Laptop based live setup

[Jabbe]

I'm going to buy a laptop soon. I think it will be a Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo M7400 w/ Centrino 1,4ghz, 512mb RAM (expandable to 2gb), 40gb HD. Should be enough, right? For the audio interface I'm going to get the new M-Audio Firewire 1814, since it has about everything I need but doesn't cost as much as a MOTU 828 etc. Does these sound good?

 

I'm going to use the laptop in my home studio with Cubase SX, but also for giggin' with softsynths. I have a Motif ES7, so I'll maybe need it for B4, Kontakt and some analog-style synth, perhaps Pro-53, V-station etc.

 

But the problem is, how to make the setup really work? Do I need a host for the soft synths, something like V-Stack..? I also have to get a controller w/ 61 lightweight keys and some knobs.. any good ideas? The Evolution MK461C would be nice, but I've heard the action sucks. I'd like to be able to use a single button to call up the needed synth and preset, how can this be done?

 

Thanks for the help.

[fisheye]

What type of softsynths are you going to use?

 

If you're going to use big samples (> 1gig), you'll need a fast hard drive for sample streaming. I use a 60gig 7200rmp hard drive, which does the job. Standard 4200rmp laptop drives will let you down.

 

Also, loading big samples takes some time, so I load them at home and then put my laptop on standby. At the gig/rehearsel all I need to do is to wake it, start a small program to connect the midi interface to some virtual midi driver and it is ready.

 

However, external sound cards might loose their connection to the software after a standby, so'll you'll need to restart all the software (including the loading of the samples).

I use an Echo Indigo IO, which is a PCMCIA soundcard, so it is dedicated and won't loose connection with the software. Also, a PCMICA connection is faster than a Firewire connection.

My USB midi-interface (M-Audio Midisport) does loose connection, that's why I use virtual midi drivers to overcome this problem.

 

Are you sure a Centrino processor is right for you? Those processors are designed for business programs and low power consumption; I don't know if it handles heavy audio processing well. I use a 'desktop' Pentium 4 2.6ghz myself (not a mobile P4); this one is designed for heavy multimedia jobs. It is also the cheaper than Centrino's.

Check the chipset of the laptop, by looking up its specs on the internet. Cheaper chipsets might have bad information traffic management, slowing down audio processing.

[fisheye]

You'll need a vst-host for softsynths. Check out Chainer , there is a free version and it is really handy, for example pressing F11 will shut down all audio at once, releasing all CPU processing. Pressing it again will give it all back. You can't miss that when going live.

 

Also really great is the EnergyXT vst-host. It is free and you can make really complex midi and audio routing schemes with it. Only its own asio processing isn't that fast, so I load it as an vst-effect in Chainer, so you have the best of both worlds.

 

Further I use a midi processing program I wrote myself to get exactly the control I want using only the keys of the midi-keyboard. This way I almost never have to touch the laptop when playing.

 

Check out www.kvr-vst.com for all kinds of vst-effect/instruments.

[Faruk]

Originally posted by fisheye:

What type of softsynths are you going to use?

 

If you're going to use big samples (> 1gig), you'll need a fast hard drive for sample streaming. I use a 60gig 7200rmp hard drive, which does the job. Standard 4200rmp laptop drives will let you down.

 

Also, loading big samples takes some time, so I load them at home and then put my laptop on standby. At the gig/rehearsel all I need to do is to wake it, start a small program to connect the midi interface to some virtual midi driver and it is ready.

 

However, external sound cards might loose their connection to the software after a standby, so'll you'll need to restart all the software (including the loading of the samples).

I use an Echo Indigo IO, which is a PCMCIA soundcard, so it is dedicated and won't loose connection with the software. Also, a PCMICA connection is faster than a Firewire connection.

My USB midi-interface (M-Audio Midisport) does loose connection, that's why I use virtual midi drivers to overcome this problem.

 

Are you sure a Centrino processor is right for you? Those processors are designed for business programs and low power consumption; I don't know if it handles heavy audio processing well. I use a 'desktop' Pentium 4 2.6ghz myself (not a mobile P4); this one is designed for heavy multimedia jobs. It is also the cheaper than Centrino's.

