They still don’t last tho, and all the money sunk into software is only useful with a computer.
I haven’t even upgraded Ableton or Reaktor in YEARS, mainly because I don’t use a computer for music.
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I’ll kill you
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First you will have to catch me, and my Mac. 
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Mac Mini’s tho
Yes, windows laptops are insanely hit and miss. Not to say that macs are faultless, but it’s often easier to locate the culprit of issues. But, you’re paying an insane amount for them.
If you’re stationary, a stationary desktop pc built after specs that are known to work well is the ultimate solution.
You can’t deny that there are almost no limitations with software.
Lots of great Max devices and sequencers as well.
Plus you can record every damn noodle or fart you make and use it or not. Days of recording hours at your fingertips.
Editing in ways hardware couldn’t dream of.
So many more high quality and affordable fx than you would ever have in pedals.
Mixing and mastering tools built in (or 3rd Party) that blow the majority of hardware away (unless you have endless money).
So no, don’t do it! Don’t buy a laptop and Ableton Live.
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get a laptop but as soon as you got your hands on it update it and test it with latency monitor.
get one with free return policy.
it is mandatory to find one that has no problems with real time audio
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Makes sense
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It’s is purchased.
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Let us know how it goes
Enjoy your new Mac!!!
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Nope.
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This is great advice. I forgot to mention the DPC latency issue. If you have the option of testing this before purchasing a laptop, that would be great
Edit: to be clear, if this issue hits you, you will have dropouts and “crackling” audio, and finding the culprit might be next to impossible
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I’m kind of with you there. My wife often tries to be frugal by getting cheaper, but lower spec computers, even though I try to encourage her to get something better. They’re always crapping out on her, so she recently FINALLY picked up a heftier spec-ed machine.
Me, I always find that sweet spot in the $2,000-$2,500 US range of solid, modern specs that will last for years.
Recently picked up a new laptop for about $2,200 in a sale, but it has the latest 2022 specs like Gen12 i9, 32GB, an RTX3080ti, 2TBSSD, etc. This one should last me for a while.
I prefer spending $2K or so every 5 or more years instead of $1K or less over and over because I bought something that sucks.
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How many years?
Those specs aren’t bad … reasonably up to date. That should last you a while, although I expect you might want to add on some additional SDD at some point. Not for a while though.
Have fun!
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I’ve been thinking about this myself for a few years. I’m not a power user but have the full version b/c I got it on one of their sale dates and had gift cert on top of it. It was very confusing watching and reading all the “you have to have this on your production PC” threads. For my first computer I went with a super base HP mini tower with an i5-8400H (4 cores) and 8GB of RAM that I bumped up to 12GB b/c I had an extra stick laying around that worked. I don’t run any super intensive plugins (Arturia Analog Lab & Pigments) but mostly use the stock Ableton stuff. I usually don’t get deeper than 20 tracks either. I’ve never had any problems other than a little latency, but since this is a hobby, I’m not dropping another grand to get that minimally down. The whole rig cost me about $410 US.
Fast forward to this past month, when because I’m having work done on my home office where my production PC resides, I’ve been sitting upstairs in the sunlight, which is quite enjoyable. This prompted me to start looking at laptops again b/c after a full day of working in the basement, I don’t want to sit down there for several more hours making music. I’d prefer to be upstairs and around my family and the sun. So with Black Friday/Cyber Monday this past week I started looking again. Same thing… everyone saying to switch to an M1 or M2 Mac or I needed a heavy gaming PC laptop and a minimum of 16GB and top tier i7 or better, all of which start at near $1200. I finally found a guy that said that single thread capacity was the most important thing and that number of cores didn’t really matter. And a graphics card is actually a hinderance (negative). This guy is running 80 tracks on a 5 year old i7 with built in audio to this day. He gave the processor specs and I started doing compares to all the current laptops on sale, working my way from low to high to see where todays offerings matched up to his old i7 processor. I compared single core vs multi core and price differences to come to a choice. Low and behold I got a new Acer Aspire 5 with an i5 12th Gen 1235U w/ 8GB Ram for $430 and ordered 32 GB of RAM for another $70. All in I’m at $500. Still waiting on the RAM upgrade, but already have Ableton/Pigments/AnalogLab9/V Collection installed and runs without a hitch. The i5 1235U crushed that guys old i7 specs too. So unless you are a super heavy producer, you don’t need to spend more than $500 to get a good laptop to run your hobby. Is the screen the highest resolution? No. Do I wish it wasn’t silver? Do I plan to game on it? No. Is it super slim and light? No, but it’s no behemoth either. If those things matter, spend away, but if you just need something to run your programs, this works. And for only $500 I’m not deeply invested if it goes down. But again, my hobby, non-power user setup. And I think there are a lot of us… so hope this helps others.
