mentalstrike Posted June 25, 2009 Share Posted June 25, 2009 Hi! I joined this site awhile back, but back then I had no computer to call my own. As of this moment, I have a laptop. Probably not the best place to start remixing, but, hey, use what works I say. In that time period, I have also managed to acquire (no not "acquire >_>") Fruity Loops Studio 8 XXL Producers Edition. My laptop is a Compaq Presario CQ60 with a 2 GHz AMD Athalon X2 64 Processor, nvidia graphics chip, 2 GB of RAM, whatever my in-box soundcard is, and I'm running Windows Vista 32-bit. My computer has a Windows Preformance rating of 4.0, as determined by my 3D graphical capability score. Every other category ranged from 4.4-5.6. I have no access to a MIDI keyboard at this point as far as I know, though my best friend's keyboard might be, we haven't had the oppourunity to check. I want to start a remix of the Gerudo Valley Theme from Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time. My musical training is fairly low, but all self-tought. I can play sheet music, though it takes me awhile to figure out the keys. Once I do, it's almost immediately memorized. Would it be possible for me to make a decent-grade remix with only my laptop, or should I think about investing in some instruments? I'm in the process of learning bass guitar, I tought myself rudimentary piano, and am pretty good with a drumset. Help is greatly appreciated. Thank you! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SoulinEther Posted June 25, 2009 Share Posted June 25, 2009 I'd say your laptop's specs would allow it to play music. I think darkesword has done all his work on a comp that is pretty much worse in every aspect when compared to your laptop, so it's possible. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkeSword Posted June 25, 2009 Share Posted June 25, 2009 No, that's not entirely true. Currently I run an Intel Core Duo 64-bit 3.0GHz processor with 4GB of RAM. However, I used to run a 950MHz AMD K6-2 with 1GB of RAM, which is what I used to make the majority of my posted remixes. If all you're going to do on your laptop is sequence using FLStudio, you should be okay if you're not doing any crazy electronica stuff, but if you're going to start recording, I'd recommend checking out some external soundcard modules or something (I don't really know about that stuff though, so someone else will have to help you with that). Also, please don't make generic thread titles. Thread titles should accurately reflect the topic of discussion. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tensei Posted June 25, 2009 Share Posted June 25, 2009 You should be good to go, all my posted remixes have been done on a 1.7 Ghz lappy with 512 mb ram and a 30 gig HD. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mentalstrike Posted June 29, 2009 Author Share Posted June 29, 2009 okay, thanks for the help and the title change. I was at a loss for a good thread title so...yeah. Generic was the way to go for me. Anyway, so I should stick with sequencing, but not massive electronica? And then, should I have access to a MIDI keyboard, I'm better off waiting for a better PC? Just making sure I have the points down. Alright, I'm gonna buckle down and get back to work then thanks for the help! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prophetik music Posted June 29, 2009 Share Posted June 29, 2009 keyboards aren't really necessary unless you're a really good keyboard player. i own one, for example, but i use it less to make music and more for demoing patches. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JasonP27 Posted July 2, 2009 Share Posted July 2, 2009 lol with FLStudio (and probably other sequencers) you can use your computer keyboard to play/record some basic stuff. I don't have a MIDI keyboard (yet), and I am one of those musicians that play by ear better than read the sheet music, though I can do that just fine too. Sometimes it helps when creating a song to just hit the keys on the PC keyboard to actually hear out loud what I am trying to do, and I have even used it to record simple melodies and even chords, and then fixed them up in the sequencer later. I think your laptop should certainly be capable of working with a MIDI keyboard without any problems, no need to really wait for a new PC or anything, but I don't know I could be wrong, it's happened once or twice in my life. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prophetik music Posted July 2, 2009 Share Posted July 2, 2009 actually, his laptop would have horrid lag with a usb-based keyboard, because it doesn't have the processing power to keep up. there'd be a definite delay in his playing. if he didn't mind that, he'd be fine - but i doubt he would be. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JasonP27 Posted July 2, 2009 Share Posted July 2, 2009 actually, his laptop would have horrid lag with a usb-based keyboard, because it doesn't have the processing power to keep up. there'd be a definite delay in his playing. if he didn't mind that, he'd be fine - but i doubt he would be. I was unaware of that issue... I didn't think there would be a problem in that respect because a couple of the MIDI controller/keyboards I saw online the other day actually used USB 1.1, so I figured it wasn't sending that much information or it would use USB 2.x... would the same thing happen if hooking up a MIDI controller/keyboard to an external device that connects to the laptop via USB? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
big giant circles Posted July 2, 2009 Share Posted July 2, 2009 You should be good to go, all my posted remixes have been done on a 1.7 Ghz lappy with 512 mb ram and a 30 gig HD. My early remixes were on a 1.7 with 256 MB ram. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prophetik music Posted July 2, 2009 Share Posted July 2, 2009 there's a guy on the FLStudio forums who was using a p3 until they took it out of the backwards-compatibility lineup. the issue is bandwidth - how fast the info can get across the usb port and through the pci bus. most laptops have remarkably poor bandwidth across their pci bus (which is the highway the usb bus uses to communicate to the computer) since generally the integrated graphics, all keystrokes and mouse commands, and pretty much everything else use it instead of being directly dumped into the chipsets like on a computer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mentalstrike Posted July 4, 2009 Author Share Posted July 4, 2009 Alright, thanks for all the help and support. I'm pretty well on my way now, though continued support is always a plus. I've posted one of a friend and my song's in another thread, if you all could take a look at it as well and tell me what you think, that'd be very much appreciated ^^ The thread is located here: http://www.ocremix.org/forums/showthread.php?p=563582#post563582 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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