I'm genuinely thinking about buying a laptop and Ableton. Talk me out of it

Now I might actually be able to help.

This reminded me of an EDM track that is the same 2 bar loop for 8 mins.
He bought a mac and sent it back? 45 seconds will do you mate. Use the remaining time to wash your synths.

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Sage advice, I think we could all spend a little more time washing our synths

Personally, I bought a Macbook Air and Ableton in August and haven’t looked back. I was using an MPC One, but Ableton does everything it does and then some. Plus, the laptop has a battery, and the only cable I need is a headphone cable. I’ve had no crashes on Ableton, no audio driver issues, and no issues installing plugins. It’s simple and it just works.

So, if you can get over your dislike for Macs I think it truly would be your best bet. :grin: (I will now prepare to die :skull:)

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Since the OP has shown a (hard resistant) willingness to accept unsolicited (begged for leave me the fuck alone) advice from Mac users, here’s something else you (or others getting a Mac) might want to consider: alternatives to Ableton Live.

Maybe you already know your way around Live from previous Windows machines, or you really want or need Max for Live, or you already have a license for it, and if so, it makes sense to get it. On the other hand, if this is your first Mac, you have a choice to consider Logic. It’s only $199 for the full version (there is only one version), you get free updates, seemingly forever from what I can tell, and it has most of the features of Live. It’s funny that the OP trashed the MacOS in terms of its look. That is the thing I find most troubling about Live–I just can’t stand to look at it. For what Live offers that Logic might not, I use Bitwig instead, which also offers the Grid and has at least the promise of better MPE support (plus really great instructional videos). Anyway, also with Logic you get a really solid set of software instruments and decent effects with it, and from what I can tell (maybe others will disagree), it has most of the making-music features of Live (especially after version 10.5).

You can also use it for 90 days for free: Logic Pro free trial So, in case you might change your mind about being ITB (which seems fairly likely in your case, from what others have said here), you can try your hand at most everything in the box for three months without plunking down several hundred dollars on Live.

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Subjective isn’t it fella… I can’t stand the look and workflow of Logic now.
I resisted Ableton for a long time coming from a ProTools (professionally) and Logic (messing about) background, and I’d took a similar stance, I thought it looked shit and it was just for EDM and DJ’s.
Funny, the more I realised I had totally underestimated Ableton the more I appreciated the more utilitarian look of it.

After 25+ years of using computers/DAW’s of all types, I’ve never felt as settled on one as I do with Ableton now.

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I’ve got a fairly cheap windows laptop and it’s crackling and splattering with Bitwig and about 4 channels of Arturia synths even with the latency on 20ms.

Seriously thinking about getting a Mac.

The sad thing is, that for laptops, Mac is just so much more stable and predictable. For obvious reasons. Insanely expensive, but the best option.

Now, just to throw in a happy pc story, I upgraded my 7 year old desktop computer, and it’s a goddamn racehorse with no issues so far. Threw about 30 heavy instances of Pigments at it, in Ableton, before I got tired of pressing ctrl+d. Not a hiccup.

But if I’m ever in the market for a laptop, I would have to buy a MacBook again. For that compatability and that sweet, sweet Coreaudio

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The MacBook Airs look like a great option. Just a shame the price to upgrade ram and storage is so silly.

if you told me my 2015 mbp would still be working 8 years later i wouldnt believe you. its been thru 2 battery replacements and running flawlessly. this gen of mbp i can open up and easily reapply thermal paste if needed. the m1’s will last even longer bc lower heat.

if i had a pc laptop i wouldnt be able to get an oem battery replacement or oem keyboard replacement. where would i even dispose of an expanding battery on my own? what a headache…

thats what i like the most about apple. aside from hardware/software, the customer service is top notch bc i can just drop off my laptop and its repaired in a week and im back to using it. i always back up my data so replacements are so easy. i like easy.

i dont play loyalty either. i go whichever is the easiest. which is why i like elektron for the same reasons. took care of me after-sale.

apple may have a higher upfront cost but you’re good for the life of the product.

this is why i’m buying a 2015 MBP fully specced next. the only way it’s gonna stop running is if Apple bricks it, but even then there’s hacks to install newer Macos on models not officially supported.

What keeps me from buying an M1 or M2 is basically because you can’t fix them yrself AT ALL. like even if you had a faulty unit for parts, you just can’t fix them due to parts having serial numbers that need to be added to the BIOS or w/e on the code level. Faulty 2015 MBP, you can disassemble, replace any part and it works again.

That said my 2011 MBP I received from a relative for free works like a charm and now with 8gb of ram and an SSD, runs Reaper like a dream.

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yeah prices are high but I believe that it’s due to the fact they moved ram and ssd’s to be onboard chips which probably ups the costs of manufacturing.
but it also brings greater value to the user, the speed and smaller chips that consume less power is what allowing them to be much more energy efficient, and boy they are fast!
if you can spare cash to upgrade - do it, using external thunderbolt drives to achieve similar speeds will cost the same if not more and there’s always the risk of damaging the connectors, so always prefer internal capacity.

I have a quad core 2011 iMac (one of the last years you could mod them quite a bit).

Biggest improvement was swapping in a 1TB SSD.

I also upped it to 16GB RAM.

They stopped supporting OS updates on it but there is a way that I’m going to work around that.

I can upgrade the video card to a newer one that is supported. Requires flashing the GPU bios while logged in externally via SSH. Haven’t done it yet (I have the video card already).

Once that’s done I bet I could get another 5-10 years of usefulness out of it.

15-20 years on a computer is pretty good I’d say :joy:

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PC’s are always wank, except if you spend time and effort to build yr own. Not possible with laptops.

So do you have enough money left over for a couple shimmerverb plugins?

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Get Tae fuck

Keen to hear your thought about going ITB. It looks really nice to be able to multitrack record into a fully fleshed out DAW

Yes. It also works on all my windows PC’s. As nasty and horrific as they are.

Can I get back to badgering @Fin25 now?

PS - Mac is better. Carry on.

ok, now it’s time to join: