Up to a decade ago, computers were not an essential part of recording music. Songs were made in studios with specific high-quality hardware and a host of other equipment to get the perfect song.
The scenario has completely changed today with musicians working in home studios with cheaper workstations like FL Studio, Ableton Live, Pro Tools, etc. FL Studio is an indispensable resource for most professional musicians and sound engineers.
Developed by Image-Line and first released almost two decades ago, FL Studio is one of the best-selling digital audio workstations in existence. The software is a complete digital audio workstation (DAW) offering you all the tools you will need to compose, arrange and mix music.
It has been used to create professional quality albums from some of the world’s most famous artists like Afrojack, Zardonic, and Avicii.
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You can purchase a complete version with all the plugins bundled for around $900. However, there is a free trial available as well and cheaper versions with fewer versions available as well.
Just like any other digital audio workstation, FL Studio is a hungry beast. It requires a powerful system to render high-quality audio effectively.
In all probability, you are looking at i7 level performance and more than 8GB of RAM on your system to work with. This list offers five notable laptops you can look at to create your own high-quality music.
These laptops have been selected carefully to offer you with a range of choices and onboard performance for your computing needs. However, buyers should carefully look at the exact requirements from the laptop for their personal work.
Go for laptops with a great battery backup if you work on the go a lot. A sturdy laptop with a large screen is more suitable for people working in a home studio. Since recording processes and sampling sounds from a MIDI source requires a host of ports to connect, it is advisable to invest in good docks for the same as well.
Choose the laptop that fits your budget and makes room for other accessories you might have to purchase as well. These could include cables, instruments, recording microphones, studio monitors, headphones, soundcards, etc.
Make sure that after purchasing your laptop you leave enough room to purchase FL Studio itself as well if you do not already have a copy of it. All the laptops listed below are the best laptops for FL Studio.
Our Top Picks for Best Laptops for FL Studio
1. Dell XPS 9570
Specs:
The Dell XPS 9570 is one of the most critically acclaimed laptops right now. It has been praised for its premium build quality, an excellent keyboard and one of the most beautiful displays ever seen in a laptop.
The 15-inch version is a complete beast with tonnes of processing power and a great design. The design is a unibody aluminum chassis that looks gorgeous and elegant in the black matte finish.
There is also a carbon fiber coat on the keyboard to save eight and offer strength. With the 4K touch display, the laptop can be used as an alternative to a tablet as well easily.
The XPS is powered by an Intel i7-8750H, hexa-core processor. You get 9MB of cache space and up to 4.1GHz of processing speed. There is 32GB of RAM inside the system and a huge 1 TB SSD.
The biggest drawback with this laptop for music producers is the lack of upgrades. To save weight and make the laptop extremely thin, this laptop does not have removable hardware and cannot be upgraded in the future.
2. Gigabyte Aero
Specs:
The Gigabyte Aero is a rare offering from Gigabyte to digital professionals who need a high-performance laptop with plenty of choices for configuration.
Gigabyte is known for making their own hardware and has worked on a full-scale laptop with this product. It features a Full HD display with 1920x1080 resolution.
Using a 15-inch thin-bezel screen, you get a brilliant display with accurate colors using the anti-glare LCD display.
The story with its brilliant display does not end there. For rendering heavy games, the system has a Nvidia GTX 2060 Graphics card. The laptop is highly capable of handling any kind of video rendering tasks you might throw at it. It also ensures great detail while using FL Studio to see parts of a clip accurately in the mixer.
You get an i7-8750H processor clocked at up to 4.1 GHZ with Turbo Boost. The laptop has 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD storage. This will ensure faster booting times and faster performance when uploading clips on FL Studio. You may want to increase the RAM capacity, but the SSD storages more than enough for most uses.
The laptop is also shipped with an upgraded Window 10 Pro operating which will give you more security and remote access options.
3. Acer Aspire VX
Specs:
For most professional musicians, an investment at the high-end laptop market ends up in a gaming laptop purchase. Gaming laptops are designed to handle extremely heavy tasks, render content at high frame rates and have an excellent audio reproduction.
These are features extremely useful not only to gamers but to musicians alike. The Acer Aspire VX is Acer’s take at one of the best gaming laptops in the market. The VX 15 has a very aggressive look.
It is supported by very visible, robust lines cutting through the edged and the sides. There is a mix of black and red, the traditional choice for most gaming laptops. You get an Iron-Red backlit keyboard with this unit.
To handle the heavy performance needs, there is a dual fan setup for cooling the hardware. The laptop is powered by an Intel i7-7700HQ processor clocked at 3.8GHZ. That is the kind of power running the top games of this year at 60 FPS.
Rest assured, all your high-quality rendering in FL Studio can be easily handled. You get 8GB of RAM, 256GB of SSD space and an upgradable 1TB SATA drive as well. For any video editing needs that the more versatile sound engineers using it might need, you get 4GB of Nividia’s GTX 1050Ti for added performance.
As for listening to your work through the speakers themselves, Acer has taken care of it all with a Dolby Audio Premium setup fitted into this laptop.
4. Razer Blade Stealth
Specs:
The life of most musicians is hectic and unpredictable. They are people who have to travel a lot on very tight schedules and sometimes work during flights, in the airports, etc.
For such musicians, a portable laptop with enough performance to meet their demands is like finding the Holy Grail.
