Less is More - Ultimate Laptop Rig?

[felix]

Now that hard drives are cheap and virtual instruments ship with multiple DVDs of content, we all know that it's easy to find great-sounding stuff that has tons of content.

 

But going another direction, what's the ideal laptop solution for virtual instruments - that fits entirely on the laptop's hard drive?

 

What's the best system you can put together that won't fill more than 30GB and covers all the typical bases (i.e. piano, electric piano, organ, synth, basic orchestral, etc)?

[Dave Bryce]

Muse Receptor?

 

dB

[richwhite9]

I just bught a rack DAW to go with my Muse. I'll let you know how it goes.

 

An Apple with Logic Pro is the easy answer to the question for easy one stop shopping.

[burningbusch]

Take an inventory of what you're really going to use and determine how much is enough.

 

Currently, I use a Korg M3-M live. Probably 80% of the sounds I use come from re-sampled virtual instruments. I have Scarbee Rhodes and Clav, TruePiano, four saxes from Candy, a QL Brass trumpet, a couple of guitars and a few sounds from Atmosphere. They have nearly all been re-sampled. I recorded them using Extreme Sample Convertor. I set ESC to record no more than seven seconds of sound. After that, if there's any sound still there I have it automatically looped. I record every note or every other note (I don't like going beyond that). With the pianos/guitars I like to record the natural decay as I find ROMpler envelopes to be grainy. I save it in SoundFont format and load it into the M3.

 

Because of the severe RAM limitations of the M3 and the incredibly long load times, I need to minimize everything. If I loaded these libraries in their native state they would be > 2GB. I have it down to 200MB and they are perfectly functional for live use.

 

Point being, if you're never going use the samples that have been loaded on your hard disk, get rid of them. If you have the option of 16bit or 24bit samples, choose 16bit. The time you spend examining what's going on within the samplers and what you're actually using helps reduce load time, disk space usage and overall performance. Do you really need a 13 layer clavinet and do you really all the switch settings?

 

BTW, I like TruePianos for a main piano sound. It's not Rock&Roll bright but it works extremely well in other music. It doesn't take up a lot of disk space. I prefer to tone to Ivory in a live setting.

 

Busch.

[gliderproarc]

I've yet to actually use it live, but Apple's Mainstage seems to cover a lot of bases. I used to run Logic 7, and switched between tracks to changes instruments, but Mainstage looks like it can make that so much more efficient. You get everything but a good piano sound, EVB3, EVD6, EVP88, and the various synths and samples with Logic will cover most sonic bases. I particularly like the draw-bar control over EVB3 in real time.

 

Sampling plugins.... now thats a neat idea! Gota try that.

[JeffLearman]

Um, why limited to 30GB? Doesn't the typical one today have 80GB, most of it available? Regardless, 30GB should be plenty.

[magronbass]

Also, keep in mind that laptop's internal drive won't work for disk streaming. Use a USB external HD for that. (use one streaming instrument at a time tho)

[zephonic]

Also, keep in mind that laptop's internal drive won't work for disk streaming. Use a USB external HD for that. (use one streaming instrument at a time tho)

 

I thought that when you have plenty of RAM that sort of negates the problem?

[burningbusch]

Also, keep in mind that laptop's internal drive won't work for disk streaming. Use a USB external HD for that. (use one streaming instrument at a time tho)

 

I thought that when you have plenty of RAM that sort of negates the problem?

 

Some of these libraries are huge. You can sometimes pull off streaming from the internal drive. I replaced my PowerBook with a 7200rpm and that helped. It also depends on what you're streaming. Percussive material can work while sustained sounds might not.

 

Again, getting down to the bare essentials helps alot. Most libraries can be reduced to a practical size so you can fit multiple libraries into RAM.

 

Busch.

[kanker.]

Also, keep in mind that laptop's internal drive won't work for disk streaming. Use a USB external HD for that. (use one streaming instrument at a time tho)

No, use a Firewire external or better yet an eSATA external. USB just doesn't have the right kind of bandwidth for robust disk streaming.

[jook]

Currently, I use a Korg M3-M live. Probably 80% of the sounds I use come from re-sampled virtual instruments. I have Scarbee Rhodes and Clav, TruePiano, four saxes from Candy, a QL Brass trumpet, a couple of guitars and a few sounds from Atmosphere. They have nearly all been re-sampled. I recorded them using Extreme Sample Convertor.

 

I'm surprised not more people are doing this, and busch appears to be the only one that have commented on this approach.

 

I am doing something similar, using an Alesis Fusion on which I sample or convert my favourite sample libraries or virtual instruments. I have M-Tron ported over to the Fusion, along with the Mellotron.com CD AKAI sample library, and these two sources combined give me the most comprehensive/best Mellotron collection you can buy in digital format.

 

I also have Scarbee's Pianet N on my Fusion, and planning to port the Rhodes and Wurly over in time.

 

Currently working on porting the Abbey Road Keyboards set (in particular, the honky tonk Mrs Mills piano, which I love).

