Thinking about gigging with a Mac... Mini or Macbook Air? M1, Intel?

[Tusker]

On 3/24/2024 at 12:45 AM, LarsHarner said:

I do have a external thunderbolt SSD, I am wondering would I still have a seamless experience if I put any libraries on that. 

 

I use a 4TB external drive and store about a terrabyte of sample libraries on it. My Logic Pro library is on Intel MBPro’s 1TB hard drive. So are the third party soft synths.

 

i do some gigs with the orchestral libraries and some without. No problems.

[Fleer]

Using an M1Max MacBook Pro with 64GB of RAM and a 4TB ssd. Perfection. 

[analogika]

9 hours ago, D. Gauss said:

 

Apple sucks more and more every day. Jobs was a major, albeit talented, dick, but even he wouldn't have let it get this bad.

 

Steve Jobs was the guy who wanted the original Macintosh to be an appliance and made sure that nobody could open it at all without specialised tools. Upgrading the RAM to 2.5 MB on my 1987 Macintosh SE involved cutting traces on the main logic board. He introduced the entirely closed-box iPad as a culmination of his original vision for "The Computer for the Rest of Us" (as per original Macintosh ad copy) just before he died. 

 

From a service perspective, having worked in Mac support for many years in a previous life: socketed ANYthing sucks, especially in portable gear, unless those socketed components themselves are regularly prone to failure. 

Under Jobs' tenure in the mid-/late 2000's, we had entire series' of MacBooks Pro lower RAM slots failing due to flex and strain. You can bet your ass that he was one of the main driving forces behind the move to soldered RAM, because it only makes sense: the lower the voltage gets (a major factor to conserve energy in portables) and the faster the connection, the more problematic any socketed connection becomes. 

Putting it directly on the die with the CPU and the graphics unit, as in the Apple Silicon machines, is both the logical conclusion in terms of reliability, and in terms of distances — which takes care of the voltage issue and allows faster performance, especially when sharing RAM between CPU and GPU. 

I can say that this M2 Pro MacBook is the best computer I've owned in 35 years. I miss the sleek design of my previous 2016 15" MBP, and I miss the Touch Bar, though. 

The keyboard…the much-maligned butterfly keyboard on the 2016 machine was the best laptop keyboard I've ever typed on. I really loved it, but I appreciate that the keybed on this machine is a compromise between feel and reliability. It is still very nice. 


Having written all of that: the socketed storage on the Mac Studio not being upgradeable is questionable at best, and rightfully annoying. It is very much in keeping with other weird and questionable decisions Apple has made over the decades (very much including the Jobs Years), so it's really just Apple being Apple. Because, if they can make you pay up front, why not? 

[Thethirdapple]

The macbook laptop wall-warts can create a-lot of unwanted signal noise as does the usb when powered externally. And using a power conditioner such as an ups, also just a good way of protecting your gear from venue drift in the current.

 

With regards to specs and performance. Hmmm…

 

What is this thread about?

 

sockets?
 

Choices are often made for reasons far from the public’s perception regardless if the perception is created by the company or its “users”. Some HUGE personalities clashed at the fruit company, especially in the early days. Diverging visions of a future to be set in motion, waves and reflections continue to resonate.

She say’s: Impedance

He say’s: Impendence 
 

From a personal point of view and experience, there is a difference between being a dick vs. being an “EST-hole”. 

We are often confronted with attempting to find a comfortable relationship between the inventor and the invented.

 

Considering that a large part of our studio here, includes a mix of os’s from each of the past 6 decades and much of the midi fun happens on a “midi sub-net” of Apple][ computers and gear which can musically communicate with every piece of modern gear thru midi, no walled gardens here which cant be tunneled into.

 

But hey, an appliance for every musician might be better than a chicken in every pot… My dad once questioned why anyone would every need more than 48k of memory on a “personal computers”. His spreadsheets sure were fast. Nice one dad!

 

 

PEACE

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[analogika]

36 minutes ago, Thethirdapple said:

The macbook laptop wall-warts can create a-lot of unwanted signal noise as does the usb when powered externally.

 

ALWAYS use the grounded extension cord. Used them since 2003 and never had a noise issue, ever. 

[AnotherScott]

Drifting a bit off-topic, but IMO, Steve Jobs was most brilliant at two things: aesthetic design (in both software and hardware), and marketing. I think there were a lot of questionable choices under his guidance, from the iMac round mouse (so instantly awful to anyone who'd ever used a mouse before, shaped with no regard to the shape of your hand, and impossible to orient without looking at it, the design approval had  to be based on nothing but looking cool), to irreplaceable batteries, to "iPads should only come in one size" (which is why we didn't see the Mini or the 12.9 until after his death), arguably even to insisting that OS X be built on NeXT (a more complicated conversation). I'd certainly hire him to answer the questions of "this is what it should look like" and "this is how we should market it," which are of course extremely important, but functionally, I think he was hit-and-miss. 

