Irena

If you foresee needing processing power, I'll second the point re: the limitations of Intel's U series. I'm running some thirsty VST's these days (Diva, Bitwig's modular "Grid" synth, and a few others), and couldn't find a sufficiently portable mini PC that offered a capable CPU like an Intel H processor. I resigned myself to purchasing a laptop whose screen and keyboard would go largely unused in my project studio, but even there the pickings are slim. Most PC's with that kind of processor are heavy gaming laptops with expensive/superfluous GPU's. I found a few not-so-gamer "H" laptops by Dell, HP, and Lenovo that looked like possibilities (albeit spendy), but then I discovered Asus' lineup with the AMD Ryzen chip. I ended up with the low-end version of the Asus Zephyrus G14 , and I can't say enough good things about this setup. The Ryzen 7 4800 is a flat-out screamer, and the entry level Zephyrus G14 doesn't include any of the things I didn't want to pay for. The weak GPU is (apparently) an insult to gamers, and the display is a basic standard HD. But to be clear: the CPU is ridiculously powerful for music production. The 8Gb of RAM is oddly low, but it's set up for an easy upgrade to 16 Gb which only takes a few minutes. (Of course you can go higher, but you sacrifice a bit on the dual channel memory speed.) The fans run considerably louder than a Mac Mini when running in high performance mode, but very reasonable for a performance laptop, and they've set it up nicely to easily toggle to a quieter mode when you don't need the full beast. They've provided a generous set of ports for a 14" laptop, and a nice build quality without the pimped-out exterior often found on gaming rigs. All of this in under 4 lbs, and under $1000. Definitely worth a look if you can't find what you need in a mini form factor.

If you end up favoring good-for-practice over good-for-band-rehearsals, I'd add the iLoud MTM's to the list. They're priced on the higher end of the monitors discussed in this thread at about $650/pr street, but they might be something to consider. I'm two weeks into practicing solo with them and very impressed so far. They sound a little boxy for acoustic piano practice (as does every monitor in my experience), but are still serviceable for that and to my ears they sound fantastic for EP's, B3, etc. As many reviewers have written, the bottom end is mind-blowing for their size. Also, if you ever end up needing near-field reference monitors, the ARC calibration is a breeze to use and a fantastic implementation considering the price point. Before buying them I also looked at the often-overlooked ART RM5's which allegedly work very well for solo keyboard practice (and I imagine might get a bit louder than the MTM's given the design and the amp specs), but I chose the MTM's on the hunch that they would work better for me when I needed reference monitors.

Come to think of it, you are right bfields. Thanks for clarifying that. Right, UDP is a lean-and-mean asynchronous transport layer which leaves any needed reliability logic to whatever sits on top of it. I think one general takeaway though is that any "reliable" transport feature set--whether it's general-purpose TCP or something designed specifically for real-time audio/video like RTP--is likely to introduce additional latency beyond a benchmarking tool like ping's lightweight ICMP stack. Avoiding starved buffers, sequencing arriving datagrams, etc. all end up costing a little bit of time. Maybe 20ms is possible if people are geographically close, though I can't say I'm optimistic based on my own experience. For the project i was working on, building an audio stack with the lowest latency possible was in fact the primary objective. In that case the two principal audio engineers chose UDP and spent several months on a bespoke ring buffer design (NB: I am on the outer envelope of my technical understanding here!) to see how quickly they could move 16-bit uncompressed audio from end to end. The stack was tested and refined over a period of years, and used with participants (spoken conversations more so than making music) geographically close to one another, halfway around the world, and many scenarios in between. I can't say the engineers did everything that could possibly be done to reduce latency, but I will say were specialists in this area and that they plugged away at it for a long stretch. Whenever we would test that protocol, we stacked the deck as much as possible for speed (e.g., no bluetooth headsets, and even Wifi was verboten; all participants were required to be hardwired), and I can recall instances where we were excited to see end-to-end latency drop under 40ms without noticeable dropout from starved buffers. That's still an eternity for a musician, but compared to 200-400 ms latency on a cell phone call, it's a magical experience for conversation. In those <40ms cases, the participants were in the same metro area, and showed <15ms ping times on both ends. It's possible that this protocol stack left a few milliseconds on the table that some other smart engineers can address, but to me it still seems like a stretch to get things fast enough to make real-time playing fun and natural with other musicians. But back to the spirit of this thread, under these unprecedented circumstances I can easily imagine putting up with longer latency times if rehearsals are important, and it's great to see the industry stepping up their efforts right now to give us viable options..