 

Admittedly, all this takes some time, and there is a compromise to be made with the limited RAM available on these hardware samplers. I would typically drop a few layers and just keep the ones most audibly different.

 

I think what makes the sample libraries better these days is not necessarily the extreme file sizes. Although that helps in the fine details, in a band context, whether in recording (where things will be mixed to stereo) or in a live context (with drums and guitars loud), much of these details are superfluous.

 

No, what I think makes them better is simply the attention and care given to recording them. Better use of mics and all, since they are also sold at higher prices (which appear to be justified by the file sizes these days!), and also just better taste in getting a sound that is more natural, thus more timeless and more appreciated by the picky users.

 

I would argue that if you ask Scarbee to really try and create a Rhodes or Wurly sample set that would fit on a Korg M3, or any similar workstation with limited RAM - it would still sound better than any of the other stock on-board Rhodes samples currently provided by Yamaha, Roland, Korg, Nord, etc.

 

That is, I don't think it's the technology or hardware that is limiting, as much as the sound designer at hand.

[burningbusch]

Jook, obviously I agree. What are you using for tools? I was using Samplit but found I got better results with Extreme Sample Convertor. ESC has a great auto-looping function which I use sometimes. How are you getting sounds into the Fusion? I've found the SoundFont import to be a godsend. It messes up sometimes, but I know what to fix when it does so the process is fairly painless.

 

Busch.

[jook]

I'm using Awave Studio. I've tried ESC before, and I liked its interface more, but I couldn't work out how to do some things, like stripping out existing layers and changing the velocity split/range for the remaining layers. It seemed like it should do it (I remember a window with a list of velocity splits), but I couldn't figure out how to edit it!

 

Awave has a more primitive interface but it seems to do the job. I just checked up on ESC and noticed that they've recently updated with improvements in importing from GIGA libraries, which might be interesting...

 

To get the sounds into the Fusion, I use the Fusion Convertor provided by Alesis. It can import from a number of formats, including SoundFont and AKAI S1000/S3000/S5000/Z-series. What I generally do is create and edit my programs in Awave, save to the Akai S5000 format, and import it with the Convertor. It too, messes up sometimes, and I have to manually fix up some parameters.

[Darcity]

Muse Receptor?

 

dB

 

Enough said!!!

[Tobias Åslund]

Also, keep in mind that laptop's internal drive won't work for disk streaming. Use a USB external HD for that. (use one streaming instrument at a time tho)

No, use a Firewire external or better yet an eSATA external. USB just doesn't have the right kind of bandwidth for robust disk streaming.

 

Is this really true? Ok, USB 1.1 is slow, but USB 2.0 is actually faster than Firewire 400 (USB 2.0 runs at 480 Mbit/s). Firewire 800 is still faster, FW400 is not. Please correct me if I'm wrong here.

[Hobo]

It's all to do with keeping it in perspective. Romplers have every instrument under the sun with what, say 100mb of sample data. On the other end you have multi Gb single sounds. If you can't create a bank of very useable sounds for under 1gb something's wrong.

 

I use mainstage, and all my EXS samples are trimmed down versions of large libraries and I barely notice the difference. Meaning nobody else will notice at all.

 

My live setup with pianos, rhodes, wurly, bass and others comes in at less than 300mb and is a delight to play.

[mate stubb]

See, just reading this thread gave me a headache, like I knew it would.

 

Hard drives, firewire, can't stream internally, resample, usb version x.....blech.

 

If I wanna screw with the ever changing world of incompatible computer hardware, I can just go to work at my day job.

[ITGITC]

Also, keep in mind that laptop's internal drive won't work for disk streaming. Use a USB external HD for that. (use one streaming instrument at a time tho)

No, use a Firewire external or better yet an eSATA external. USB just doesn't have the right kind of bandwidth for robust disk streaming.

 

Is this really true? Ok, USB 1.1 is slow, but USB 2.0 is actually faster than Firewire 400 (USB 2.0 runs at 480 Mbit/s). Firewire 800 is still faster, FW400 is not. Please correct me if I'm wrong here.

 

Yes.

 

It doesn't seem logical, does it? However, the USB uses more overhead when transferring data.

 

The best option today and for the immediate future is External SATA. SATA also allows for Native Command Queuing and hotplugging.

 

I'll try to find links to support this. I wish I could just say "trust me", but nobody knows me on this forum. Who would take important advice like this from a stranger - some Joe off the street, huh?

 

 

 

Edit: OK, here's a nice link - Wikipedia

[Joe Muscara]

Who would take important advice like this from a stranger - some Joe off the street, huh?

 

Gee, dude, cut me some slack. I thought we had built a relationship.

[ITGITC]

Who would take important advice like this from a stranger - some Joe off the street, huh?

 

Gee, dude, cut me some slack. I thought we had built a relationship.

 

I luvs ya man. But ya got to mumember...

 

It's not all about YOU... or is it?

 

OK, U R right. It IS all about you... and Google.