The Razer Blade Stealth is such a device. It has been crafted to be one of the most durable laptops that you can purchase.
It features a 12.5-inch QHD display with a 2560x1440 resolution. At 2.84 pounds and 0.52-inch thickness, the laptop is extremely portable for those creatures who carry their work with themselves. The extremely tough durability of the chassis comes from the use of CNC-milled aircraft grade aluminum.
The laptop also features a Thunderbolt 3 port so that you can transfer data at high speeds of 40 Gbps. This also lets you use the power cable as a display cord to connect the laptop to a larger external display while working.
The 7th Gen i7-7500U processor in this laptop is clocked at 2.7GHZ and can be pushed up to 3.5GHz for insanely fast audio rendering. There is 16GB of RAM and a 512GB of SSD storage on board.
You can easily throw any of your heavy tasks while recording and mixing and this laptop will easily glide through them.
5. Dell Inspiron 15
Specs:
The Dell Inspiron has a great reputation as a reliable workhorse of laptop. Offering ample of space and details with a 15.6-inch Full HD display, you will have a lot of space to work with while editing audio.
With a touch display, you can even operate the laptop with your fingers for editing and mix audio with even more precision. The Intel Integrated 620 Graphics will be very capable of supporting an audio production application user interface.
This laptop is powered by a quad-core Intel i5-8250U processor clocked at up to 3.4GHz. You get 8GB of DDR4 RAM with the option of upgrading it up to 16GB.
This laptop is one of the best, economical buys for musicians and audio engineers who have just started working with FL Studio. It offers plenty of performance and with 1TB of hard disk space, you can create and save projects on the laptop itself for easy access.
The laptop ships with Windows 10 Home preinstalled which offers seamless performance with regular updates from Microsoft. The backlit keyboard is an important feature if you like to work in subdued lighting, like many artists.
For all the great creative features, it should be noted that the graphics performance will come in handy if you are also editing videos with this laptop.
What to look for in the best laptop for FL studio
You should lookout for a laptop with Windows 8 or 10 operating systems or the equivalent. Laptops that are being used for FL studios need to be relatively new with high-quality, responsive features and specifications.
Recommended System Requirements for running FL Studio?
FL Studio is available for both Windows and Mac OS. take a look at the overview of minimum system requirements for your device below:
- 4GB free disk space
- 4GB of RAM
- The more powerful your CPU, the more instruments and effects you can run
- For in-app purchases: Internet Explorer 11 or higher
- Intel and AMD CPUs. ARM not supported
To get the most out of FL Studios, you need to use a fast processor, have a high-quality sound card, plenty of memory space, and a good graphics processing unit (GPU). Read the following section for more details.
Processor
The best processor for FL Studios is the Intel Core i7 processors and above. These will provide you with brilliant response times and comfortable operating.
Sound Card
You do not need to use a sound card to use FL Studios; however, you should think about your laptop’s sound quality and whether or not it is sufficient without one.
Memory
8GB RAM is more than enough for FL Studio. 16 GB and 32 GB RAM is most likely more than you are going to need.
GPU
FL Studio does not run on the GPU; therefore, it does not matter which GPU you have on your laptop.
Budget Laptop Option
The best budget laptop for FL Studio has got to be the Acer Aspire 5 A515. This laptop is reliable, easy to navigate, and long-lasting.
Best Value for Money
The best value for money laptop for FL Studio is the HP Pavilion x360. If you are an audio engineer looking for style, color accuracy, and brilliant sound, this laptop is a good option.
High-Performance Laptop
Without a doubt, the Razor Blade 15 is the best high-performance laptop for FL Studio that can be used as a gaming laptop.
Best Laptops For FL Studio Worthy Mentions
If the laptops mentioned in the reviews above aren’t what you are looking for, you should take a look at the following laptops that are brilliant for FL Studio users and are very worthy mentions.
1. Apple MacBook Pro
Specs:
PROS
- Reliable
- Comfortable layout
- Great battery life
- Good retina display
CONS
- Very pricy
Specs:
PROS
- Great battery life
- Can be used as a gaming laptop
- Plenty of memory
CONS
- Software is not very responsive
Conclusion
These were the best laptops for FL Studio suggested as the best offerings in the market right now.
Since FL Studio is a digital audio workstation, care should be taken before purchasing to look at how compatible the laptop is with your usage of the software.
If you are just starting out as a music producer than a laptop with a lower spec is a better choice as you will save cash on future upgrades when your system completely fails to meet your demands.
A high-end laptop which can be quite expensive should be the choice for experts depending on their needs from a laptop with regard to performance as well as portability.
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Best laptops For FL Studio FAQ
A: The Razor Blade 15 laptop is a brilliant laptop for FL Studio users. Take a look at the top picks listed above for some suggestions and detailed laptop reviews.
What laptop should I buy for FL Studio?
A: You need a laptop that has the recommended minimum specifications for FL Studio. We have listed the recommended specs above for your reference.
What laptop is best for a home studio?
A: Apple iMac laptops are considered the best laptops for use in a home studio.
What laptop should I buy for music production?
A: The ACER ASPIRE VX is a great laptop for music production. Take a look at our full review in this article to learn more.
What is FL Studio compatible with?
A: FL Studio is compatible with Windows and Mac operating systems that are equivalent to Windows 8.1 or newer.