Yes. Even assuming a hypothetically perfect connection--e.g., gigabit speed, no packet loss, tiny buffers at both endpoints and every switch in between--there is the matter of travel time from end to end. Under again perfect theoretical conditions (no latency introduced by buffers and switches, and a physical connection moving data at the speed of light), a packet would take 13 ms to cross the country. Figure in the round trip for real-time collaboration, and I'm hearing your response to my playing no less than 26 ms later than I would were we next to one another.* Real-world considerations like buffers and switches add to the figure considerably. As a starting point to understand those real-world conditions, most popular benchmarking tools (Speedtest et al) give a ping result in milliseconds which provides a baseline for round trip data travel time from your computer to the Internet. Ping runs pretty close to the metal compared to TCP packets, and the additional buffering introduced at the music application level will add more time still. (*This comparison handwaves a bit. Even in the same room on acoustic instruments there is latency introduced by the time it takes sound to travel from your instrument to my ears, which is about 1 foot per millisecond.) A few years ago I worked on a project where we tested how various latencies impacted musicians' experience playing live together. It wasn't all that scientific, but for me shed some light on the point at which the experience starts to feel compromised. We chose music where we thought timing was likely to matter most (e.g., keyboardist and bass player vamping on a funk pattern more so than, say, a rubato chamber music passage). We isolated the two musicians, gave them headphone feeds of one another, and used hardware delays (TC Electronic stompboxes) with millisecond precision to introduce latency. We randomly chose different values between 0 and 50 ms in each direction (rather than say, walking up from zero ms), and after 8 bars or so asked the musicians to evaluate the experience. Full disclosure: in several of the tests I was one of the test subjects, While this subjective approach and a limited number of test subjects obviously wouldn't lead to any airtight conclusions, we found we were happiest under 10ms, and found the latency annoying above 20 ms or so. "Annoying" is the operative word here. Much like muscling through rough stage situations with a bad monitor mix, with concentration we felt like we were able to stay in the pocket at higher latencies. Even 25 ms wasn't a dealkiller for recording a serviceable groove once we got used to the lag, but one has to wonder if this would bring out the best in musicians. Speaking for myself, I felt much happier and less inhibited when the latency was 10ms or less, but I think in a pinch it's certainly possible to make music at higher latencies. Maybe just not as much fun.

Yes, my first legit amp. The chorus was sweet and the 2x12 allowed me to hold my own in the stage volume arms race, but I can't say I loved it given the limited frequency range. To me it definitely sounded like a guitar amp as you say. But to be fair to the JC, I was young and stupid and played mainly MKS-20 piano patches and punchy synth bass through it; the former sounded shrill and the latter you can imagine was insufferable. I can see how in contrast your Rhodes might have brought out the best in that amp, but I wonder if your already bright CP80 would take the enamel off one's teeth through a JC. Which may be a good reason to get one.

These are great tips, but I think I am not doing a good job of framing what I am trying to figure out. I can tune my PC and adjust my music production workflow to work within the performance constraints of a laptop, whether it's my old laptop or this new one. The reason I have purchased the new one is to enlarge those constraints, and I'm trying to prove to myself that I have. I'm looking for some evidence that this machine's CPU is more capable than my old one--otherwise it won't be worth the investment. As I mentioned above, the CPU benchmarks suggest this new I7 G processor should handily outperform my old U processor, but general-purpose benchmarks are only so useful in predicting performance for a specific application like making music. I've been testing with CPU-hungry VST's like Diva and Bitwig's Grid because they're the purest way I can think of to determine whether this new CPU really is a step up from my old one (both of those soft synths have small memory footprints since they're not sample based, which eliminates things like RAM and I/O as potential factors.) To make the comparison, I am not looking at total systemwide CPU utilization which could be influenced by any number of factors such as other enabled apps; I am simply looking at the relevant VST processes using Windows Resource Manager, comparing them on the old machine and the new machine with the same softwynth poly patch, playing the same number of notes, and getting a stable CPU % on that process before releasing the notes. The VST process should be consuming a lower percentage of the CPU if the CPU is more powerful, but my numbers look the same across both machines. Today I ran Passmark on both laptops. Again, on paper the new laptop seems like it should crush the old one on paper (3x more powerful according to Passmark), so my results with Bitwig and Diva seem so odd to me. As I mentioned early on, my old laptop has a discrete GPU and this new one does not, but I've been operating under the assumption that DAW's and softsynths don't leverage the GPU for math operations. Beyond that, I haven't a clue why I can't find a practical demonstration to convince myself that this new laptop can outperform my old one.

