henrysb3 Posted February 19, 2004 Share Posted February 19, 2004 I use a Toughbook at work. It sits on a pedistal that's anchored to the transmission hump of a one ton truck. It shakes, lurches and vibrates all day. The machine itself appears pretty rugged, but keys started falling off the keyboard after a few weeks. It no longer latches, as almost all of ours don't. When carrying it by the handle, most of us can be seen with an extended finger holding the lid shut. Your finger may vary. The biggest hardware problem has been the $130 batteries that all failed within a year or so. The biggest problem, though, appears to be Windows NT running a bunch of proprietary software through a wireless modem. The software was created by a committee of committees that don't appear to have communicated with each other. After the ten minute security-anal boot that stops five or six times, you're really ready to work. At that point, the computer occasionaly decides to reinvent itself and take you into the dark unknown. Then the reboot process starts all over again after an extended shutdown. The company originally wanted us to take this thing with us on every service call into the customer's premise. I instead carry a lightweight meter that does most everything the Toughbook does at one tenth the weight and size. He not busy being born Is busy dyin'. ...Bob Dylan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
henrysb3 Posted February 19, 2004 Share Posted February 19, 2004 I think Toughie must have heard what I said and hit the back button. He not busy being born Is busy dyin'. ...Bob Dylan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chuck Surack Posted February 19, 2004 Share Posted February 19, 2004 Originally posted by Rensonic: I find laptops onstage interesting... So... anybody else trying that? Have you encountered any problems by doing so? What applications do you use on it?I have used laptops on stage for many, many years. I currently gig about 70-100 times each and every year. Believe it or not, I have had only 1 crash in all those years and it booted right back up. I have had more guitar players and drummers not show up than this.. I am currently using a 1.25 gigahertz 15" Powerbook with Digital Performer driving 2 K2500 racks, Digitech GPS21 Guitar Effects Processor, and Alesis Q20 Effects unit. Essentially, this setup is my backup band. The K2500s are fully loaded and have a bunch of custom sampled sounds that load automatically from internal hard drives when I get to the gig. I am using all of the separate outputs on the Kurzweils, so I have total control of the mixes (in addition to the internal MIDI data). The first 4 outputs are all kinds of 8 velocity switched, serious sounding drums...kick on channel 1, snare on channel 2..everything else on 3 & 4. Bass Guitar sounds always come out output 5. One output of a Kurzweil is always some sort of a Guitar sound that is routed to and automated via the Digitech Guitar processor. Keyboard sounds have their own stereo outputs, as do the string and horn sounds I play a bunch of saxes, flute, keys and sing live, and I have another guy that plays trumpet, trombone, keyboards and sings and we have this great female vocalist. We gig as much as we want (too much), we make pretty good money, and we play a huge variety of music. I never get bored! It sounds absolutely amazing and we can do about 450 songs. My setup is all MIDI (no audio) and the file loads completely into RAM and then I can INSTANTLY navigate between any of the 450 songs...no loading time. MOTU says I have the largest MIDI only file they have seen in DP. It is about 30 megabytes and even on my current Mac it takes a lot of RAM and about 3 minutes to load (used to be 6 + minutes). I do have a couple of backup plans...just in case First off, I'd just play.... 2nd, is that I have a bunch of our stuff turned into audio that is loaded into iTunes. I also carry an iPod loaded with our stuff! Hopefully, I will never need them. In the mean time, they serve up great break music. In addition to all the music, our effects are automated. i.e Big Reverb on Ballads, less Reverb on Rock tunes, Slapback on 50's tunes, Room sounds on the Smooth Jazz stuff, and best of all...no effects between songs when we are talking and I don't even have to press a bypass button like I did for my first 20 years of playing. I'd like to automate our lights and I know how to do it, but I am not sure it is worth the work. I'd also like to get some MIDI controlled "robots"..maybe a drummer?? something like this: http://www.sallycorp.com/animatronics/productions.htm but more real...and we could have fun with it - we could change outfits / hats etc. on it - we could make it talk - and say things that we could never get away with saying..it could sing..it could follow the MIDI data of my drums and really drum?????) I'd do this in a heartbeat, but I have not really figured out the actual details or know someone who could do it right. I'd also love to covert my whole setup to softsynths, and I keep trying, but for a variety of reasons and from my point of view the technology is not there yet...maybe someday! Chuck Surack Sweetwater Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lee Flier Posted February 19, 2004 Share Posted February 19, 2004 Originally posted by gmstudio99: It is interesting, though, to hear from people that don't and never will use a laptop on stage keep telling those of us that do about the pitfalls of why we shouldn't.Since when is anybody telling YOU why you shouldn't? What I've seen is people saying why THEY personally don't want to. And even acknowledging that their reasons may be irrational. I think what's really going on is if you get really attached to a piece of gear because it really helps your creativity, you don't mind whatever hoops you have to jump through to use it. It just doesn't seem like a big deal. But if you don't really see much creative benefit to using it, all you can think about are the headaches involved. People say the same things about tube guitar amps, how they're unreliable and inconsistent and such. But of course I as a great lover of tube amps, who can't imagine ever using anything else, have experienced completely the opposite. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lee Flier Posted February 19, 2004 Share Posted February 19, 2004 Originally posted by Anderton: You might be surprised how good some laptops are -- a lot of people take them into really inhospitable field conditions.Yeah, that's true, I have some clients who work under those kinda conditions and have some pretty rugged laptops. I wonder if any of my synths could have survived a 6 foot drop to concrete and lose nothing more than their LCD...LOL... I don't know, but years ago my Ampeg tube amp once fell out the back of the van (dumbass roadie started driving off without having closed the back door all the way!) and rolled for quite a ways down a driveway end over end. Checked it out, no readily apparent physical damage. Got it to the gig, plugged it in and it worked fine. Not even a tube busted. I later found an ad that Ampeg did in the early 70's featuring Keith Richards tossing one out a hotel window. I can attest that in this case, there was truth in advertising! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lee Flier Posted February 19, 2004 Share Posted February 19, 2004 Originally posted by Anderton: Once latency gets below 3 ms or so, I think it just doesn't matter, especially live with all the reflections and such...I mean, it's the same thing as moving your head another meter away from the speaker.You know, I used to think that way too, and I used to laugh at people who were worried about a few ms of latency. But my actual experience over the years has ended up telling me otherwise. Logically it would seem like it wouldn't matter but in the real world, at least to my mind, it does. The performance feels different somehow, and not in a good way. I think we're actually a lot more sensitized to reflections and how much they define a space than we realize... there's a really interesting discussion going on right now on George's forum about that. Anyhow, so far the only digital devices I've used that have acceptable latencies to me are those that have OS's and hardware optimized specifically for the purpose - that is, dedicated devices. Generic OS's in personal computer hardware just don't seem up to the task. I think where the computer thing is REALLY going to take over is session work. When I was doing lots of sessions, carting gear was such a huge pain because you never knew what the producer was going to want. So in this case you load up a bunch of plugs, bring a nice little tube amp, and you're covered no matter what.Yeah, but do plugs sound as good as hardware? I think not. Obviously a lot of session players are going this route, and I don't think we're better off for it in terms of the end result. I'd rather cart a bunch of gear, or rent it if we need it, even though it's more expensive and more of a pain. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anderton Posted February 19, 2004 Share Posted February 19, 2004 <> It depends on the plug. Amp emulation is always a toughie, but some of the chorus and filters available in plug-ins sound just fine to me, especially in terms of keeping down noise. Part of the problem is plug-ins aren't always designed with guitar in mind. When Steinberg "virtualized" my Quadrafuzz, a guitarist was in charge of the coding. He "got" the whole point of using LEDs as distortion elements, and zeroed in on modeling that effect, thus preserving its most important element. Had he just turned up the gain and said "Okay, that's how it distorts," the results wouldn't have been the same. He understand that the distortion effect was dynamic, depending on the level going through the LED, which changed the capacitance and therefore the high frequency response. In some ways, I think the plug-in sounds better because the filters don't have the ripple and phase shift problems I kept trying to eliminate from the analog version. The 3 ms figure was being conservative...I regularly get 1.5 ms out of my setup. At that point you're getting the same latency as you would going through any hardware digital effect, because of A/D and D/A conversion times. The only way to get zero latency is with all-analog gear, which come to think of it, is maybe why people like it ... However, don't forget that analog gear is not perfect. Unless everything is DC coupled, you'll probably get phase shift from coupling capacitors, and that can be destructive to your sound as well. Craig Anderton Educational site: http://www.craiganderton.org Music: http://www.youtube.com/thecraiganderton Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/craig_anderton Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gmstudio99 Posted February 19, 2004 Share Posted February 19, 2004 Originally posted by Lee Flier: Yeah, but do plugs sound as good as hardware? I think not. Yeah, but since 98% of all the great studio/engineering work being done these days ends up as crappy-sounding mp3 files anyway, does it *really* matter in the end? Gila Monster Studio Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lee Flier Posted February 19, 2004 Share Posted February 19, 2004 Originally posted by gmstudio99: Yeah, but since 98% of all the great studio/engineering work being done these days ends up as crappy-sounding mp3 files anyway, does it *really* matter in the end? LOL... well in all seriousness, yes it does. An MP3 of a great recording still sounds far better than an MP3 of a crappy recording. Same with AM radio or any previous "crappy" format. Whatever the end format is going to be is no excuse for fudging at the source. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Franknputer Posted February 19, 2004 Share Posted February 19, 2004 I think that whatever you use - tube amps, laptop, bagpipes - you need to have a CYA plan. I remember one gig where my guitar decided that the moment we went onstage was a good time to die. I had to borrow a guitar from one of the other bands, and spent half the set trying to make it sound somewhere near what I was going for. (A heavily-modded Strat doesn't sit in well for a Les Paul...) So now - I always take 2 guitars to the gig. I do remember, at the record store show I did with Lee, that there was 1 band there who had a keyboardist using Reason from a laptop - exact same problem, a previously working laptop took a dump on the downbeat, and they ended up delaying their set to try & get it back. No contingency plan = your fans. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rog Posted February 19, 2004 Share Posted February 19, 2004 Originally posted by Lee Flier: LOL... well in all seriousness, yes it does. An MP3 of a great recording still sounds far better than an MP3 of a crappy recording. Same with AM radio or any previous "crappy" format. Whatever the end format is going to be is no excuse for fudging at the source.Thats the golden rule for me: go for the best sound you can get otherwise, why bother ? "That's what the internet is for. Slandering others anonymously." - Banky Edwards. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kid music Posted February 19, 2004 Share Posted February 19, 2004 Originally posted by Anderton: ...I regularly get 1.5 ms out of my setup.Craig - do you get 1.5 ms out of a laptop? Could you give me the list of gear that achieves this? That's the lowest I've heard from a native system (I use TDM, and I think you don't; I'm very impressed with 1.5 ms from a native system). Thanks, kid music Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anderton Posted February 20, 2004 Share Posted February 20, 2004 Sorry, I was careless...the topic sorted of veered toward plug-ins, and that's the figure for my desktop setup (dual 1.8 GHz Athlons), which is what I play my guitar through. My laptop is (was, if you've followed my other thread!) an Apple G3 which I use for running Live, not real time guitar playing. And 1.5 ms is something I rarely use, because it's always in the context of running with a host, so pushing the computer that hard makes it difficult to run lots of plug-ins and tracks. But I do think it's only a matter of time before the 1.5-3 ms range for latency becomes the norm, not the exception. Craig Anderton Educational site: http://www.craiganderton.org Music: http://www.youtube.com/thecraiganderton Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/craig_anderton Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kid music Posted February 20, 2004 Share Posted February 20, 2004 Dagnabbit! I was drooling at the thought of playing my guitar live through a laptop, not just as an fx send rack... but hey, they have some screaming fast cpu's on PC laptop these days, so maybe? If anyone is getting extremely low latency with a laptop, e.g. <3ms, please post your gear along with how much you have running at once without dropouts. Much thanks! -kid music Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anderton Posted February 20, 2004 Share Posted February 20, 2004 < Well, at the last NAMM show I played through the new RT Player and AmpliTube live, and while in Texas, I played guitar through a G4 laptop running GarageBand with guitar amp plug-ins. In all three cases, latency simply was not an issue to me. I don't know what the delay was, but I can definitely hear a 5 ms delay, so I'm pretty sure it was less than that. Craig Anderton Educational site: http://www.craiganderton.org Music: http://www.youtube.com/thecraiganderton Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/craig_anderton Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikegrijak Posted February 20, 2004 Share Posted February 20, 2004 Originally posted by Anderton: < Well, at the last NAMM show I played through the new RT Player and AmpliTube live, and while in Texas, I played guitar through a G4 laptop running GarageBand with guitar amp plug-ins. In all three cases, latency simply was not an issue to me. I don't know what the delay was, but I can definitely hear a 5 ms delay, so I'm pretty sure it was less than that.Yeah, this laptop thing is getting really scary with just how smooth it is all working for me! I have a HP 2.4 Ghz Celeron Laptop with a gig of ram and an extenal firewire hard drive and a firewire sound box and this setup just does not fail me! I am using Reason, and Ableton LIVE rewired together and I could not be happier! This way, no, wait, that way! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deanmass Posted February 21, 2004 Share Posted February 21, 2004 Originally posted by Lee Flier: Radiohead notwithstanding, my "Dork-O-Meter" starts pegging the minute I see a computer onstage. You are so cool... ((does we are not worthy bow...) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lee Flier Posted February 21, 2004 Share Posted February 21, 2004 LOL... hey, I have already mentioned on several occasions here that there are many dorks that I happen to like. Heck, our last gig was at an event called "GeekFest." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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