 

 

[Joe Muscara]

It's only about me when you bring me up by name.

[kanker.]

Is this really true? Ok, USB 1.1 is slow, but USB 2.0 is actually faster than Firewire 400 (USB 2.0 runs at 480 Mbit/s). Firewire 800 is still faster, FW400 is not. Please correct me if I'm wrong here.

USB is designed for bursts of information, like mouse clicks, transferring small files, typing, and other simple input. While USB 2.0 is more robust, it is still not designed for large scale constant streaming like audio or video require. It does have a larger max bandwidth than FW400, you can actually get worse performance from USB2.0 because Firewire is designed for streaming large amounts of data constantly. This is one reason why you don't see high end USB2.0 audio interfaces.

[kanker.]

The best option today and for the immediate future is External SATA. SATA also allows for Native Command Queuing and hotplugging.

Yeah, eSATA is definitely the way to go. An eSATA expresscard (assuming you have a fairly modern laptop) isn't particularly expensive, and a triple interface external (USB2.0/FW/eSATA) runs just a few bucks more than a USB2.0 drive, but the performance you get from eSATA will be worth more than every penny. 3Gbps max bandwidth....

[Clifton]

The best option today and for the immediate future is External SATA. SATA also allows for Native Command Queuing and hotplugging.

Yeah, eSATA is definitely the way to go. An eSATA expresscard (assuming you have a fairly modern laptop) isn't particularly expensive, and a triple interface external (USB2.0/FW/eSATA) runs just a few bucks more than a USB2.0 drive, but the performance you get from eSATA will be worth more than every penny. 3Gbps max bandwidth....

 

+1 there. eSATA is effectively the same as having an internal hard disk.

 

Whoever said get a Muse Receptor is right though :-)

[zephonic]

Also, keep in mind that laptop's internal drive won't work for disk streaming. Use a USB external HD for that. (use one streaming instrument at a time tho)

No, use a Firewire external or better yet an eSATA external. USB just doesn't have the right kind of bandwidth for robust disk streaming.

 

Is this really true? Ok, USB 1.1 is slow, but USB 2.0 is actually faster than Firewire 400 (USB 2.0 runs at 480 Mbit/s). Firewire 800 is still faster, FW400 is not. Please correct me if I'm wrong here.

 

Bandwidth is only a part of the story. It is my understanding that the firewire protocol was designed with real-time streaming in mind (the word time-stamping comes to mind, although I do not know exactly what it means), for digital video cameras etc.

USB was designed as a replacement for the original serial bus and meant to provide easy hot-swappable interfacing for QWERTY, printers etc. and the core architecture of the protocol has never been optimized for real-time streaming.

 

But I am sure that nowadays the differences are negligible. Nevertheless, most pros still prefer firewire 400 over USB 2.0 for recording/streaming.

 

[kanker.]

I can't be sure of the validity of this info, but - http://www.cwol.com/firewire/firewire-vs-usb.htm

[RABid]

If you shop around it is pretty easy to find a laptop with built in Firewire800. If you go with SATA you usually have to use your card slot to get an interface.

[felix]

Wow - I must not have asked the question clearly.

 

I don't want to carry a rack. I don't want to hook up an external drive. And I don't want the whole internal hard drive taken up by music programs, leaving no room for anything else.

 

I want to open a laptop, plug in a controller, and actually be able to make some decent music.

 

Maybe this can be accomplished with GarageBand or Logic (though the content still takes up a healthy chunk).

 

It's easy to lust after the best stuff out there - but think about this:

Ivory - 20GB+ (with no Italian expansion)

BFD2 - 55GB (with no other expansions)

Komplete - 50GB (and that's just the sample library)

Quantum Leap Pianos - up to 150GB according to East West...

 

So my challenge was to put together a combination of compact VI's that don't gobble up the hard drive, but rather than assume just GarageBand or some such thing, choosing the best small VIs to cover the essential bases.

[Joe Muscara]

Why are you limiting yourself to 30 GB? You can get internal SATA drives for MacBooks for less than $200 that are 250 GB and 5400 RPM. You will still be a bit limited with that, depending on what libraries you want, and how much speed they need the HD to be, but I bet you can do it with some experimentation, and doing things like not installing all of Ivory for example.

[felix]

Why NOT limit these apps to 30GB?

 

I read your post, and opened up my laptop. The drive is 93GB. I honestly don't want to have to put in another internal hard drive.

 

The point of this excercise is to simplify, not complicate. Seems like too often this forum can have a tendency to take someone's post stating what they want, and then give them 20 responses why they don't want what they think they want.

 

What I'm going for is the same thing as when samplers had very little memory, and someone with programming finesse could come up with an instrument that sounded great, but used very little memory. I think that's cool, and I want to apply the same concept to my portable rig.

 

And yes, I still want hard drive space for iTunes, pictures, etc - So I somewhat randomly set the guideline at 30GB. I was kind of hoping that after someone came up with a cool 30GB VI rig, someone else would outdo them and come up with a 25GB rig, and so on.