Yes. U-he Diva. I use many other VST's as well, but tested with Diva precisely because it's such a hog and would give me a quick indication of whether the new laptop is more powerful than the old one. Like you I usually run U-he at a lower quality (e.g., "Draft"), but I've been benchmarking this week in "Divine" mode. I'm seeing similar results though with Bitwig's modular synth ("The Grid"), where the more complex patches routinely chewed up my old laptop; I'm not seeing any improvement on the new laptop.

Thanks all. I should have mentioned that I tried to hit the high nails around setup and tuning before posting this--Windows update, ensuring current drivers, checking the BIOS for any performance-gating options, etc. It's a new machine and refreshingly low on bloatware, and at this point the only items I've installed are music-related (audio interface drivers, Bitwig, and a few VST's.) I've found that Bitwig's CPU utilization widget correlates closely with actual dropout issues, and I am indeed hearing glitches when I load up on polyphony. Similarly, watching the CPU utilization of Bitwig's VST host process through Windows Resource Manager while holding down a chord shows the VST process holding steady at just over 20% until I release the chord, which seems quite high for just one VST synth. Moreover, that 20% is almost identical to the WRM numbers I see when I play the same patch on my old laptop with its allegedly inferior CPU. I will keep troubleshooting and keep my eye out for any Lenovo-introduced performance setting Easter eggs, but really just wanted to ask here whether people have had any experience with this particular Intel "G" CPU and whether perhaps my expectations are off base. The general-purpose CPU benchmarks suggest I should have doubled my CPU headroom over my old laptop, but I haven't been able to find much musician/producer discussion or anything DAWbench-like to corroborate that. Thanks again for the ideas.

I find spending a good bit of time practicing hands-separate really uncovers the warts and speeds improvement, especially on classical pieces. Ditto with exercises like scales, Hanon-ish patterns, etc. Playing scales hands-together makes it too easy to miss technical glitches and weak fingering combinations. I maintain that hands-separate is where the rubber meets the road on finger technique. Agreed on all keys for pretty much anything when time permits, and I'd add that the order matters when cycling quickly through the keys for things like scales and patterns. The circle of fifths is pleasing to the ear, but isn't as challenging as some other approaches given the small incremental changes needed to move from C to F to Bb, etc, I've found approaches like Adam Neely's routine of moving giant steps style in major thirds make my brain work harder and bakes it all in better, If modal scale mastery is among one's priorities, I think it helps to do everything possible to stop one's brain from thinking that they are playing, say, the Ionian scale of another key starting on the nth scale degree. That's a great mnemonic when first learning modes, but I think can get in the way of internalizing the scales and integrating them into improvisation. Running one modal scale at a time in all 12 keys helps in that regard. One additional trick I've found that has helped me develop both my hands and my ears is hitting a low McCoy-style root-fifth pedal in my left hand, then hitting a tension chord with the left hand that grabs a few of the essential scale degrees from the mode I am practicing, and then running the model scale up and down 2-3 octaves with my right hand. I find a few minutes of cycling through the 12 keys like this really grounds me in a mode, and it sounds a little more musical than most of my exercises. Then of course moving beyond scales and running patterns in each mode. I've also found mixing exercises up rhythmically increases bang for the buck on my practice time. There are the widely-prescribed simple modifications like playing scales/patterns in rhythmic variations (e.g., dotted rather than straight eighths, etc.) While those certainly help finger technique, I find it helps my brain and ear more (and is more fun) to think in terms of tuplet timing that differs from the number of notes in the pattern; in other words, if Jan Hammer and Hanon had a baby who was delivered by Vinnie Colaiuta. So if I am running a triad exercise up the C major scale (1-3-5 fingering in the RH, starting with C-E-G, then D-F-A, etc.), I'll turn on the metronome, and instead of playing the obvious triplets, I'll try to play four notes within the metronome beats and accent it as such. This element can be added to just about any exercise to up the challenge and the benefit, and can make even the most pedantic exercises sound kind of groovy.

I recently decided to upgrade to a new laptop, hoping to increase capacity for CPU-hungry VST's. My old laptop has an i7-7500U which I tend to max out quickly. I need something light that I can carry around--a gamer luggable with an H processor isn't viable for me--and after reading through some posts here and elsewhere and looking at benchmarks, I landed on the I7-1065G7. I had a hard time finding DAWbench stats, but general purpose CPU benchmarks suggested the i7-1065G7 would roughly double the CPU throughput of my old laptop. I pulled the trigger on a Lenovo Yoga a few days ago with the I7-1065G7 and 12GB of memory which is more than I ever use, and loaded my DAW (Bitwig) and a few CPU-heavy VST's (e.g., U-he's Diva). To my surprise, I am seeing no improvement. Playing an 8-note chord on a heavy/stacked poly patch shows the same (very high) CPU utilization on Bitwig's CPU meter with my old laptop and the new one. Measuring CPU utilization with Windows' monitoring tools shows the same thing--no improvement at all. These results can be observed no matter what kind of eight-note chord I play; major, minor, simple diatonic voicings or something thick with altered upper extensions. (Please laugh.) I've made sure I have multicore turned on with the VST's where applicable, and from everything I have read about Bitwig's technical architecture, it should be doing a reasonable job of tapping all the cores with respect to its own internal instruments and effects. Am I mistaken in paying any attention to a general CPU benchmark as a predictor of DAW/VST performance? i.e., am I wrong to think the I7-1065G7 should be outperforming my old laptop? The only other thing I can think of--and this seems unlikely to be a factor--is that my old laptop has a discrete GPU and the new Lenovo with the I7-1065G7 doesn't. Perhaps I've been wrong in thinking that music production software doesn't leverage a discrete GPU, but even if it does, my old laptop's GPU is a bottom-of-the-line NVidia MX150 which I can't imagine would be doing much for me. I have a few days to return the Lenovo for a small restocking fee. It's a nicely built machine, but I'll need to let it go and keep searching if it's not going to give me any improvement over my old laptop. Any insights or pointers most welcome.

Sting's "Seven Days". The usual 3+2, but Vinnie manages to make it slyly interesting--some clever accents within the hi-hat patterns.

You might also factor in repertoire as a consideration. That extra foot obviously makes a big difference for the bottom octave...if you're hanging out down there. For many years I played on a Steinway S (5'1"). Beautiful piano, Steinway's "singing" tone, etc., but no amount of technician ingenuity could coax anything coherent out of the lower strings. At the time I was working on some contemporary classical pieces that sounded pretty heinous on the S, and I would have gladly swapped it for a C3 (if "swapping pianos" were easy.) These days I think that S or a nicely-voiced C1 would work fine for my purposes. Fully disclosing my own shallowness, I'd also be thinking at least a smidge about aesthetics in this case. 20x20 sounds like a very big room. If the grand is going to be tucked into a corner, the size may not matter much, But if it's going to be out in the open as a centerpiece in the studio, the smallest of grands can read a little stubby and compromised regarded from a distance. If budget and space allow for something closer to 6', I think it might read better. Lastly, +1 for investigating Yamaha N family, esp if space *is* an issue. I became familiar with these when my neighbor was shopping for one last year, and it seems like they're turning up barely-used for half of MSRP everywhere these days. Figuring out how to record and mic your own piano can be fun and rewarding or painful and frustrating, depending on how you like to spend your time. If you think you might be in the latter category, having a turnkey solution might be a nice thing.

Close. The main surface is a bit sloped, and the optional display tilts almost parallel to the main surface. With the display as flat as I can get it, vertical clearance is 3 1/8" including feet, so 2U would easily do it.

I am also space constrained, and I own the iCon pictured above. It's about as compact as you can go with 9 x 100Mmm faders + rotary encoders, and it's highly modular with even the meter bridge/scribble strip being an accessory. Build quality is outstanding. My main gripe is frequent problems with Windows 10 recognizing it; it often often takes me several attempts after rebooting for Device Manager to load it correctly.