Old school sound module or powerful laptop for live

[Jefsong]

I'm a bit torn putting together a new "fly-away" rig and I am curious what others would suggest. I currently own a Surface Pro 3 and use it a lot live for some light "extra" VST sounds. It unfortunately is not powerful enough to run the entire rig with full piano and layered strings etc... My dilemma is, do I pick up a used Motif Rack XS for the heavy lifting or should I upgrade to a more powerful computer? I prefer a 2n1 because I can easily fold the screen flat and velcro it to a keyboard. If I go the computer route it can't be glitchy... Just looking for some suggestions and specs.

 

Thank you! ð

[Jazz+]

Old school modules are primitive compared to the large sample files of Scarbee Rhodes EP88, Garritan's Abbey Road Piano, and Guido's B3 organ for laptops.

[Reezekeys]

My eight-year old Mac laptop easily runs multiple plugins at a 128 buffer with no glitches. I can"t imagine any recent laptop, Windows or Mac, not being suitable.

[HammondDave]

Apple iPad running Korg Module Pro works for me....

[Jefsong]

Yes I would think so as well but my Surface Pro seems to lag a bit with Kontakt running various instruments, especially piano. It's got 8g of ram and it's an Intel i5 so I'm not sure it's as capable as an Intel i7 with 16g or more.

[Reezekeys]

My 2013 Mac is a 2Ghz i7 with 8GB ram. Among other plugs, I'm running Native Instruments pianos (Grandeur, Scarbee Rhodes, and as of this morning, the "Famous E" Rhodes).

 

I just helped a friend of mine with a Windows computer troubleshoot glitchy audio. He was using ASIO4ALL but it was somehow set to a 96K sample rate. He put it at 44.1 and problem solved. I've also heard the stock Windows drivers are not great for low-latency plugin work (Direct X? Realtek? Someone else might want to chime in here, I know very little about this).

[Tusker]

It"s a matter of personal preference, perhaps?

 

With a module, many decisions have been made for you. For me, it"s worth some trial and error to bullet-proof a laptop. Kontakt instruments can be be a challenge for a hard drive. I use Kontakt instruments but also modeled instruments, to take the load off the SSD. Mainstage has some sampled instruments which are more detailed than hardware rom synths and not as challenging as the large Kontakt libraries. People with better Kontakt chops than me could have some advice for you on optimizing the performance of your Kontakt instruments.

[Jefsong]

It's possible that the windows drivers with Asio4all is not ideal. Perhaps I will give it a shot with a Focusrite i20i18. That may take some of the load off the cpu.

[Stokely]

Apple iPad running Korg Module Pro works for me....

 

 

I've been using an ipad for a few gigs now. It's not my only sound source, and easily plugs in (one cable) to my MODX, which has a built-in audio/midi usb interface.

 

I use a computer 100% at home, but I don't like the logistics of a laptop. The ipad velcros to an empty area of my MODX and basically looks and works like part of the keyboard. It is the bottom keyboard but because it can lie flat this is no biggie. My stages are sometimes very tight and having to put a laptop somewhere would be a bit awkward and I'd worry about it. As a bonus the ipad also controls my monitor mix since our main mixer has an app.

[Al Coda]

Apple is what´s been used "out of the box" and Windows PC/ laptop is what has to be tweaked because pre-installed OEM-OS is never optimized for realtime (audio) tasks.

 

Not every desktop or laptop Windows computer is able to perform realtime tasks well.

There are too many in different price ranges to be halfway identical.

Most manufacturer use "crippled" hardware, just to keep production costs low.

So, when there is a mainboard using the wrong controller chips for (Firewire in former products), USB, Thunderbolt and/or combined USB-C/ Thunderbolt connectors,- just because it´s made for the average Joe´s entertainment and office usage,- you cannot optimize much w/ updating drivers.

Realtek HD Audio and WASAPI now is usable audio quality for most work, but usually more latency compared to ASIO still.

 

Best idea is, buy a professional audio/MIDI interface w/ good drivers,- like RME p.ex..

To have a look which ahrdware components share ressources and might cause conflicts w/ your pro audio interface,- go to Windows search, type msInfo32 and press enter, then go to the "shared devices/conflicts" tab.

With luck, nothing shares and if it does, it should be deactivated in device manager at least,- but exactly THAT isn´t posible always.

 

So, before you invest in a pro audio interface,- investigate if the BIOS or today´s UEFI for THAT laptop offers enough user settings to tweak all the energy saving "features" already on the hardware side and before using the limited Windows settings.

Best way is downloading the user guide of THAT laptop and read.

It MUST be possible deactivating Intel Turbo mode, C-states and Hyperthreading, single USB controllers not needed AND to activate USB legacy support for USB2 and USB3 controllers.

Otherise, your CPU will throttle and your USB2 MIDI interface might not work propperly.

I had situations where older USB keyboards and mouses didn´t work propperly.

 

On a windows laptop, you best wipe the pre-installed OS, install all new and w/o the manufacturer´s "recovery" partition and tools and use p.ex. the Win10 drivers instead.

Don´t use a "home edition" OS version,- these usually won´t support more than 16GB of RAM and come w/ other limitations too.

I use Pro versions w/ latest service pack throughout.

 

Win10 gets updates often and in most cases offers the best drivers already,- except for your audio/MIDI interface.

 

It´s important to deactivate ALL hardware components you don´t need for realtime audio,- WLan, Bluetooth, onboard camera and mic, fingerprint reader, crad readers, etc, etc..

You don´t need to have drivers installed for hardware you don´t use !

 

And use Win10Privacy to tweak Win10 that way it doesn´t call home all the time, deactivate Cortana, OnDrive and all Windows apps you don´t need,- like xbox etc..

I say DE-ACTIVATE ... not de-install !!!

There´s much stuff pre-configurated and explained in Win10Privacy, so you´ll be able to decide for as also make a backup from your previous installation.

 

Also set all not urgently needed Windows services to "manual" vs "auto" as also deactivate everything in "autostart configuration" you don´t need when booting.

 

Main problem,- you have to know all that and need a bit of routine to perform.

When using laptop,- there´s less hassle w/ Apple.

 

Because my S|C XITE-1 interface doesn´t work w/ Apple,- I use a Lenovo workstation laptop for mobility,- older one w/ expresscard34 slot, 4th gen i7 quad, 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD for OS/ programs and swapped the optical drive into an external USB3 case for a caddy, replacing the optical drive w/ a 500GB SSD for storage as also use additional ext. USB3 HDD and SSD.

Ext. HDD is system drive clone/backup and ext. SSD is backup for the one in the "caddy" in optical drive slot.

The Lenovo has also a dedicated TRUE Thunderbolt 2 port, 2 USB2 and 2 USB3 ports in addition to expresscard34.

 

AFAIK, only expresscard43/54 and Thunderbolt aren directly connected to the PCIe bus in laptops,- all the USB runs thru chipset/ USB controllers.

Everything connected to PCIe bus directly is better than any USB for realtime audio interfaces !

 

A.C.