Is 4GB RAM enough for music producing?

[Ryou-kun]

My friend wants to buy a Surface Pro 2 or 3 tablet, and he has a limited budget so he thought he could get by with 4GB RAM because it is cheaper.

The reason he wants Surface Pro 2 or 3 tablet because he likes the idea of it, and it is quite portable yet cool I guess.

I don't know if 4GB RAM will work, but I doubt it will.

He wants to use either FL Studios (Fruity Loops) or propellerhead reason.

I don't know, so I am curious if any of you guys know about it.

I hope I am in a right forum, lol.

 

[Phllips]

probably but there are plenty better thing around that price range.... i think. I know linus uses the xps 12 which has an 8gb option. also right forum wrong thread

[Ryou-kun]

probably but there are plenty better thing around that price range.... i think. I know linus uses the xps 12 which has an 8gb option. also right forum wrong thread

My apology, lol.

Its late, and I get those two mixed up.

[Bingbear]

As far as my experience goes with audio production (built the studio in my school, do some work at home), RAM and CPU really can make a difference. Especially when the productions grow larger and more intricate. My MacBook (4gb ram, c2d@2,4 ghz) almost locks up If I'm running more than 6tracks (software synths w/ effects). 4gb would probably work, but 8 is preferable so you have something to grow in! But GL and have lots of fun!

[Stefken89]

A friend of mine uses a macbook pro as well with 4GB of RAM, and constantly runs out when doing music production, but he uses Pro tools. It might depend on what programs you use and how big the projects are, but I would definately suggest to go for 8 GB at least if you can.

 

I personally wouldn't go for the surface to do serious work, but I understand the appeal.

[TW1ST3R]

 

My MacBook (4gb ram, c2d@2,4 ghz) almost locks up If I'm running more than 6tracks (software synths w/ effects). 4gb would probably work, but 8 is preferable so you have something to grow in! But GL and have lots of fun! 

I've had similar experiences - for my final composition for school I was running about 20 or so midi tracks which I was replacing with East West Quantum Leap VSTs.  Took forever to edit things with that many tracks on an i5 Toshiba laptop with 4GB ram - I had to do all my work in Sibelius, export the midi, import it into Cubase, change the individual instrument sounds to the VST packs and then output the wav files.  I'd definitely recommend at least 8GB of ram for any serious production work.  

 

If he's only using FL studio for messing around electronic stuff he should be fine, I think.  Reason on the other hand is probably more on the line with Cubase and Protools for more serious projects like recording live instruments, which I don't quite understand will work with only 1 usb port...  It really depends what sort of stuff he's doing - anything serious project work I would avoid a laptop or tablet like the plague (wherever possible), because a desktop will almost always have more grunt and far better cooling, particularly for encoding large projects.  That laptop I mentioned before managed to fry itself back in June due to insufficient cooling.