I’ll try to post the spreadsheet I did which you can compare if want of all the processors and prices I compared. I used this site to get their compare rankings for the list below. https://nanoreview.net/en/cpu-compare/.
Now I can sit on my couch with headphones in the sun or outside and still enjoy making music outside of my cave.
| Processor | Single Core | Performance | Power Efficiency | Final Score | Best Price | Model | RAM |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| i7 12th Gen 12650H | 82 | 57 | 72 | 70 | $750 | Lenovo IdeaPad Gaming 3i | 16GB |
| i7 12th Gen 12700H | 80 | 64 | 72 | 73 | $800 | MSI Katana GF66 12UD-015 | 16GB |
| i7 12th Gen 1260P | 79 | 43 | 80 | 65 | $800 | Acer Swift 3 SF314-512-75J4 or HP Pavilion 15-eg2078nr | 16GB |
| i7 12th Gen 1255U | 77 | 33 | 82 | 61 | $800 | Acer Aspire 5 A515-57G-77BG | 16GB |
| i5 12th Gen 12500H | 76 | 51 | 72 | 66 | $900 | ASUS Vivobook S 14X | 8GB |
| Ryzen 7 6800H | 72 | 55 | 76 | 69 | $800 | HP Victus 16-e1163nr | 16GB DDR5 |
| i5 12th Gen 1235U | 71 | 29 | 82 | 57 | $430 | Acer Aspire 5 A515-57-52YQ | 8GB |
| i7 11th Gen 11390H | 70 | 24 | 73 | 54 | $680 | Dell Inspiron 14 5410 | 16GB |
| AMD Ryzen 7 5825U | 66 | 38 | 86 | 58 | $650 ® - $800 | HP Pavilion 15-eh2097nr or Lenovo IdeaPad 5 or Acer Aspire 5 A515-47-R6CR | 16GB |
| i7 11th Gen 1165G7 | 66 | 23 | 73 | 52 | $500 ® - $650 | HP 15-dw3071cl or ASUS VivoBook 15 X515EA-CS71-CB | 16GB |
| AMD Ryzen 5 5625U | 64 | 32 | 86 | 55 | $600 | Lenovo Ideapad 5 | 16GB |
| i5 11th Gen 11300H | 64 | 23 | 71 | 50 | $550 | Lenovo Ideapad 5i Pro | 8GB |
| i5 11th Gen 1135G7 | 60 | 22 | 73 | 49 | $480 ® | HP Pavilion 15-eg0053cl | 12GB |
| AMD Ryzen 7 5700U | 56 | 34 | 81 | 52 | $650 ® | Dell Inspiron 15 5515 or HP 15-ef2030ca | 16GB |
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Yeah makes total sense. I had my last 15” MacBook Pro for 11 years. I added an SSD in it later on and never had an issue once, and it was used to death 
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Cheers.
It’s enough computer for what I want to do with it.
I’m not a big sample library guy, so 512 should be plenty for a few years.
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I’m a 90% dawless musician. But computers save a lot of time when it comes to recording and mixing. I have a Mac mini + Ableton live for that purpose. It is not super expensive and doesn’t bring many issues. There are dawless alternatives, but time is such a precious resource to waste to consider non-efficient alternatives.
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