Check the chipset of the laptop, by looking up its specs on the internet. Cheaper chipsets might have bad information traffic management, slowing down audio processing.

I am about on the same path: to buy one laptop with Centrino technology. Everybody I know recomends it over desktop P4. Can you please elaborate some more? I was also considering Indigo IO, so I was wandering do you use any outbox with Indigo 'cos I would like to base my small mobile recording and live laptop setup around same machine? As I couls see on Indigo you get one inn and one out and that's it. I also thought that firewire and PCMCIA have same speed. And one last question is what do you use to connect your controllers? Some external MIDI interface or USB on laptop itself. Is it possible to use two MIDI keyboard controlers on one laptop and play two different VST in the same time? Sorry if this are lame questions.

 

THX in advance.

[Song80s]

I started to go thru the same selection process

and decided to make a big change; I bought a G4

Powerbook. The centrino was a 2nd choice.

Apple makes it very clean and easy, the only component issue I had to solve for was how much ram and hard drive size

[clusterchord]

Originally posted by Faruk:

I am about on the same path: to buy one laptop with Centrino technology. Everybody I know recomends it over desktop P4

like the man said. centrino is not good for cpu hungry audio applications. Get a laptop with destop P4 in it. Its power hungry, but when playing live, you have power obviously.

 

..mobile recording.. As I couls see on Indigo you get one inn and one out and that's it

if you need more channels, i recommend you RME multiface. it connects via PCMCIA. it has higher quality 8 i/o. i did some mobile recording of sound FX with it, and it worked great.

 

Is it possible to use two MIDI keyboard controlers on one laptop and play two different VST in the same time?

of course, but your host software needs to allow that. In Cubase/Nuendo i just enable multiple record, set two or three midi tracks, each has its own harwdare midi input assigned, and VSTi assigned as midi out, and that's it.

 

It's probably even simpler with non-DAW, dedicated VSTi hosts for playing live.

[Jabbe]

This Centrino thing seems really confusing. It should be more powerful, lighter, quieter and use less power than P4 etc., but why should it be not good for music apps? Why could it not be better?

 

How about that audio interface? How good are the M-Audio interfaces in general? That FW1814 just seems to be everything I need for a really great price. Are there any other options with 8 analog inputs, 2 mic preamsps, ADAT i/o and midi? The Motu 828mkII would be great but it costs 400 more; the specs are about the same.

 

About the harddrive thing. I'll use the internal 40gb HD for the software and everything else, and get a 7200rpm 200-250gb Firewire drive for projects and samples. Is this a good idea?

 

But the biggest problem still seems to be how to use the soft synths live. Can I, eg. call up a master preset in Motif that would assign the Motif for B4 and the another midicontroller for Pro-53? I'd like to use both keyboards to play the Motif's sounds or the softsynths, and use the least button pushes to do this. How is this possible?

[fisheye]

Originally posted by Jabbe:

This Centrino thing seems really confusing. It should be more powerful, lighter, quieter and use less power than P4 etc., but why should it be not good for music apps? Why could it not be better?

Different sort of applications use different sort of processor operations. Office applications for example, use a lot of operations on integers, while audio applications operate mostly on 32 bit floating point numbers. The Centrino might be fast for integer operations and not that fast for floating points. Furthermore, part of the efficiency of the Centrino is due to its ability to 'predict' which opertation will be requested next and perform that opertaion in advance. This prediction scheme will be based on typical office applications and not on audio applications, so it might 'predict' wrong on audio stuff, so it needs to do the right operation afterwards anyway.

And don't forget that the Centrino has a lower processor frequency than Pentium 4's, thus when the 'prediction' scheme doesn't work, the Centrino will be slower than a P4.

Centrino's lower frenquency results in lower power consumption and less heat (thus less cooling), which is nice of office people, but a gigging musician couldn't care less.

Ask yourself this, if Centrino really is faster on any kind of application than P4, then why are desktop PC's still using Pentiums instead of Centrino's?

 

About the harddrive thing. I'll use the internal 40gb HD for the software and everything else, and get a 7200rpm 200-250gb Firewire drive for projects and samples. Is this a good idea?