 

Yeah, I know, they say you can't argue with success. But there's also that thing about, if your group is being chased by a bear, you don't have to be able to out-run the bear, you only have to be able to out-run the slowest person in your group. When Jobs came back, he didn't need for everything to be right, he pretty much only had to out-run Microsoft. Possibly the single biggest thing that turned Apple into the behemoth they are today was the response from Steve Ballmer (Microsoft) after Apple released the iPhone, essentially saying that they thought there was no market for such expensive phones.

[Reezekeys]

In terms of Apple design clunkers, nothing they made holds a candle to this (imo)!  🙂 

 

 

[ElmerJFudd]

So I’m guessing your m1 MacBook Air is the leading candidate?  😊

Out of curiosity I took a look at the hacking community and have seen a few successful attempts to put macOS Sonoma on the Microsoft Surface 7.   There seem to be some issues with getting the camera to work - unimportant to our purposes.  
 

Ideally this is the product I’d like to see Apple make.  A convertible MacBook Air with a 4:3 aspect ratio screen.  forScore is already available for macOS.   If they won’t do this - they need to bring MainStage to iPad OS.  Clearly not difficult for them having already released Logic Pro on the iPad.  

 

 

[Reezekeys]

On 3/19/2024 at 11:47 PM, AnotherScott said:

The Mini would not need a USB hub, the Macbook probably would.

 

Here I go with my .02: use the Air. First see if the libraries you need for the gig fit on the internal SSD. I just added up what I use on my setup, it's a little shy of 10GB - not a super-big chunk of a 256GB SSD. I have plenty more on an external for the stuff I do at home, and only put what I need for gigs on my internal.

 

Port-wise, two TB ports are limiting, but if you can fit the samples you need on your internal then you have one for power and one for USB midi from your controller – so maybe no hub required. Or, chance it and use the M1's battery. Battery life on the Apple Silicon machines is good, and assuming it hasn't degraded should easily get through a gig. I'll admit I do connect to AC for my gigs but it's more out of habit - I needed to do this with my older MacBook Pro.

 

The Mini, which has been running Mojave, can still run a lot of stuff the M1 cannot

 

Are you sure? I thought I would have problems when I first got my Air, coming from a late-2013 MacBook Pro running Mojave. I had older plugings not updated for Apple Silicon; they ran just fine under Rosetta 2, even inside my host (Bidule) running natively. There was exactly one plugin I had to abandon - "midichords" from Piz (it was 32-bit). I was pleasantly surprised that I got my Bidule rig running with zero issues (and a much smaller buffer!) in just a few hours. Of course I'll add a big YMMV – but I wouldn't automatically assume there'll be problems.

 

The issue with security is one that affects any computing device brought onto a stage. I only know from what I've experienced closing in on twenty years of bringing laptops to gigs. I use the 2-space SKB Studio Flyer, placed in back of me because I don't need to look at or touch the laptop when I play. I strongly suggest anyone using a laptop do what Mainstage, Bidule, etc. do so well: let you map your keyboards' controls to anything and everything happening in the box. This is the beauty of this kind of rig vs a hardware keyboard: you can have it your way. I've used the same controller for 12 years now and kept pretty much the same layout of controls I mapped back then, so everything I need to do is intuitive and automatic. I can concentrate on playing the music - not what button I need to press or slider I need to tweak.

 

The other thing I like about the Studio Flyer is that its inside compartment holds my midi interface, Rolls wall wart, and laptop power brick. The cables connecting them, plus the audio cable coming out the headphone jack all route through holes at the top, where the laptop sits. You don't want all that stuff dangling off the laptop sitting out in the open - even on a table somewhere. IMO that's a downside of this kind of rig - bandmates and tech people running around a stage setting up will cause problems. Your space is never sterile. It may actually be safer if you mount it to your keyboard stand and keep it close – though that's against my philosophy of wanting the computer to "disappear" while I'm playing.

 

[ElmerJFudd]

26 minutes ago, Reezekeys said:

 

Here I go with my .02: use the Air. First see if the libraries you need for the gig fit on the internal SSD. I just added up what I use on my setup, it's a little shy of 10GB - not a super-big chunk of a 256GB SSD. I have plenty more on an external for the stuff I do at home, and only put what I need for gigs on my internal.

 

Port-wise, two TB ports are limiting, but if you can fit the samples you need on your internal then you have one for power and one for USB midi from your controller – so maybe no hub required. Or, chance it and use the M1's battery. Battery life on the Apple Silicon machines is good, and assuming it hasn't degraded should easily get through a gig. I'll admit I do connect to AC for my gigs but it's more out of habit - I needed to do this with my older MacBook Pro.

