VI Host vs DAW

[Deskew Tech]

and maintains the settings of the original, except for split point, volume, and midi routing.

 

FWIW, that restriction was one of the reasons I gave up on MS.

[AnotherScott]

I think the biggest point of failure in a laptop is the internal hard drive/SSD. They absolutely DO fail. So if not gigging with an entire backup laptop, if I were relying on it, I'd at least travel with a backup bootable external high speed drive. Though according to one report I read, the new M1 Macs will not startup from an external drive if the internal SSD fails. If that's true, that would rule out an M1 laptop for me as a dedicated gigging laptop without some alternate sound source, whether that were internal sounds, a second laptop, or an iPad... something I could get through the gig with.

[Deskew Tech]

I think the biggest point of failure in a laptop is the internal hard drive/SSD. They absolutely DO fail.

DO and WILL are very different. The MTBF for an SSD is far higher than that of a hard drive, partially because there are no mechanical parts to fail. Heck, your USB and audio cables can fail and that probably happens way more often because of how they get thrown around, flexed/bent/stood on during setup/teardown. There's a reason technicians carry a soldering iron :-) In practice your display is more likely to break than your drive due to raising/lowering the cover. Most of the time, failures with drives happen very early (infant mortality) or they go on for years and then die (old age) so if you have a new machine, you'll probably find out pretty quickly if your drive is ok or not.

 

But I've been at shows where they had to stop because a keyboard failed (most recent time I saw this happen was at a Roger Hodgson show in Ridgefield, CT)

 

Sure -- I've been carrying a spare laptop since I started touring in 2012 just in case - and so far, I've never needed it --- but I have had more than one keyboard controller fail on tour, particularly when using backlined keyboards.

 

The nice thing about Windows machines is they're really cheap so if failure is not an option (theater or arena gig, or indeed any gig where people are paying to see you etc) then sure, carry an extra computer with you -- it's a lot easier than carrying extra keyboards.

 

 

 

Though according to one report I read, the new M1 Macs will not startup from an external drive

Not true -- though apparently you're supposed to use a thunderbolt 3 drive (https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/01/03/how-to-boot-an-apple-silicon-mac-from-an-external-drive)

[Deskew Tech]

If laptop are so reliable, why people buy expensive insurances like Apple Care ?

 

(A) Because many people don't understand the actual risks (B) Many people feel better having such coverage © They're encouraged to by Apple (you should own Apple stock!!!) (D) Apple Care covers a lot of things beyond internal failure --- I believe you get coverage for a certain number of accidental damage

 

Extended warranties have become a huge profit center for companies. You almost can't buy an eraser from Staples or a battery from Amazon without being offered an extended warranty!

 

Why people keep two or better three different backup copies of their data ?

(A) Ability to retrieve older versions of a file (B) Ability to restore to an earlier version of OS X if a new version breaks something (that has happened to me) © Corruption due to malware / ransomware and (D) of course because computers CAN fail!

 

 

The more complex a system is, higher is the risk of problems; hardware, software, or configuration.

Sure - yet an airplane is clearly more complex than a car but the statistics indicate that it's safer to fly than to drive.

 

Doubling (say) the risk of failure is very different when your original risk was 0.1% vs 10% (say)

 

In other words, while the risk may very well be higher in relative terms, the actual risk may still be very tiny.

 

As I've noted before, if the risk of failure was significant, you wouldn't have hundreds of thousands of musicians performing on stage using laptops.

[Reezekeys]

I'll echo David's points, however unlike him I live on the edge because I don't travel with a backup laptop. Of course I carry extra stuff that will get me through a gig if need be, but like David, my last 8 or so years of touring (minus the last year & a half of course!) have shown that it"s way more likely for keyboards, cables and other peripherals to have problems than my laptop. Don"t get me started; my first gig with AWB, a 'throw and go' festival hit â I get on stage and the LCD of my rented Yamaha Motif is dead. My MOTU interface stopped passing audio at one gig, requiring a reboot in the middle of a set (why I now use the headphone jack). In short - it seems like everything but my laptop has had issues at one point or another. Thankfully they"ve been minor and not showstoppers except for the MOTU interface incident.

 

Regarding booting an M1 Mac from an external, I believe the issue is not whether or not you can do it â but that you can"t do it if the internal is dead. This article may clarify. Luckily my ancient MBP is chugging along fine so I will wait and see how this plays out. This article seems to imply 'yes, you can"t boot from an external if the internal is dead but it"s not as concerning as you might think.'

 

https://tidbits.com/2021/05/27/an-m1-mac-cant-boot-from-an-external-drive-if-its-internal-drive-is-dead/

[AnotherScott]

I think the biggest point of failure in a laptop is the internal hard drive/SSD. They absolutely DO fail.

DO and WILL are very different. The MTBF for an SSD is far higher than that of a hard drive, partially because there are no mechanical parts to fail. Heck, your USB and audio cables can fail and that probably happens way more often because of how they get thrown around, flexed/bent/stood on during setup/teardown. There's a reason technicians carry a soldering iron :-) In practice your display is more likely to break than your drive due to raising/lowering the cover.

Maybe just bad luck, but over the past 7-8 years, I have had at least three macbook failures, I think maybe it was even four, all of which were internal SSD failures. (All different Macbooks, so it wasn't something else in the computer that was killing them.) One was shorty after purchase, the others were years into it. I've never had a display issue (or any other issue). I do, however, always travel with spare audio cables, and yes, I've had to use them. I will grant you, SSDs are more reliable than guitar cables. :-)

 

Though according to one report I read, the new M1 Macs will not startup from an external drive

Not true -- though apparently you're supposed to use a thunderbolt 3 drive (https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/01/03/how-to-boot-an-apple-silicon-mac-from-an-external-drive)

You left out the most important part of the quote. The issue wasn't that you can't startup an M1 mac from an external drive, but rather it said that you couldn't do it if the internal SSD had failed. But thanks for that link, because it indeed may have the key which that poster might have missed... you have to long-hold the power button, he might not have known that. It's kind of irritating when Apple changes things for no apparent reason (which they do a lot, especially in iOS). For, what, 20+ years, we've invoked an alternate startup at boot by holding the Option key. Unless they read it somewhere, nobody upgrading to an M1 is going to know that now you have to hold the power button instead. So that's probably the answer.

[Deskew Tech]

Maybe just bad luck, but over the past 7-8 years, I have had at least three macbook failures, I think maybe it was even four

That's a lot failures. While I can see why exactly why you would be very skeptical, (and I'd probably feel the same way if that happened to me), I think one has to be very careful to remember that anecdotes are not data, in other words, it's not reasonable to generalize based on a sample of 1 (or even 2 or 3 :-) )

 

One was shorty after purchase, the others were years into it

Classic examples of "infant mortality" and "old age" respectively. The former is clearly detected quickly but of course how old is "old age" is more problematic and that's maybe the reason to carry a backup machine if feasible.