From what I heard, a good firewire hd will be fine. But check the access times! Large drives might have longer access time (time to find a specific position on the drive) and access times are the one thing that makes audio streaming difficult. If you would have no access time at all, you wouldn't need RAM anymore for samplers. Access times higher than >10ms might be problematic for playing samples. B4 and Pro53 will do fine.

 

But the biggest problem still seems to be how to use the soft synths live. Can I, eg. call up a master preset in Motif that would assign the Motif for B4 and the another midicontroller for Pro-53? I'd like to use both keyboards to play the Motif's sounds or the softsynths, and use the least button pushes to do this. How is this possible?

In theory, there are loads of different ways to do this. However, I haven't found programs especially designed for live controlling these things yet. So I use my own program, designed for my I own needs.

 

You could use Chainer and use the 'mute' buttons to mute and unmute your four different routings. That's one button for every routing.

[Jabbe]

Originally posted by fisheye:

Originally posted by Jabbe:

This Centrino thing seems really confusing. It should be more powerful, lighter, quieter and use less power than P4 etc., but why should it be not good for music apps? Why could it not be better?

Different sort of applications use different sort of processor operations. Office applications for example, use a lot of operations on integers, while audio applications operate mostly on 32 bit floating point numbers. The Centrino might be fast for integer operations and not that fast for floating points. Furthermore, part of the efficiency of the Centrino is due to its ability to 'predict' which opertation will be requested next and perform that opertaion in advance. This prediction scheme will be based on typical office applications and not on audio applications, so it might 'predict' wrong on audio stuff, so it needs to do the right operation afterwards anyway.

And don't forget that the Centrino has a lower processor frequency than Pentium 4's, thus when the 'prediction' scheme doesn't work, the Centrino will be slower than a P4.

Centrino's lower frenquency results in lower power consumption and less heat (thus less cooling), which is nice of office people, but a gigging musician couldn't care less.

Ask yourself this, if Centrino really is faster on any kind of application than P4, then why are desktop PC's still using Pentiums instead of Centrino's?

But I'd also use the laptop in my studio, so I don't want too much noise. Also, the Centrinos are lighter, so carrying a lighter laptop in my backbag would be nice. Is the power difference really dramatic? If a Centrino is not much slower than a P4, the advantages are more important. But if a 1,4ghz Centrino compares to a 1,4ghz P4 in music apps (not 2,8ghz P4 as they claim), then I'll take the P4 for sure. So how is it?

 

It's just... you're the only one complaining about Centrinos, everyone else tells me to get one. But you had very good points there. Damn, just too complicated. When they invent a machine with what you don't have to think about technology, I'd buy that right away..

 

About the harddrive thing...

Thanks for the advice. Good points to remember.

 

You could use Chainer and use the 'mute' buttons to mute and unmute your four different routings. That's one button for every routing.[/QB]

Have to try that, thanks.

[progfusion74]

Originally posted by fisheye:

Ask yourself this, if Centrino really is faster on any kind of application than P4, then why are desktop PC's still using Pentiums instead of Centrino's?

That's going to change. From what I have heard, Intel is going to keep the centrino and the xeon line alive and kill the Pentium line. The centrino will start powering desktops soon as well. I could be mistaken, but I definitely remember reading an article about this somewhere.

[burningbusch]

Sound on Sound ran several articles on the Centrino--conclusion excellent for pro audio/soft synths. The formula Centrino GHz times 1.5 is eqivalent to that power of Pentium. It's a great chip.

 

I prefer Cardbus as it leave your Firewire free for hard disks. I ran streaming samples off internal 4,200RPM with no problem. I wouldn't use the internal for lots of DAW tracks, but it works for streaming samples. At least for me.

 

Watch out for power supplies that introduce hum into pro audio cards. Not uncommon on PC laptops. Always make sure you can return it if if is prone to hum.

 

I use my laptop with an S90. The USB MIDI off the Motif is a great way to go. It just is much more efficient and I've never had a hitch.