 

 

Are you sure? I thought I would have problems when I first got my Air, coming from a late-2013 MacBook Pro running Mojave. I had older plugings not updated for Apple Silicon; they ran just fine under Rosetta 2, even inside my host (Bidule) running natively. There was exactly one plugin I had to abandon - "midichords" from Piz (it was 32-bit). I was pleasantly surprised that I got my Bidule rig running with zero issues (and a much smaller buffer!) in just a few hours. Of course I'll add a big YMMV – but I wouldn't automatically assume there'll be problems.

 

The issue with security is one that affects any computing device brought onto a stage. I only know from what I've experienced closing in on twenty years of bringing laptops to gigs. I use the 2-space SKB Studio Flyer, placed in back of me because I don't need to look at or touch the laptop when I play. I strongly suggest anyone using a laptop do what Mainstage, Bidule, etc. do so well: let you map your keyboards' controls to anything and everything happening in the box. This is the beauty of this kind of rig vs a hardware keyboard: you can have it your way. I've used the same controller for 12 years now and kept pretty much the same layout of controls I mapped back then, so everything I need to do is intuitive and automatic. I can concentrate on playing the music - not what button I need to press or slider I need to tweak.

 

The other thing I like about the Studio Flyer is that its inside compartment holds my midi interface, Rolls wall wart, and laptop power brick. The cables connecting them, plus the audio cable coming out the headphone jack all route through holes at the top, where the laptop sits. You don't want all that stuff dangling off the laptop sitting out in the open - even on a table somewhere. IMO that's a downside of this kind of rig - bandmates and tech people running around a stage setting up will cause problems. Your space is never sterile. It may actually be safer if you mount it to your keyboard stand and keep it close – though that's against my philosophy of wanting the computer to "disappear" while I'm playing.

 

I still like to see the MainStage screen to confirm which patch/song I’m on and see that communication from keyboard and pedals is active and working should something flake out.  Do you use a screen near your keys for this purpose? 

[analogman1]

Sorry for this elementary question, Scott.. if you use Jump Desktop, how do you connect Mac? Via USB or WiFi? I’d think that at a gig, using WiFi might not be so reliable. 
Am I missing something? 

[analogika]

2 hours ago, AnotherScott said:

Drifting a bit off-topic, but IMO, Steve Jobs was most brilliant at two things: aesthetic design (in both software and hardware), and marketing. I think there were a lot of questionable choices under his guidance, from the iMac round mouse (so instantly awful to anyone who'd ever used a mouse before, shaped with no regard to the shape of your hand, and impossible to orient without looking at it, the design approval had  to be based on nothing but looking cool), to irreplaceable batteries, to "iPads should only come in one size" (which is why we didn't see the Mini or the 12.9 until after his death), arguably even to insisting that OS X be built on NeXT (a more complicated conversation).

 

Buying NeXT to make NeXTSTEP the basis for Mac OS X was the single most important business decision Apple has made in the last thirty years. 

It gave them a solid, mature OS foundation that they could OWN without any licensing issues, that was modular and scalable. It made possible the iPhone, Apple TV, iPad, Apple Watch, and made them interoperable in a way that would hardly be possible otherwise (the iPod is a possible counterexample, but remember that Apple did not create that OS — they contracted it out to PortalPlayer — and that the ecosystem integration back then was limited to syncing some files, calendars, and address book). 

 

Buying NeXT also got them Steve Jobs, of course. 

Jobs' primary strengths, apart from being an excellent salesman, were an extremely good (though not infallible) sense of what could work and what wouldn't, coupled with an aesthetic sensibility and taste, and above all, decision-making. Even if a decision wasn't ideal and maybe revised later, it would allow the engineers to focus and the products to have a clarity that often divided public opinion. Jobs would take the brunt, and most often, he was right. 

[Reezekeys]

1 hour ago, ElmerJFudd said:

I still like to see the MainStage screen to confirm which patch/song I’m on and see that communication from keyboard and pedals is active and working should something flake out.  Do you use a screen near your keys for this purpose? 

 

No, I've never had a screen near me. Never had the idea I needed to confirm communication except right when I've completed setting up. When I boot Bidule, it opens with a simple default program of my midi interface connected to a midi monitor. I hit a few keys on my keyboard and watch for activity on that monitor screen. If I see note info displaying as I play, I know I'm good. At that point I load in my real setup and dim the screen all the way. That's the last time I look at the laptop until the gig is over.

 

As far as confirming the patch - I'm probably lucky in that my AWB chores are mostly bread & butter things. I only need presets for five songs. I assign those to pads on my A800. I hit the pad and the preset switches. It's never not worked - so I don't need confirmation!

About the "should something flake out" part... it's interesting that after the years I've put in with my rig, "flaking out" doesn't even enter my consciousness! It's been so long since any incident. One show with AWB around 2016 when my MOTU audio interface lost its connection (that's when I went to using the laptop's headphone out). I've had a few hiccups here & there but besides that one show, never during a gig - I catch them when I first load my setup or during sound check. It's hardly ever something to do with software - usually me being confused by forgetting a setting I made on the last gig - dumb stuff.

