Re: why a laptop at all?

[<biz-looper@groovetronica.com>]

  I guess I'm not aware of capabilities, but my guess is
> that a high end Sony VAIO or TiBook is not going to give me enough
> power to run Live, a VST software synth, with a few vst effects on it
> all at the same time with an acceptable amount of latency and no
> glitches.  Am I wrong? 

 

Yes.

 

I am running Live with Reason, a live or VST plug on each live channel, on a 700 mhz Dull. I have to stay away from really heavy plugins, such as the PSP42 and PSP84, and the Reason granular synth, but tons of other complex, rich ones are fair game. (For the record, I don't use Reason as part of my 'rig' right now - I've got too much going on already :>)

 

I get 10 ms latency of the built in sound card. This is noticeable when playing but >very< far from unplayable. I can even loop live audio in 'Live'.

 

A 'middle of the road' laptop is going to be twice as fast at least, let alone a high end one. A multithreading desktop P4 is going to be 3 or 4 times the speed, for the same price as a mid-range laptop.) 

 

> Now, you can easily pick up something like the new roland V synth, Korg
> Triton or another work station style keyboard for $2200 that will kick
> that laptop's ass in terms of capabilities and sound quality and leave
> you almost enough money for an EDP leftover.  R

 

I disagree - Live and Reason both blow away the hardware sequencers in terms of ease of use and >live< performance (well, Live more than Reason - Reason is cute, but it's just a fancy VST synth, though you do get'undo' - a feature missing from >all< hardware sequencers.)

 

I have an emu command station and a yamaha RM1x - the two most interactive 'knob boxes' you can buy. For actual >performance< instead of just glorified playback, Live has them beat, hands down.

 

>Rick's already got a
> Repeater and an EDP.  He could spend the extra cash on a decent
> multi-effects processor

 

You can use laptops for that, too :>

 

> My company is always looking for a way to do
> realtime video presentations from a laptop, and as far as I can tell,
> it's not possible with the quality we need.  A G3 tower with an Aurora
> video card is the closest we've gotten.
>

 

What exactly are you trying to do? I assume it's something more fancy than playing back a pre-rendered video file.

 

bIz