 

Set up Cubase SX (Or V-Stack which I prefer) so that each synth is on a different MIDI channel. Look for synths that respond to program and bank changes. If you're going to use Cubase add this filter to the INPUT TRANSFORMER for each MIDI channel you set up

FILTER TARGET = Channel

CONDITION = unequal

PARAMETER1 = 1 (makes channel only respond to MIDI channel 1 input)

MODE = Filter

 

Save each as presets.

 

Busch.

[fisheye]

Right, then the Centrino will probably do.

 

At the time I bought my laptop (October 2003), all discussions turned in favor of the P4. Maybe the Centrino already toke the lead nowadays.

 

I'd say, if sound-on-sound gives its thumbs up, it should be alright.

[Jabbe]

About that Cardbus thing. I thought I can chain multiple firewire devices, but am I wrong? Does it slow the data speed? I'd like to use the firewire port for both the audio interface and the HD. Not a good idea?

 

And how about the audio interface itself... is the M-Audio Firewire 1814 a good choise? Or is there anything with the same specs and price?

[burningbusch]

Originally posted by Jabbe:

About that Cardbus thing. I thought I can chain multiple firewire devices, but am I wrong? Does it slow the data speed? I'd like to use the firewire port for both the audio interface and the HD. Not a good idea?

 

And how about the audio interface itself... is the M-Audio Firewire 1814 a good choise? Or is there anything with the same specs and price?

Firewire certainly allows the chaining of devices. Whether you'll have problems, I don't know. Remember, we're doing real-time applications here, so some lag that might be acceptable or go unnoticed in a standard situation, could be very problematic in realtime playback. I guess it's my old system engineering background where you try to balance the load across multiple I/O and design the system so that it operates WELL within its limits. That to me has been secret of a happy life. I also like Cardbus because its 32-bit parallel as opposed to serial, and it just seems to work really well. I've heard good things about the new Echo cards. Have not had nay experience with the M-Audio unit.

 

Busch.

[Jabbe]

The Layla24 laptop would be nice, except it cost 845 and is 1U rackmount. The M-audio FW1814 cost 655 and is 1/2U, therefore easier to carry in a backbag. I have the old Layla 20-bit now, and I like it much.. hard decision. The Echo products seem good quality, but I'm not so sure about the M-Audio.. seems a bit too cheap in general.

 

Oh, and I'll definitely go for the Centrino now, thanks for the advice guys!

[mte]

Originally posted by fisheye:

You'll need a vst-host for softsynths. Check out Chainer , there is a free version and it is really handy, for example pressing F11 will shut down all audio at once, releasing all CPU processing. Pressing it again will give it all back. You can't miss that when going live.

 

Also really great is the EnergyXT vst-host. It is free and you can make really complex midi and audio routing schemes with it. Only its own asio processing isn't that fast, so I load it as an vst-effect in Chainer, so you have the best of both worlds.

 

Further I use a midi processing program I wrote myself to get exactly the control I want using only the keys of the midi-keyboard. This way I almost never have to touch the laptop when playing.

 

Check out www.kvr-vst.com for all kinds of vst-effect/instruments.

As an alternative to those I'd recommend to look at the forte vst host - www.brainspawn.com . It's a commercial program but it has everything I need for live gigs and their authors offer one of the best support I've ever seen on computer programs. V-Stack isn't designed for live gigs so I don't find it useful and I remember Chainer didn't work well for me. Haven't looked into the EnergyXT though. I don't have a laptop and instead I use a Shuttle barebone PC without a computer monitor/keyboard/mouse but it works anyway

[RKing]

Might be overkill for some, but I have a thread on my new laptop recording/Performance rig here.

 

Ultimate Laptop

 

Rob

[Jabbe]

Originally posted by RKing:

Might be overkill for some, but I have a thread on my new laptop recording/Performance rig here.

 

Ultimate Laptop

 

Rob

Holy ****!!!! That's one hell of a setup!

 

I think that goes a bit over my budget, though.

 

I'm quite much decided about the laptop, I'll take the M7400 I mentioned above. Seems enough.

 

But still no comments about the audio interface?

[hermanjoe]

Can I use my powerbook G4 to run NI Elekric Piano live? I am wondering the ease of calling up sounds and changing effects ect...

 

Any advice?