 

I remember when I first started bringing the laptop I connected an old Roland JV1010 and had it running in parallel. If anything happened I could switch over quickly. After a few gigs I kept the JV in my accessory case and went laptop-only. I understand being nervous, but the more gigs you do that are trouble-free, the more confident in your system you'll be - that's how it worked for me.

[ElmerJFudd]

15 minutes ago, Reezekeys said:

 

No, I've never had a screen near me. Never had the idea I needed to confirm communication except right when I've completed setting up. When I boot Bidule, it opens with a simple default program of my midi interface connected to a midi monitor. I hit a few keys on my keyboard and watch for activity on that monitor screen. If I see note info displaying as I play, I know I'm good. At that point I load in my real setup and dim the screen all the way. That's the last time I look at the laptop until the gig is over.

 

As far as confirming the patch - I'm probably lucky in that my AWB chores are mostly bread & butter things. I only need presets for five songs. I assign those to pads on my A800. I hit the pad and the preset switches. It's never not worked - so I don't need confirmation!

About the "should something flake out" part... it's interesting that after the years I've put in with my rig, "flaking out" doesn't even enter my consciousness! It's been so long since any incident. One show with AWB around 2016 when my MOTU audio interface lost its connection (that's when I went to using the laptop's headphone out). I've had a few hiccups here & there but besides that one show, never during a gig - I catch them when I first load my setup or during sound check. It's hardly ever something to do with software - usually me being confused by forgetting a setting I made on the last gig - dumb stuff.

 

I remember when I first started bringing the laptop I connected an old Roland JV1010 and had it running in parallel. If anything happened I could switch over quickly. After a few gigs I kept the JV in my accessory case and went laptop-only. I understand being nervous, but the more gigs you do that are trouble-free, the more confident in your system you'll be - that's how it worked for me.

I've been running more and more frequently into theater pit jobs where there are 2, 3, 4 keyboard players replacing 12+ musicians switching patches on specific beats of a measure, sometimes 15 times or more in a single song.  It's as much a part of learning a tune as the notes and rhythms.  Miss a patch switch and you're off until the next chance to jump in with the right timbre.  During rehearsals the conductor is calling out songs and measures so you have to jump to the right song and patch quickly.  Needless to say, it can get a bit frantic until you've done it enough times (no one wants to hear a distorted guitar or a brass stab when the moment calls for lush strings.  😃 )

Anyway, unfortunately, need a screen for that stuff or pass on the job.   

[Synthaholic]

My personal feelings are that, if you gig a lot, then you must have another Mac as backup. Especially if you value your reputation. I can think of few things worse than cancelling a gig, or worse a wedding gig, because your computer won't cooperate. My two cents.

[Reezekeys]

I bring an iPhone as a backup for the computer to AWB gigs. On local gigs I don't use the laptop anymore, it's all on the iPad. The phone can be used as a backup for that as well.

[Reezekeys]

48 minutes ago, ElmerJFudd said:

I've been running more and more frequently into theater pit jobs where there are 2, 3, 4 keyboard players replacing 12+ musicians switching patches on specific beats of a measure, sometimes 15 times or more in a single song.  It's as much a part of learning a tune as the notes and rhythms.  Miss a patch switch and you're off until the next chance to jump in with the right timbre.  During rehearsals the conductor is calling out songs and measures so you have to jump to the right song and patch quickly.  Needless to say, it can get a bit frantic until you've done it enough times (no one wants to hear a distorted guitar or a brass stab when the moment calls for lush strings.  😃 )

Anyway, unfortunately, need a screen for that stuff or pass on the job.   

 

Most definitely a different use case than mine! I can see where you'd want a screen.

[AnotherScott]

11 hours ago, ElmerJFudd said:

So I’m guessing you’re going to try your m1 MacBook Air is the leading candidate?  😊

That's the plan...

 

11 hours ago, ElmerJFudd said:

Out of curiosity I took a look at the hacking community and have seen a few successful attempts to put macOS Sonoma on the Microsoft Surface 7. There seem to be some issues with getting the camera to work - unimportant to our purposes.  

Cool! I see work has been done with the older versions of the OS as well. I'd be curious to try playing with that some time. (Not now!) I did a hackintosh on a little MSI notebook many years ago. I've got 16 GB RAM and 512 GB storage on my 2.8 gHz i7 Surface Pro 7, and I've never used it except for putting a toe in the water on some music stuff... so there should be enough space for a comfortable dual boot thing. But while, as you say, there may be an unimportant camera issue, I wonder if there are any music related issues, i.e. additional latency or USB MIDI flakiness (since I assume most people's posted experiences didn't test for those things). If nothing else, I wouldn't use the headphone jack, I'd have to add an interface. But really, I don't see gigging with something like this anyway, it would be more as an academic experiment, but an intriguing one. 

