Live Laptops?

[DrJustice]

Originally posted by deadman9:

The computer would function just like a hardware synth

I wish I could say "Close, but no cigar"

 

The thing would still be running one of the most buggy, bloated and inefficient operating systems known to man as well as a bunch of other software of varying quality. Also the typical latency and timing drift etc. will still be there (if you care about such things).

 

However, if you are going to run a laptop, I absolutely agree with the practice of using a separate bootable "live" partition with *only* the essentials installed. It will reduce the "gremlin factor". Hey - you do deserve the cigar for mentioning that!

 

As mentioned, carrying a cloned harddisc is also an alternative, or a spare laptop or two even. But at some point that practice starts to become a bit expensive/impractical perhaps? And unless you have more than one system running simultaneously with a failover switch, the set may still go down.

 

Like Max Ventura, I can't live or work without computers either - but "Horses for courses", and all of that...

 

Sorry if this seem tedious to some of you, but the 'truth' must be known

 

DJ

--

[burningbusch]

Regarding the cloning. I'm not using any software like Ghost which provides an exact clone. My laptop came with a 40GB 4,200RPM drive and I upgraded to a 60GB 7,200RPM. The original drive was fine, I just wanted to see it the 7,200rpm bought me anything. Both drives are partitioned with a system and data partition. To sync the two, I simply plug in the 4,200 via firewire and copy over the data partition. The system partition is static with the exception that I might load in a new VSTi once in a while, but that's an easy copy. At some point I might get another 60GB and go the Ghost route. As I said previously, I've tested doing the swapping of hard drives and I can do it in under five minutes. The hard drive in my Sony has very easy access. You need to check this out on your particular system. I believe replacing hard drives on the Macs laptops is much more involved, but I think you could just set up

a firewire drive with the OS installed and boot from it.

 

MAX, with regards to the controllers I think you and I are coming at it from two different angles. I am interested in a keyboard controller primarily. I really only like the Yamaha and Roland weighted keyboards. The current crop of Yamaha keys (Motif, S90, ES) have two foot controller, two foot switches, and breath control so they're decently equipped in that department. With Master mode you can set up four external zones and send bank select/program changes and designation controller X out MIDI channel 1 but not MIDI ch 10, for example. So in that sense I say Yamaha makes a good controller for use with a laptop. It allows me to integrate mine transparently. It could be better, no doubt. You are more interested in replacement of something like a hardware mixer. I just haven't investigated that much as I tend not to use those products.

 

The Ask Mr Mike column in Keyboard mag is good for general info and gives you a glimpse at how pervasive computers are in MAJOR shows.

 

For those interested, I pretty much detailed my laptop setup in THIS thread.

 

deadman9, good suggestion. That's really how mine is set up. The laptop only functions as a live soft synth computer. It serves no other function and nothing other than what I need to do soft synths is installed.

 

With my soft synth PC (this is not the laptop) I consistently see lower latency in to Protools than with my Motif ES. That's using an RME Digiface set at 64 samples buffer (I don't run the laptop that low).

 

I have a t.c. electronic System 6000. It runs a version of Windows NT. I would have never known as it's completely invisible to the user. I must have started that thing up 500 times and each time it boots and operates perfectly. Now I don't know for a fact as to what's running the Lexicon 960L, but when you look at it and see the PC power supply, PCI slots, processor with fan, RAM, CD-ROM and floppy, it sure as hell looks like a PC. Now maybe Lexicon went out and created their own OS to run on this (doubtful), but I got a hunch that it's using a version of Windows or Linux. I find it interesting that these companies would use what is essentially a PC with one of those buggy, multi-purpose operating systems for their flagship PRO products while using the "superior" embedded systems in their $200 toys.

 

Busch.

[Superbobus]

Originally posted by Superbobus:

Originally posted by SoundMeister:

Originally posted by Superbobus:

The Kurzweils at the musical show have been inspected and are running okay now

what was wrong with them? Why wouldn't they run properly before?

 

Groeten,

 

~Peter Schouten

Pyramid Sound Productions

That's a big question mark for me. First they thought it was RAM, but they only took ONE Kurz there, so me thinks it was the files.

Still the KDFX department is acting weird sometimes but the crashing is gone.

UPDATE:

Big mayhem again last night, grmbl...

A guy from the techies department told me it's a RAM problem, not a software thing. When the synth is loading the samples, it something won't read the information which is sitting in the RAM, or it's reading it the wrong way. Result is that it's skipping parts in the loading process and all kinds of weird sounds come out.

I double dare them to play fifty shows with my Yamaha boards and my iBook G4 without any hiccups.

[DrJustice]

Superbobus,

 

sound like something is seriously broken and in need of serious repair or replacement. Not under warranty by any chance?

 

DJ

--

[Superbobus]

Nope, but hey, those boards are not mine and it's weird that all three of 'em have the same problems, one more serious than the others. But enough of that, there's another thread for that topic.

[Mechanical Fury]

I know this thread is probably a bit old but since you guys are in the subject I was wondering what is a recommend laptop for LIVE P.A.? I got good stats with a Ibook and its cheaper but Powerbook G4 has firewire. I dunno I am a bit confused but I would love to do LIVE P.A. along with digital mixing and etc. I'm currently a producer of dark dnb and industrial music..please let me know whatcha think

[Superbobus]

Originally posted by Mechanical Fury:

I know this thread is probably a bit old but since you guys are in the subject I was wondering what is a recommend laptop for LIVE P.A.? I got good stats with a Ibook and its cheaper but Powerbook G4 has firewire. I dunno I am a bit confused but I would love to do LIVE P.A. along with digital mixing and etc. I'm currently a producer of dark dnb and industrial music..please let me know whatcha think

iBooks have FireWire already for a long time. Nowadays they have one firewire port, two USB 2.0 ports and the G4 processor. Probably you mean that iBooks don't have PCMCIA slots. I'm using a G4 iBook, still didn't use it in a live situation, but it has been a wonderful thing to spend my useless hotel hours during a show tour. Performs GREAT with Ableton Live and Finale.

Go for PowerBooks if you need that superdrive or PCMCIA.