I know this is OT, but more and more laptops are being used to creat and perform music today.

Has any one had experience withi Asus computers or with asus motherboards and using them for music and or multitrack recording?

Any spects to pay attention to when choosing a laptop computer that would do music?

Many computers will do well, but things to look for are:
RAM minimum 1G
Fan noise
Harddisk size
Chassis/enclosure quality of the PC
Remember, you usually get what you pay for.
Also remember, you need a PC DI box to eliminate noise, and you ought to buy a desent soundcard.

Laptop hard disks differ in speed (RPM) -the cheapest ones are 4200 RPM, the most expensive 7200 RPM (for comparison, all of the desktop drives are at least 7200 RPM). If you are only playing MIDI files, the slow hard disk will suffice, but if you are going to do sample streaming, I would strongly suggest the fastest drive. Also some of the high-end newer laptops have disks with Serial ATA interface - this is faster than the standard ATA/100 interface you will find in all of the older laptops.

I would choosel a laptop which includes a FireWire (IEEE 1394) port - this will give you flexibility to use a better audio interface. Again, for MIDI-only or 2-channel audio, the USB interface will do fine.

ASUS is a major company, which produces motherboards used by different computer makers. The quality of the case, screen, and general build of the laptop you have to judge for yourself.

Good luck,
Alex

Thanks for the replies.
I am looking at harddrives no less that a 7200rpm. Is sata and ata is one better than the other?

Well I will also be doing audio recording.
Yes I am looking at one with FireWire port as I hope the get the Presonas firepod.
What about OS. For music, Windows xp or windows home?


OH and how do I judge for myself interms of motherboards?

[This message has been edited by to the genesys (edited 02-17-2006).]

Laptops are basically all made in China and are all "cookie-cutter" computers - essentially they are all premade, and even the ones that are customized in the US actually come from China and you pay a premium to have someone here add memory or hard drive or burn in the software or whatever. I spent all of last summer researching laptops and found that you can either choose from the best cookie-cutters for the money or you can blow big bucks on a fully customized boutique computer. There are many excellent forums on laptops to help you make that choice if you want to go deep into that world, like these: Notebook Forums Laptop Logic Notebook Review

Cut to the chase: after all my research I bought an Acer Ferrari 4005 that I maxed out the RAM on. I've tortured it with audio recording, softsynths, Reason, Sonar, Colossus, you name it. I use it every day at home and on stage and I love it.

[This message has been edited by Esh (edited 02-17-2006).]