 

11 hours ago, ElmerJFudd said:

Ideally this is the product I’d like to see Apple make.  A convertible MacBook Air with a 4:3 aspect ratio screen.  forScore is already available for macOS.   If they won’t do this - they need to bring MainStage to iPad OS.  Clearly not difficult for them having already released Logic Pro on the iPad.  

It is interesting that they brought Logic to the iPad (where it will typically be used at home), but not Mainstage (a live performance app, where most users would more actually have extra benefit from the high portability). I wonder if there is something about Mainstage that is still beyond what can be done on an Ipad without significant compromises...?

 

10 hours ago, Reezekeys said:

Here I go with my .02: use the Air. First see if the libraries you need for the gig fit on the internal SSD. I just added up what I use on my setup, it's a little shy of 10GB - not a super-big chunk of a 256GB SSD. I have plenty more on an external for the stuff I do at home, and only put what I need for gigs on my internal.

The issue is also (as alluded to earlier) this Macbook is also used for other things. So I'm not sure how much of the 256 mb I've got to work with. But you're right that it's probably worth seeing what I can manage even without bothering with the external. I've also thought about using an external as the boot drive or the home location folder for its current usages, but I'm not sure that's entirely free of complication.

 

10 hours ago, Reezekeys said:

Port-wise, two TB ports are limiting, but if you can fit the samples you need on your internal then you have one for power and one for USB midi from your controller – so maybe no hub required.

would still need a hub if I want to connect two controllers, and maybe an iLok... but a small hub is not the worst thing in the world.

 

10 hours ago, Reezekeys said:

Are you sure? I thought I would have problems when I first got my Air, coming from a late-2013 MacBook Pro running Mojave. I had older plugings not updated for Apple Silicon; they ran just fine under Rosetta 2, even inside my host (Bidule) running natively. There was exactly one plugin I had to abandon - "midichords" from Piz (it was 32-bit). I was pleasantly surprised that I got my Bidule rig running with zero issues (and a much smaller buffer!) in just a few hours. Of course I'll add a big YMMV – but I wouldn't automatically assume there'll be problems.

Yeah, it's the 32-bit thing, and honestly, I don't know how much impact it would have. It's a little irritating that Windows still has a way to get old 32-bit plug-ins to run, and Mac does not... but that's Apple for you.

 

10 hours ago, Reezekeys said:

The issue with security is one that affects any computing device brought onto a stage. I only know from what I've experienced closing in on twenty years of bringing laptops to gigs. I use the 2-space SKB Studio Flyer

Again, I don't want to need to bring/place/wire up a whole rack vs. a 3 lb computer. But honestly, I"m not so worried about theft, in the situations I'm playing... it's more that, on the off chance it happens, I at least don't want to also have to worry about something like identity theft. Probably there are other software configs I can play with to help there. Still, there's a simplicity to just letting the thing lock with a passcode as most people do, and as long as I don't need to "remote in" to a headless Mac, it's one less thing to worry about. (The Mac Mini option means using my main personal computer.)

 

10 hours ago, Reezekeys said:

I don't need to look at or touch the laptop when I play. I strongly suggest anyone using a laptop do what Mainstage, Bidule, etc. do so well: let you map your keyboards' controls to anything and everything happening in the box. This is the beauty of this kind of rig vs a hardware keyboard: you can have it your way. I've used the same controller for 12 years now and kept pretty much the same layout of controls

The flip side of that is that, if you don't count on mapping to your controller, you can pretty much use any board at any time (e.g. if you have some reason you'd prefer to use something different, or you are using supplied/backline keys). Though you can also counter that by mapping to a separate highly portable (no keys) controller which travels with you as easily as the computer itself.

 

But back to my own situation, it's a large repertoire, with constantly changing set lists (and yeah, sometimes different keyboards). I suspect seeing the screen is helpful in that situation. Maybe I'ld be comfortable with no display... I'm just not yet ready to say for sure that I would be.

 

9 hours ago, analogman1 said:

Sorry for this elementary question, Scott.. if you use Jump Desktop, how do you connect Mac? Via USB or WiFi? I’d think that at a gig, using WiFi might not be so reliable. 
Am I missing something? 

 

Wifi. I haven't done it yet, but supposedly, it should work with a simple direct wifi ad hoc connection between the iPad and the Mac... no router or internet connection needed.

 

8 hours ago, analogika said:

Buying NeXT to make NeXTSTEP the basis for Mac OS X was the single most important business decision Apple has made in the last thirty years. 

Like I said, that's a complicated one, and could yield its own huge thread. 😉 There were certainly many positives to it, and of course, it's grown and been extended to other devices very nicely... in the end it worked out quite well. 🙂 But whether it really was the best option in 2001 is open to debate, and its introduction was not so smooth.

 

7 hours ago, Synthaholic said:

My personal feelings are that, if you gig a lot, then you must have another Mac as backup. Especially if you value your reputation. I can think of few things worse than cancelling a gig, or worse a wedding gig, because your computer won't cooperate. My two cents.

