Dell PCs

Norris sk8, post: 24964, member: 2788 wrote: I got a Dell XPS studio laptop a year ago for djing with Traktor pro. Does anyone else find that when you receive your laptop from Dell its so full of useless software and apps you will never need that it runs significantly slower than it should do. Does anyone know how I should go about getting my Laptop ruining as quickly and smoothly as possible for DJing. To be honest im yet to have any trouble with it and my latency is down to 4ms but I think I could get it down to 2ms with a little bit of a tinker.

Thanks

I know what you mean, however I’ve found Dell to be better out of the major manufacturers with regard to bloatware. Like Terry said the best way is a clean install of Win7 but that involves cost as the manufactures don’t give you a OEM copy unfortunately. I’ve got an XPS15 and run TP 2.5.1 okay – I simply used the audio optimising tips on NI’s forum and it works well.

Norris sk8, post: 25137, member: 2788 wrote: Lol i guess im just a perfectionist, is the latancy not down to the sound card more than the laptop anyway? I just think the cleaner my computer the less chance of audio drop outs and crashes when playing live. Also. Does anyone know if having anti virus software on your DJ laptop is a bad idea?

Why would you need anti virus software on a DJ laptop. My DJ laptop is solely used for music. A dell studio 15 with everything I don’t need either uninstalled or disabled. I download everything via a second laptop then export on to an external drive.

Steelo the question was in relation to a “DJ Laptop” not a general machine hence my answer. For a Digital DJ the centre of everything is laptop so it’s worth the investment to have one solely for the purpose of music? Considering that some of the software is often more than a decent laptop it’s one of the cheaper parts of a set up. Unless of course they’re the kind of DJ that get their software and music from illegal downloads.

Norris sk8, post: 27794, member: 2788 wrote: Ideally I would like to have a laptop specifically for DJing. Meanwhile back in the real world…. im a 21 year old who is currently having to get by on the dole and has debt problems. Id say its better to have some decent anti virus and continue DJing on my laptop than browsing unprotected and catching a virus leaving my laptop completely useless.

Oh to be 21 again!
OK, so in your real world you will need to learn how to disable programs and devices on your laptop when your going to use it for DJing. Either that or risk spike and latency issues. YouTube will give you all the instructions step by step.
I use a DELL Studio 15 all unwanted programes or software was either uninstalled or disabled, unwanted hardware was disabled. This was for when I used Traktor but I dumped it on the last upgrade and now use RekordBox either directly connected or via playlist copied to a thumb drive.

Norris sk8, post: 27898, member: 2788 wrote: Cool, that was helpful. Iv found a dubspot video on optimising windows for djing.

http://blog.dubspot.com/optimize-your-windows-7-pc-for-djing-music-production/

So hopefully this wil get my latancy down to a minimum for some reason its gone up to 6 recently :s. Still low enough i suppose.

Wishing i had a mac to save me all this effort. How low would you say you need your latency for controllerist routines?

6 isn’t too bad 5 or 4 is obviously better but if you’re got good sound and responsive control then 6 should be fine.
If you haven’t already looked try DJ Tech Tools for tips on Traktor on controlism. Ean Golden is one of the best if not the best controlist going. You can also get free sample for Traktor from there

Gamebooster is a good program for turning off unwanted programs that run in the background for the PC.

http://www.iobit.com/gamebooster.html