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Which do I get....Need help

post #1 of 5
12/31/03 at 2:31am
Thread Starter 
I'm looking at getting a dell 8600 laptop and I want to use it to make music and play live gigs with. I need help because i'm not sure if I should get windows xp home or professional and if I should go for the 64mb nvidia video card or the 128mb ati mobility radeon 9600. I need something that will work well with audio apps and midi. If anyone can recommend wich of these I should get I would really appreciate it. Thanks.
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post #2 of 5
12/31/03 at 2:49am
Don't know much about Dells, don't want to, Dude. But if your interest is audio, why are you concerned with the video capabilities? I would expect the 64 mb 9000 would be more than adequate. As far as I know, audio apps and midi doesn't task the video system very heavily, if at all. Probably any video setup would be more than adequate.

On the other hand, you will want to look at the audio input and output ports and the number of USB2, FireWire and PCMCIA ports a machine has, how clean the circuitry is, how little noise crossover there is. I don't have any idea how the Dell or any other machine fairs on those issues though there has been some comment on the noise in SAGERs.
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post #3 of 5
1/2/04 at 1:58am
Thread Starter 
thanks for the info. I'm looking at other options.
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post #4 of 5
1/18/04 at 12:19am
hiya, ive got a 5680 that i use for audio, the output is pretty noisy,
although it does have an spdif digital out that i can connect to a minidisc, this makes almost no noise as the md has better d/a convertors

the onboard audio card can use asio drivers and will run at around 11ms latency

the mic input isnt very good....too sensitive

i only have a 4200rpm hd and i can playback about 8 or 9 stereo wavs, im using xp pro

hth

manoid
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post #5 of 5
1/19/04 at 9:36pm
Not much of a choice regarding sound...I hate onboard sound for anytype of recording or live control. Your best option wouldbe something like the Terratec Phase 26 USB card/box. I personally prefer to any of Creatives stuff for recording. Good inputs for a amateur setup. Pretty good if you can't afford a Pro Tools Rig (like any one can!!!).

It handles ASIO, ASIO2, General midi. After that just get a good condenser or dynamic mike and you're away with it. I have the 5680 and its power is more than a great advantage. I got the 60gig 7200 RPM, 1gig RAM and 3.2GHzP4-HT so it all runs smoothly.

Regarding XP Pro it's not needed at all as far as I'm concerned unless you'll make use of it(I'm a computer student and network alot). But there are extra services and components that tend to increase XPs grasp on precious RAM. Of course if you know about that stuff then there's not a problem.

ION
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