I'd still intend to be using boards with sounds as controllers. I won't be without backup. 😉

[Reezekeys]

26 minutes ago, AnotherScott said:

12 hours ago, Reezekeys said:

The issue with security is one that affects any computing device brought onto a stage. I only know from what I've experienced closing in on twenty years of bringing laptops to gigs. I use the 2-space SKB Studio Flyer

Again, I don't want to need to bring/place/wire up a whole rack vs. a 3 lb computer. But honestly, I"m not so worried about theft, in the situations I'm playing... it's more that, on the off chance it happens, I at least don't want to also have to worry about something like identity theft.

 

Actually, I didn't mean security as in theft - I meant it as in being safe from harm caused by accidentally knocking or tripping into it, or tripping over a cord that plugs into it, etc. In truth I don't use the Studio Flyer for what it's designed for - transporting the laptop! The computer stays with me in a backpack. I'll set it on the Studio Flyer's platform to set up & sound check, then after we're done it goes back into my backpack until showtime. That means I boot it and load my Bidule setup twice on every gig - but many times we sound check in the afternoon then go back to the hotel until evening - bottom line is I'm not leaving the laptop unattended at any venue. It's not that big a deal - the "second setup" goes quick since all my gear is already in place. I know there have been other posts about keeping laptops safe on stage and I guess everyone will find a method that works for them. I can understand anyone's reluctance to bringing a rack case for a tiny computer, but for the road gigs I do I consider it a necessity. Too many variables with different venues and especially stage crews. There's almost always someone right on top of me running lines to my DI or the drum mics, and they're usually stepping all over my cables. I would definitely consider the stages you'll be playing and plan ahead. This is definitely one thing you can put in the minus column when comparing laptop vs hardware keyboard rigs!

[AnotherScott]

7 hours ago, Reezekeys said:

 

Actually, I didn't mean security as in theft - I meant it as in being safe from harm caused by accidentally knocking or tripping into it, or tripping over a cord that plugs into it, etc.

Ah. Again, I"m addressing that with that tiny stand that holds the Macbook vertically on the floor, underneath the keyboards. Raised off the floor in case there's crap on the floor or someone spills something. Under the keyboard to make it very unlikely that anyone but me could possibly knock into it. And if it did fall, it's only falling a matter of inches rather than feet. But for a bit of extra protection, I am thinking of adding a protective cover to the Macbook.

 

7 hours ago, Reezekeys said:

bottom line is I'm not leaving the laptop unattended at any venue. It's not that big a deal - the "second setup" goes quick since all my gear is already in place. I know there have been other posts about keeping laptops safe on stage and I guess everyone will find a method that works for them. I can understand anyone's reluctance to bringing a rack case for a tiny computer, but for the road gigs I do I consider it a necessity. Too many variables with different venues and especially stage crews. There's almost always someone right on top of me running lines to my DI or the drum mics, and they're usually stepping all over my cables. I would definitely consider the stages you'll be playing and plan ahead. 

Yeah, road gig has different considerations. I'm mostly playing private events, which has a different set of issues. There's no road crew, but you probably have no info about the "stage" until you get there (other than having a minimum size, and power available, and being covered if outdoors, as specified in the contract... and still sometimes there's a surprise). You may be on and off the stage numerous times over the course of the event, for somewhat unpredictable amounts of time.

[analogika]

11 hours ago, AnotherScott said:

Like I said, that's a complicated one, and could yield its own huge thread. 😉 There were certainly many positives to it, and of course, it's grown and been extended to other devices very nicely... in the end it worked out quite well. 🙂 But whether it really was the best option in 2001 is open to debate, and its introduction was not so smooth.

 

It was 1996, and back then, the only real alternative to was BeOS. And that was completely insular. 

…and it didn't come with Steve Jobs. But the importance of that wasn't at all clear at the time. 🙂 

[Ibarch]

When I started using my Surface Pro I expected that the touch screen would be all I needed but quickly realised that it wasn't. The lack of tactile feedback and the extra concentration needed to hit the right part of the screen with enough accuracy made it too difficult to use for patch changes during songs, adjusting layer volume or muting layers. I soon went back to mapping everything to the keyboard with MIDI. 

 

I initially needed the screen there all the time to visually check what I had selected but again, that soon reverted back to using the lights on sound banks and physical position of faders like I always had done. 

 

Where the tablet really excels is being easily able to mount it on a stand that fits on my keyboard stand - or on a normal music stand if using the local church piano as a controller keyboard. One USB cable to the audio interface and a mag safe power lead and it is sorted. In addition to hosting the VSTs I can also use it for charts and control the mixing desk to adjust monitor levels for the band. Controlling these by touch does work well and I would struggle if trying to use a non touch screen computer here. 

 

 

[Ibarch]

I should add that when gigging rather than playing with the church band, I much prefer a single keyboard and no tablet or computer. Much less hassle on setup and  takedown,especially when there is little time between bands in the small events I play. Much less to go wrong or get knocked. For this my Fantom 07 rules over my surface Pro. 

