Recommended laptop for use with Reaper under £700

Player744558585 · 12-03-2020, 06:38 AM

Hi there, I'm looking to upgrade my laptop so I can produce demo's of my original music at home. Could you good people recommend me a laptop that would comfortably be able to run reaper for this task? Many thanks!

domzy · 12-03-2020, 08:51 AM

that kind of depends on what your music consists of - virtual instruments, FX, number of tracks etc.

Player744558585 · 12-03-2020, 10:00 AM

I would be using around 12 tracks per recording, I imagine. Following on from that it's likely I'll record instruments separately using a combination of DI for instruments and XLR input for a condenser mic and some midi for drums and keyboards.

Softsynth · 12-03-2020, 10:16 AM

Generally speaking it's only worth going for a laptop if the computer needs to be portable, in other words you're going out of the home with the computer a lot.
Otherwise you are much better off with a desktop/tower system.
Comparing like-for-like desktop processors and GPUs are typically much more powerful than the cut down versions created for their portable cousins.
Also desktops are far more serviceable and upgradable. Built correctly they are also comfortably more reliable.
Much like your smartphone there's a whole host of compromises being made in a design where everything is squished together in a small space.

Only go laptop if you need the portability.
with a desktop you can choose your own compromises if you don't want super powerful graphics then you can say that money to put towards a more powerful CPU and so on.
With a laptop generally speaking you are going to have to make compromises based on what the manufacturer wants to put in the collection of electronics that makes up the laptop. Components chosen for low-cost and compactness rather than outright performance.

serr · 12-03-2020, 10:20 AM

Just about any half way pro laptop from 2006 to present with a SSD will take care of that and more. (Budget 'Netbook' style maybe not so much.) Spend your money on a good audio interface and mics. Good mic preamps and mics will take you much further.

Some of the virtual instrument or sampler plugins (and using multiple instances of them) can require a higher spec machine made in the last few years. Or mixing 100's of tracks.

Softsynth · 12-03-2020, 10:24 AM

Of course as Serr suggests an SSD drive can transform an older laptop. Also you may be able to pick up some extra memory for an older laptop second-hand for not much money. So you would for instance go for 8 gigabyte for a 64-bit system. Anything more than that is probably an expensive waste for an older laptop.

philh27 · 12-03-2020, 01:33 PM

I've run Reaper on a 4th generation i5 laptop with 8Gb RAM and a 200Gb SSD quite comfortably. I'm just in the process of moving to an i7 desktop with 32Gb of RAM. However that decision has been entirely based on my increasing use of orchestral sample libraries that simply need more memory.

For recording mainly audio rather than virtual instruments an i5 and 8 Gb of RAM will be fine and available for sub £700 easily.

A few additional aspects to consider. Don't go for HDD even if the larger capacity seems tempting, SSD is the way to go. Get an external SSD too, store your projects on that. You may also want to consider getting an external monitor too. I managed with a laptop screen for quite a while, but it is MUCH easier to navigate using a bigger screen.

As others have said, unless you really must have a laptop for space/ portability then consider a desktop or tower, but otherwise you'll be fine with an i5/ IGB RAM laptop.

panicaftermath · 12-03-2020, 03:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by serr

Spend your money on a good audio interface and mics. Good mic preamps and mics will take you much further.

How different are the audio interface options for a laptop and a desktop?

For example if I was thinking of getting a Scarlet 2i2 for laptop use, even though it could also be used on the desktop, is there a preferable option once I have open slots on the mb for a non USB interface? My current interface is a Delta 66 PCI card, which no longer gets new drivers.

When it comes to latency, would a given audio interface perform substantially better under typical desktop specs than typical lappy specs? The delta gives me 2ms, at least that's what Reaper shows. It feels instantaneous.

Player744558585 · 12-04-2020, 02:52 AM

This has been a great help, cheers!

serr · 12-04-2020, 08:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by panicaftermath

How different are the audio interface options for a laptop and a desktop?

For example if I was thinking of getting a Scarlet 2i2 for laptop use, even though it could also be used on the desktop, is there a preferable option once I have open slots on the mb for a non USB interface? My current interface is a Delta 66 PCI card, which no longer gets new drivers.

When it comes to latency, would a given audio interface perform substantially better under typical desktop specs than typical lappy specs? The delta gives me 2ms, at least that's what Reaper shows. It feels instantaneous.

Obviously a laptop doesn't have pci slots to plug a card in directly. They do make thunderbolt connecting pci card cages though so you could in fact run one with a laptop.

It sounds like you do live performance through the computer or maybe live sound? Something where low latency is relevant.

The thunderbolt and pci connecting interfaces will feature the lowest latency as a rule of thumb.

panicaftermath · 12-04-2020, 01:07 PM

I don't do live house sound at all, and rarely record more than one track at a time.

A Scarlett Solo would likely be enough, but I may get the 2i2 as it's got two line and instrument ins rather than one. That would make it just a touch more useful (and probably more appealing if for some reason I decide to sell it on ebay.)

Looking into PCIe interfaces, I quickly abandoned all interest, as most of them are 5x to 10x more expensive, and seem to assume they will be connected to either mix desk or other hardware front end to be separately acquired.

My Delta 66 PC card and Omni box still work well (or did last time I checked) but they are no longer supported beyond Windows 7.

serr · 12-04-2020, 02:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by panicaftermath

I don't do live house sound at all, and rarely record more than one track at a time.

A Scarlett Solo would likely be enough, but I may get the 2i2 as it's got two line and instrument ins rather than one. That would make it just a touch more useful (and probably more appealing if for some reason I decide to sell it on ebay.)

Looking into PCIe interfaces, I quickly abandoned all interest, as most of them are 5x to 10x more expensive, and seem to assume they will be connected to either mix desk or other hardware front end to be separately acquired.

My Delta 66 PC card and Omni box still work well (or did last time I checked) but they are no longer supported beyond Windows 7.

Do you perform with a MIDI instrument where you are playing with a VST instrument plugin and thus need low latency for no perceivable lag?

If you aren't doing something like that, you don't need low latency. Recording takes with microphones, you have the option to use the cuemix low latency mixer commonly found built into audio interfaces. Spending extra for low latency in such a scenario would be a waste of resources.

That's how I'd go about think through what to invest in.

You absolutely will pay premium for a lower latency capable thunderbolt or pci connecting interface.