TromboneChat

Hi there,

I’m going to be going into college as a freshman music education and performance major and wanted to know if there where any must haves for college music. If anyone has any laptop recommendations that would be great too. I’m currently looking at a 2 in 1 so that I could use it for music if I need to or for music notation where I think it may just be easier.

Any help would be great!
Thanks

Please keep in mind that a lot of software companies offer "student editions" that are significantly less expensive than the regular retail version, but you'll probably need to be enrolled before you can purchase them.

If you know what school you'll be attending, you might want to contact the music department and ask. Another possibile information source would be the Pi Mu Alpha Sinfonia or Kappa Kappa Psi chapter at that school (assuming there is one).

I don't know about US music programmes but if you need notation software, Dorico is an awesome score writer. It's from the Finn brothers who developed Sibelius, which started life as an Acorn Archimedes program. Anyway, they got bought up by Avid at some point and the rot inevitably set in, so they quit and started again at Steinberg. It's pretty pricey though, but as JohnL says there will be some sort of student discount once you're enrolled.

Alternatively, the open source app MuseScore is pretty decent, free, has loads of community plugins and templates, and is to some extent stealing the incumbent ed-discounted score writers' lunch... certainly if I was running a cash-strapped school or college music department, I'd be deploying it.

You can get deals on software and hardware through your school. Some schools provide the adobe suite for free. There is an audio editor in there but I forget what it is called.

Just get a windows laptop, maybe an HP envy if you want the tablet function and touch screen. You don't need very much power for running score engravers, and unless you are doing some serious VSTs and plugins, you won't need that power for editing audio either. Use Reaper DAW or maybe Cakewalk for recording and editing audio.

If you are trying to run sound libraries and VSTs for audio production, you will want the most powerful PC you can get your hands on, Sequoia, and a high end audio interface with lots of XLR inputs. Hopefully your school would give you access to gear like that, though.

You might check out what OS your school's music computer lab uses and consider getting the same. You might not want to have to go back and forth between Mac and Windows if you ended up with a different OS than what you use in some music classes. Also consider what your school's lab has for notation software and consider getting the same so you have an easier time going back and forth and sharing files with teachers and peers.

For notation, writing papers, and other similar stuff it probably doesn't make too big a difference which OS you end up with, but some of the higher end music producers out there have some strong opinions. There are many YouTube videos of folks talking about the pros and cons that you might check out.

Dave

I tried the 2-in-1 route for reading sheet music. It did not work for me and I ended up buying a tablet for reading sheet music. YMMV.

At your age a 10 inch tablet would be adequate and you can find inexpensive ones. There are good ones in the Samsung S series or equivalent if you like android.