) on the software side. Although not free: it's only $60 for a personal licence which great value given that it's a fully featured audio workstation. Runs under native Windows or emulation under WINE as well as OSX. The core application is 64 bit too as is the plugin support.

Although somewhat more complex than Garageband the basics are pretty straightforward to master and there are loads of tutorial videos on Youtube.

To put into perspective what you can achieve hardware wise. Under 32 bit Logic 9: My old Core2Duo Macbook Pro with 4GB of memory was quite happy with mixing 24 tracks of audio using various plugins including SSL Waves and Oxford Sonnox on every track.

mix.jpg

CPU overhead becomes a factor when you start using complex virtual instruments such as Omnisphere but working with audio the only thing you really need to factor when working with multitracks is a fairly well behaved hard disk, preferrably 7200RPM and not hosting your system or swap volumes.

Very helpful, thank you.

Eldest got his Blue Peter badge by re-creating the Doctor Who theme in GarageBand and sending in a video of himself playing it back and explaining how he did it. He absolutely loves doing this stuff and he's been gutted that the old iMac on top of the piano has been out of action for the past couple of months. He'll be delighted if we can get him up and running again and so will we.

I don't mind paying for the music software. We were almost at the point of looking for the next step up from GarageBand on the Mac anyway, as GarageBand won't output midi back to the Clavinova, which was a shame as it meant he couldnt play his stuff back out on its big meaty stereo speakers.

Does Reaper have a half decent set of virtual instruments? He's got quite adept at inventing his own synth sounds but it's good to have something to get going with. He complains that the suite they have at school doesn't have any. Can't quite remember what that one's called.

[Uncle Peter]

That's brilliant, your eldest must have some talent there to nurture

Unfortunately Reaper isn't the one-stop-shop that Logic X is on the Mac and doesn't really come with anything other than a rudimentary synth and sampler module. All of the basic effects modules you would need are included though.

There are loads of free VSTi's available if you want to give things a test-drive before shelling out any cash on software. For starters:

Firebird 2 is a brilliant, free synth module

Proteus VX is a free sampler

And fill yer boots here: http://www.vstplanet.com/Instruments...nthesizers.htm

Finally, I know you've set sights on the Windows/Open source route at this point but have you considered a basic Mac Mini + Logic Pro X ?

[tweetiepooh]

There are Linux distro's designed for the purpose. How good they work for your case I can't say but it's free and maybe worth a try.

Originally Posted by Uncle Peter

That's brilliant, your eldest must have some talent there to nurture

Unfortunately Reaper isn't the one-stop-shop that Logic X is on the Mac and doesn't really come with anything other than a rudimentary synth and sampler module. All of the basic effects modules you would need are included though.

There are loads of free VSTi's available if you want to give things a test-drive before shelling out any cash on software. For starters:

Firebird 2 is a brilliant, free synth module

Proteus VX is a free sampler

And fill yer boots here: http://www.vstplanet.com/Instruments...nthesizers.htm

Finally, I know you've set sights on the Windows/Open source route at this point but have you considered a basic Mac Mini + Logic Pro X ?

I looked at a Mac Mini but it seemed rather expensive for the spec, plus it's not laptop portable. I dunno, maybe it would be better, but if I'm going to have to buy new hardware I'd like it to have the widest possible range of uses.

I wouldn't rule it out though. I've been running Macs for almost 15 years so it would certainly be easier.

Being a bit (!) of a Jean Michel Jarre fan, I know l quite a lot of people who play synths, compose and produce music and some do it professionally.

One of them who used to produce tracks a few years back has recently got back into composing and producing on a Windows PC. He has now dumped this and gone down the Mac route - the main issue was the MIDI latency. For music production the majority have gone the Mac route.

Yes, as of right now, I'm looking very hard at a basic Mac Mini (one Amazon seller is doing it for under £370) and an HDMI connectable monitor with speakers, around the £100 mark. The Mac Mini seems to come with everything pre-loaded so the boy can get back on to GarageBand immediately, and we can decide at our leisure what to spend on software upgrades.