[AnotherScott]

49 minutes ago, analogika said:

It was 1996, and back then, the only real alternative to was BeOS. And that was completely insular. 

…and it didn't come with Steve Jobs. But the importance of that wasn't at all clear at the time. 🙂 

 

 The initial consumer release of OS X was 2001, but yes, there was earlier work. And true, I can't say that there were better options... but the initial rollout of OS X was a bumpy ride, and from what I recall, one issue was that Steve preferred the NeXT way of doing things and was at odds with those who were trying to make it more traditionally Mac-like in its user experience (or at least that did not seem to be a priority of his). I guess my issue wasn't so much with it being built on NeXT as with aspects of its implementation. Even just the basics, like forcing understanding of a multi-user environment into a world of largely single users, made it unnecessarily more complicated than its predecessor right there. Eventually, they did change things a bit so that a new user would no longer have to be so "multi-user aware", but my job involved supporting these things back then, and I remember how confusing people could find the new OS, for a number of reasons. But in another "there are two kinds of people in this world" analysis, I'd say you've got the "move fast and break things" folks vs. the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" folks, and I'm in the latter category. Which maybe is why I'll never be a billionaire. 😉 

 

But I certainly agree that, in the end, getting Jobs back was the key, even if I don't think he always made the best decisions. Apple might not have survived without his sense of design, his flair for marketing, and the sheer strength of his personality (those last two intertwined).

 

33 minutes ago, Ibarch said:

When I started using my Surface Pro I expected that the touch screen would be all I needed but quickly realised that it wasn't. The lack of tactile feedback and the extra concentration needed to hit the right part of the screen with enough accuracy made it too difficult to use for patch changes during songs, adjusting layer volume or muting layers. I soon went back to mapping everything to the keyboard with MIDI. 

 

This is why I've harped on being able to change software patches using MIDI Program Change, so you can call up your patches right from your keyboard (a beef I have with Zenology). Though I want to be able to do it from the screen as well, to facilitate usage when you may not be using it with a pre-mapped controller, or your preferred/available keyboard isn't great at external patch changing. But an on-screen implementation needs to have thought put into it as well. You want big on-screen buttons with very readable legends, so you end up with something not so different from the touchscreen patch selectors you can have on a Montage/Nautilus/Fantom. I'm curious, what were you using to try to change patches from the screen in your Surface Pro attempt?

 

33 minutes ago, Ibarch said:

Where the tablet really excels is being easily able to mount it on a stand that fits on my keyboard stand - or on a normal music stand if using the local church piano as a controller keyboard. One USB cable to the audio interface and a mag safe power lead and it is sorted. In addition to hosting the VSTs I can also use it for charts and control the mixing desk to adjust monitor levels for the band. Controlling these by touch does work well and I would struggle if trying to use a non touch screen computer here. 

 

I agree with all that. Plus I've come to appreciate when a keyboard comes with a music stand, something I used to ignore, but now something I look  for for tablet placement.

 

29 minutes ago, Ibarch said:

I should add that when gigging rather than playing with the church band, I much prefer a single keyboard and no tablet or computer. Much less hassle on setup and  takedown,especially when there is little time between bands in the small events I play. Much less to go wrong or get knocked. For this my Fantom 07 rules over my surface Pro. 

 

I started an old thread about that, and have been thinking about going back and updating it. I rarely prefer one board, but for times when it really makes sense, some boards are more adept at handling it all than others are.

 

Fantom-07 is pretty good, in terms of the flexibility and navigation possibilities I'd look for on a single board. My main issue with it is that I find it really unsatisfying for pianos. Neither the action nor sounds really work for me there. On my last gig, I used a Fantom-07 coupled with a Korg Liano. My lightweight stand is really no more cumbersome to move and set up as a 2-tier than it would be as a single-tier, and the Liano is only 13 lbs. So the additional schleppage and setup time is minimal, and it sounds/feels better for piano which is probably still my most commonly used sound. And if anything goes wrong with a board, I've got a spare. Bonus... the Liano has a music stand. That's why I have my piano board "on top" in this video from that last gig.

 

But if I really had to do something super-fast, I do have some boards where I'd be more comfortable with for a "just one board" scenario... though I might still be tempted to expand it with a tablet, which as you kinda said earlier, may well be there anyway just for set list/charts/lyrics, and in that case, if all it means is another cable or two, it could be worth it (esp. if, for example, your keyboard does MIDI and audio over a single USB connection to your tablet).

[Ibarch]

1 hour ago, AnotherScott said:

 I'm curious, what were you using to try to change patches from the screen in your Surface Pro attempt?

 

 

I used VST Live (and still use it for the church band). The interface is touch screen friendly and works pretty well. It allows full setlists of songs to be created. Each song has 1 or more parts and you can add multiple layers for VST instruments to a part. It preloads everything and remembers the settings for each VST. This allows instant switching between parts. It also preserves the sound whilst switching akin to scene remain on the Fantom. 

