Pro-Tools/Elevenrack PC

[Mr. Jack]

I'm about to buy the PT/Elevenrack bundle at sweetwater. I'm new to this & I have to buy a computer to use it with. My question is: is a MacBook Pro with 16GB of 1600MHz DDR3L SDRAM & a 512GB flash storage sufficient? I know it's recommended to have a seperate HD but isn't that enough memory to operate fine for a small home recording hobby?

I really want the portability of a laptop & I am also looking into a PCaudiolabs laptop but I am trying to stick around $2,000 for the PC part of this project. I've looked into a protools PC rack mount & I have a monitor & keyboard I could use but it's still not as portable as a laptop.

Can anyone give me an opinion?

[JoelG]

The specs look fine, it really all depends on how many tracks, VI's and plugins you end up using.

Be sure the Mac is running a qualified version of OSX, the drivers for the Eleven Rack are here:http://avid.force.com/pkb/articles/e...n-Rack-Drivers

Also, be sure to go through the Optimization Guide.

For the secondary drive, it is recommended that you don't record to your system drive, not for space reasons but for speed. If the system drive is busy doing work for the OS, it might not be fast enough to also properly record audio in real time. That said, I've gotten away with it before.

Joel

[Mr. Jack]

Cool, well I'm looking at a PCaudiolabs Rok Box MC M7. If I get these options:
i7-6700HQ 2.6 GHz
16GB DDR3-1600 (2x8GB)
500 GB SSD Samsung (850 EVO) drive
512 GB Samsung 950Pro PCIe NVMe drive
On Windows 10 64-bit

It will cost me 2,148.97

Is that stuff overkill? Like do I need that much memory in it? I know the 16GB Ram is pretty much recommended but the rest I don't know. I don't know how to choose between a 7200rpm SATA2/SSD Samsung (850 EVO)/ or SATA3 SSD because I'm not familiar enough with them to know the difference. And is 2.6 GHz good enough?

I'll basically be running Protools with the eleven rack or a line 6 Helix and superior drummer 2.0. I won't be using a bunch of plug ins.

[JoelG]

Without knowing what you'll be doing it is hard to make a recommendation. There will always be those out there really pushing even the latest and greatest hardware with their track count and Vi's.

That said, that looks like a fine machine to me, although Windows 10 isn't officially supported yet (working fine for me though). RAM you can never have too much of :) As long as you have two drives (one for audio, one for Windows) you should be fine. Be sure to avoid 5000rpm or Green drives, as they are too slow.

FWIW, I have a far less powerful system that works great for what I do.

Joel

[Mr. Jack]

Ok, that sounds great!

I'll be doing just some instrumentals with my guitars, bass and superior drummer 2.0. Maybe some ambient pads & such but nothing crazy. Kinda like the band Monuments if you've heard them. It's really just a home studio for producing stuff I'm writing & at most like I said it will be guitars & bass & fake drums with occasional piano & keyboards. Seems like it should work.

Thanks for your help man.