Laptop Advice For Mixvibes

[BennyB]

I'll write down a couple of things, you should do with the machine.

It is way powerful, but i'll have some tips for Win7.

You should format the whole stuff, and just reinstall the system, I'm sure you can do that, but try to save stuff.
But, there is something else: If you have some friends with big PC-s, take your HDD out, and bring that to those guys. Simply put the HDD in their system, and don't let that machine to boot from.
This way, you can defrag normally inmovable files on your HDD, and find viruses more efficiently, then when you have an OS run from that HDD.

But if you reinstall do this:

Make partitions on the disc, but make a separate partition for documents. You windows partition should contain the OS, the anti virus or firewall software, the browser, and the DJ softwares ONLY. And nothing else.
If the other softwares and docs are on a separate one it is all fine. The reason is documents for example music are small files, copied changed a lot of times while galery refreshes, and deleting or downloading new, leaving small empty spaces on the HDD, and combining it with windows's file arrangement, you most lilkely get these blanks filled up with important files, keeping reading hard and slow. So keep all docs and stuff away from your OS partition. Win7 will actually like it, because of security measures, that particion will be protected by the OS.

One other note: open Control Panel/ System and Security / System /Advanced System settings
You'll get a wondow up, click on the Advanced Tab, and at the performance section click Settings. Under that window also find the advanced tab, and choose "backgroud Services". Since the sound driver is a background service, this will help a lot. This made my mixes so stable, when I clicked on this option.

And on last note: When you mix, and don't need network connections, switch them off, and turn of every firewall and anti-virus software, and of course all the non needed non windows services in the msconfig window.

(Some programes have an option that keeps the application start on boot, although you turned it of in the MsConfig window. In these cases you can disable these option in the software's preferences, settings, or options menu.)

[CJB]

Sorry for resurrecting this thread, but it seemed appropriate to post here rather than starting a new one.

My 9 year old Evesham Voyager has bitten the dust and I need a new laptop for DJ'ing. Ideally I don't want to spend a lot as I'm not currently playing out, so it's just for bedroom mixing and the odd small party.

I've seen a couple of refurbished HP NC4400's online at what appear to be absolute steals of prices. However, I'm a bit worried the CPU won't be up to scratch as it's an Intel Core Duo (not Core 2 Duo) T2500 running at 2.0GHz. The laptop can take up to 4GB of RAM (would get 3-3.5GB usable with Win XP), so I don't see anything other than the CPU really causing problems (P.S. I'd be doing a clean install of XP and tweaking for DJing so the system would be running as clean as possible).

Anyone running Cross and a U-Mix Control Pro on a similar spec system, and if so, what's the performance like? Would the NC4400 do, or would I be better off spending around £100 extra on an Acer 5552, which I can get with an AMD Athlon X2 P340, 4GB RAM and Windows 7 (64-bit)?

Any help is appreciated!

[Hannes]

Hey,

if it´s a core duo, try to stay above 2,4Ghz.
And please no cheap AMD, only the triple and quad-cores laptop cpus perform well.

cheers

P.S.: If i was on a budget, this would be my choice http://www.amazon.de/gp/offer-listing/B004QGXN5I/ref=sr_1_16_olp?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1309425510&sr=1-16&condition=used
only needs XP and a Ram-upgrade.

[Robbie23]

Hey, suppose it is a Pentium Dual Core with a 1mb Cache? Will it suffice if the clock speed is 2Ghz? Pentium Dual Core P6200 or Pentium Dual Core T2390 1.86.

Thanks

[pundy]

Hey, suppose it is a Pentium Dual Core with a 1mb Cache? Will it suffice if the clock speed is 2Ghz? Pentium Dual Core P6200 or Pentium Dual Core T2390 1.86.

Thanks

I'll say it depends on how much you push the machine. I use Cross on two different machines. One is a new 13" Macbook Pro (so i5 dual core, 2.4Ghz Sandy Bridge with 4GB RAM). On this machine I can have the Latency turned down as far as it goes, use all the effects, have bunch of files analysing, and do what I like and not have any stutter on the machine.

The other machine I use is a dell mini 9 laptop running OSX, which is a 2GB RAM, single core Atom 1.6GHz processor. On this I can mix, with latency set around 5ms, so long as I've pre analysed tracks, and have the effects turned off (including key lock). Of course I can only mix tunes on this one, not do anything too fancy.

I would have thought that your 2GHz Pentium dual core would be ok unless you started to push it with effects etc. You may also have troubles if you are trying to scratch etc, but that is going to be more dependent on latency than anything else.

[Robbie23]

Very helpful, thanks.
So you think it would be better to use Cross with timecode vinyl to scratch only if there's nothing else I am doing with the software? Wouldn't the 3mb cache boost the performance over a 1mb with the same clock speed?

[rhopkins]

This is all good advice again. I'm thinking about this topic once more as we're about to move and I'm tired of my large, clumsy desktop PC. Would like to have a laptop on a stand above my decks/mixer.

Only got a budget of around £300 though.

[Blackbrook]

Only got a budget of around £300 though.

I know it is hard, but if you are asking me continue to safe some more money (around 500GBP or even more) and buy an awesome machine instead of buying a machine now and making compromises.

Cheers,

Steve

[Hannes]

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listin ... ition=used

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listin ... ition=used

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Acer-Notebook-C ... =de_a_smtd

I´d go with the HP,but damn Amazon.uk dont send to Austria

[rhopkins]

Only got a budget of around £300 though.

I know it is hard, but if you are asking me continue to safe some more money (around 500GBP or even more) and buy an awesome machine instead of buying a machine now and making compromises.

Cheers,

Steve

You're right, it is hard to save that much! But I appreciate the advice.