I use VST Live for displaying chord charts too. 

 

The only real issue is that it puts the songs and parts in a list down the left hand side and scrolling isn't great, the scroll bars are a bit small and finicky for my fat fingers. 

 

I am using a combination of Zenology Pro, Omnisphere, Keyscape, Addictive Keys and Blue3 for sounds. Less of Omnisphere now  as although some of the pads sound amazing they don't support Sostenuto, which I use a lot. 

[Thethirdapple]

4 hours ago, analogika said:

 

It was 1996, and back then, the only real alternative to was BeOS. And that was completely insular. 

…and it didn't come with Steve Jobs. But the importance of that wasn't at all clear at the time. 🙂 

The “choices” made were based on personality clashes from years before… follow the players not the cards!

 

Who butted heads in the transition when employee 0 was pushed out. Who was at the forefront of the possible “OS’s” which the fruit company needed to survive into the 2000’s.

 

Sure the underlying tech was important, but not the catalyst for choices as often as we might think.

 

 

PEACE

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[Docbop]

On 3/25/2024 at 9:39 AM, ElmerJFudd said:

I've been running more and more frequently into theater pit jobs where there are 2, 3, 4 keyboard players replacing 12+ musicians switching patches on specific beats of a measure, sometimes 15 times or more in a single song.  It's as much a part of learning a tune as the notes and rhythms.  Miss a patch switch and you're off until the next chance to jump in with the right timbre.  During rehearsals the conductor is calling out songs and measures so you have to jump to the right song and patch quickly.  Needless to say, it can get a bit frantic until you've done it enough times (no one wants to hear a distorted guitar or a brass stab when the moment calls for lush strings.  😃 )

Anyway, unfortunately, need a screen for that stuff or pass on the job.   

 

The Ableton class I'm finishing I watched a interview with Laura Escude who worked with Circus de Soleil on there system like you are talking about.   She said Circus de Soleil show is completely run from Ableton because they can change things instantly based on what is going on with the live performer.   She all the music and live musicians fed  clicks and guide tracks, all on time code to run the lights, sound, and other aspects of the show.   So they are very much using the "Live" aspect of Ableton Live. 

 

I remember a few years ago talking to a bass player who worked on similar system to Circus de Soleil and he said their music stands were basically flat-panel monitors and the sheet music was been displayed, but the music director could make changes in real time and the music on the music stand monitors got the changes instantly.   All this before AI anything.   Tech is really changing music world. 

[ElmerJFudd]

16 minutes ago, Docbop said:

 

The Ableton class I'm finishing I watched a interview with Laura Escude who worked with Circus de Soleil on there system like you are talking about.   She said Circus de Soleil show is completely run from Ableton because they can change things instantly based on what is going on with the live performer.   She all the music and live musicians fed  clicks and guide tracks, all on time code to run the lights, sound, and other aspects of the show.   So they are very much using the "Live" aspect of Ableton Live. 

 

I remember a few years ago talking to a bass player who worked on similar system to Circus de Soleil and he said their music stands were basically flat-panel monitors and the sheet music was been displayed, but the music director could make changes in real time and the music on the music stand monitors got the changes instantly.   All this before AI anything.   Tech is really changing music world. 

Oh ya, that’s the full deal - automated, barely live.   The only reason I see to not just run tracks when it goes that far is to keep the energy of a live performance from the players, authenticity of mic’d acoustic instruments, allowing for give and take of tempo (sensitivity to the performers moments, timing with specific events - vampng, hitting on visual que and the like, and recovery from the unexpected. 

[Anderton]

5 minutes ago, ElmerJFudd said:

The only reason I see to not just run tracks when it goes that far is to keep the energy of a live performance from the players, authenticity of mic’d acoustic instruments, allowing for give and take of tempo (sensitivity to the performers moments, timing with specific events (vamping) recovery from the unexpected, etc,

Agreed. I saw a Shania Twain concert where everything was run from Digital Performer, with a second mirrored system in case anything went wrong. The guitarists never had to do a "footswitch tap dance," and keyboard players never had to call up a preset, and so on. All they had to do was concentrate exclusively on their playing. The only drawback was not being able to deviate at all from the arrangement.

[ElmerJFudd]

9 minutes ago, Anderton said:

Agreed. I saw a Shania Twain concert where everything was run from Digital Performer, with a second mirrored system in case anything went wrong. The guitarists never had to do a "footswitch tap dance," and keyboard players never had to call up a preset, and so on. All they had to do was concentrate exclusively on their playing. The only drawback was not being able to deviate at all from the arrangement.

Just watched the Eras show (Taylor Swift) on Disney+ with my kid.  It’s a deeply planned and orchestrated affair just like musical theater.   And they’ve entirely blurred the lines between what’s live, whats prerecorded and whats automated.