Surface Pro 4 i5 running Hammersmith piano and Pianoteq Pro

[WheelHead]

I did a search to see if this was posted before. It may have but I did not find it. Apologies if this is old info.

 

My Mac was getting a bit sluggish that I run some sampled pianos and Pianoteq. I thought, I would try my Surface Pro 4 to run the Hammersmith (love this piano) and Pianoteq Pro. (great too)

 

Sonicouture allows 2 licenses. I have one on the Mac and then I downloaded the Windows version for the tablet. Licensing was different with Windows. You had to download another Native Instruments app for licensing. With Mac (or that version of Kontakt 5 in the Mac) the licensing was in Kontakt to do.

 

The tablet only has 1 USB port so I needed to use a hub and the one I have is a non-powered hub. That did not work with the VCP1 controller. (though it intermittently did work and then failed) Did not have enough juice. I have a powered USB hub on order (Surface dock should work too with the A/C adapter) but in the meantime I used a dual USB cord. (2 USBs on one end and one connector on the other - the small-wire USB of the two-cord-end can connect to power like an iPhone charger and that is what I used temporarily) Now the controller ran fine. Audio out from the Surface Pro 4 USB went to the main port of the hub and ran perfectly fine to a Focusrite 2/2.

 

I ran the default Hammersmith. One mystery was solved with the remarks I have read about how "long the Hammersmith loads" since I used it previously on a Mac. Mine seemed to load fairly quickly and I noticed more than one comment about this. Well, with Windows it has a double load and takes quite a bit longer to load than OS X so I finally understood the remarks (though not that long)

 

I loaded Pianoteq Pro also. Now the result: both pianos ran unbelievably well in the Surface Pro 4. Looking at CPU load indicator with Pianoteq the graph rarely went up half way while I was doing runs and glisses up and down the keyboard trying to push it. Arpeggiating chords with both hands. No clipping or errors. The Hammersmith sampled piano was more surprising. The CPU percentage rarely went over 15 or 20 percent. Sometimes reaching up to around 30 percent as I pushed the polyphony. (128)

 

The tablet was laid flat on top of the controller. The stand to the rear. Without the laptop but the low profile tablet on top with all the touch-to-screen controls, it gave me a bit of an illusion I was on a digital piano and not a controller-to-a-computer

 

Very surprised how perfectly the Hammersmith (50GB library) ran on the tablet. I expected to run OK with perhaps some higher latency, I was running 128 samples. I did not try lower than that. SP tablet is i5 with 8GB memory.

 

WH

 

[Markay]

Tablets are optimised to minimise power consumption and limit CPU usage to extend the time between recharging.

 

Did you try running the USB controller and interface with the tablet running on AC and with power management set to minimum?

[bourniplus]

Thanks for sharing. Have you tried using the audio out from the Surface?

[WheelHead]

Tablets are optimised to minimise power consumption and limit CPU usage to extend the time between recharging.

 

Did you try running the USB controller and interface with the tablet running on AC and with power management set to minimum?

 

Great point! I am running it with AC power. I have the power settings with hard drive never to go off. The screen turning off does not effect it.

 

I took the display brightness and reduced below 50 percent. NOW, it will run without external power to the USB. To test: I took the brightness way back up and within a minute the controller turned itself off and failed. Took display brightness back down again and the controller seemed to work indefinitely (played about 15 minutes) without external USB power. (The Kawai VPC1 also has a power input if needed - and obviously different controllers and external USB ASIO audio devices are going to draw different power amounts) This is how I am going to run my piano samples from now on with my go-to pianos. Really like it. Downside: this is only 128GB so I cannot use all my sampled pianos except my favorites. I was considering purchasing an i7 for this purpose but it is not necessary.

 

WH

 

 

[WheelHead]

Thanks for sharing. Have you tried using the audio out from the Surface?

 

Not yet and good idea to try. I will do that sometime and hear how it sounds using an ASIO4all driver. That would greatly reduce the power needed and would probably easily run on battery. Since it is working perfectly with better, USB audio, the Focusrite 2X2 - I will stay with that but I would like to try internal audio as an option and will do that next.

 

Update: I ran the ASIO4all driver. It was a bit tricky with the Surface you have to take out (uncheck) the 192Khz enablement that runs default in the ASIO4all settings to lower setting and play with it. I turned off the path to the on-board speakers too. Did not sound bad at all. The Hammersmith on the internal sound, out the mini-port, despite showing 128 (and even 96) samples, did feel like it had a tiny bit of inherent latency not as snappy as the Focusrite 2/2 with MIDI. Perhaps playing with the driver further could improve this. I went back and forth and I have to say the Focusrite did sound better but not as much as I expected and was not a *clear*, marked tonal difference. At times it was hard to tell. Pianoteq Pro played awesome with the on-board SP4 sound chip. Latency was almost nothing. I will continue to use the FocusRite AND the VPC1 controller that works fine with the display brightness below 50 percent without a powered hub. (keeping the brightness low gave extra power to the USB-powered Kawai VP1 controller through the one USB port/hub on the tablet - if I want higher display brightness I can hook up powered hub or attached power supply to VPC1) Using just a cheap unpowered hub 1 to 4.

 

WH