Re: Using a laptop onstage: Dominic Frasca's take is misguided

[Travis Hartnett <travishartnett@gmail.com>]

Oh, I've been on the downside of a number of platforms.  Ask me about
the Tascam multi-track minidisk recorder.  Or, don't.  My rule of
thumb was if I got one album out of a system, it paid for itself, so I
wasn't hit that bad, but music can be an expensive day at the races. 
I don't really mind paying for software/hardware upgrades, but I don't
want to pretend that computers are cost-free tools, or even
necessarily cheaper if it isn't so.

What's funny is how we perceive various "ownership" costs.  If you're
an active guitarist, you may got through a hundred dollars of strings,
picks, etc. over the course of a year.  Every few years you may need
some fretwork for another couple hundred dollars.  Tubes, caps and
speakers need replacement in amps and so on, but these are viewed as
"consumables", even though the amount of money laid out is about the
same as keeping your DAW software up to date.

With computer-based tools, you've got the problems of depreciation and
obsolesence of both hardware and software.  I think Mr. Frasca is
correct in that if you buy a $3K PowerBook today, it's worth only a
fraction after a few years.  I wasn't able to include the entire
article detailing his PowerBook based setup, but it's basically a 17"
Powerbook with a custom breakout box (he's individual output channels
from his guitar for each of ten strings, plus a mic feed) going into a
MOTU interface, into the PowerBook running Logic.  He's then got a
bunch of plug-ins for the usual EQ, compression, reverb, chorus and
pitchshifting, all of which can and frequently are reconfigured for
each piece, and then everything goes out to the PA in stereo.  At home
he does some 5.1.

Logic is probably going to be around for at least the next three
years, probably longer, and none of the plugins he's using sound
terribly idiosyncratic, so I would guess he'll be able to duplicate
his current functionality for quite some time.  Of course, in a year
or so he'll hear about about some amazing new reverb that requires a
newer version of Logic, which will require a paid update of the OS,
and then the PowerBook will start to feel a litle pokey, and someone
will have a vastly improved firewire audio interface, and the new
setup sounds really great in 128-bit sampling, and so keeping his
system up-to-date will cost another $5K.  He'll be able to get some
money back on the old hardware, but old software isn't worth beans. 
On the other hand, he'll have saved a ton of money in air freight by
not having to schlep around a twelve channel mixer and a rack of
processors, the sum total of which would doubtless cost more than the
PowerBook set up, but will hold their resale value better for the
seemingly inevitable updates--new reverbs, better mixer, etc, and he
can probably write the whole thing off as a business expense.

On the other hand, for the serious, yet non-professional musician,
air-freight savings probably don't factor in too much.  It's
interesting to compare how much a non-computer-based setup costs
versus the alternative, for a real-world setup.  Let's say I tried to
switch over.  Currently my signal path is:

Guitar
A/B box ($200)
Tuner ($100)
Yamaha acoustic guitar preamp (includes EQ, feedback control, reverb,
compression, etc) ($300)
Rane SM26 mixer/splitter ($125)
2 Echoplexes ($1600)
Echoplex foot controller ($125)
A/B box for sharing controller between EDP's ($50)
Volume Pedal ($50)
DI boxes ($125)

Which totals about $2700, assuming new prices.  That's leaving out
cable and rack costs, and amplification, since that'll be roughly the
same in the new setup.  If I use a PowerBook ($3K with max ram, etc),
Logic ($500), some two channel audio interface ($200), SooperLooper
(doesn't do everything, but reasonably close for now--plus it's
free!), a Behringer FCB ($150) then I'm looking about another grand
over the old setup.  The old one is heavy, but retains much more
resale value.  Maybe I can get by with a cheaper laptop and VST host,
but I'd imagine it's difficult to shave off much more than a grand
while staying in the Mac platform (and maybe not even with an
audio-appropriate Windows solution).  Plus, in my case I paid less
than the prices quoted above for many of those bits since I've had
them for years now, but for someone starting from scratch, I think
those figures are accurate for both approaches.

The laptop solution of course has the advantage of being able to do a
bunch of other things, even related to music, but I'm not the sort of
person who says "Great--now my lifetime dream of twelve channels of
diatonic pitch-shifting with MIDI-synced panning and modulation is
finally within my reach!"  I use two reverb patches over the course of
an evening with my current setup, even though I could do much more
without a lot of effort.  It's an aesthetic choice.  I could ditch one
of the EDP's without too much hassle, in which case the cost drops
another $850, and now the laptop setup is looking even more expensive.

But what works for me may not work for everyone.  However, I think
it's illuminating to consider how much our perception of what tools we
need are determined by what tools are available.  How much loop time
does one need and how much just sounds like a good idea?

TravisH




On 1/4/06, Warren Sirota <wsirota@wsdesigns.com> wrote:

>
> I'm obviously a sw booster. And I have vested (albeit pathetically small)
> economic interests in boosting music sw. But still, I'm a sw booster for
> quite a few valid (for me, at any rate) reasons. I'm not really 
>interested
> in proving I'm right (ok, I'm lying, but I'm striving for that), but I do
> like to respond fully if I think there are new points to make.
>
> Anyway...
>
> Travis, good points. I have had to pay Cycling 74 more than twice over 
>the
> years for MAX/MSP upgrades as computer systems evolved (but I've used it 
>for
> a *long* time, and the PC version was *free* once I'd paid for the Mac
> version). But the difference for me between that and, say, a guitar
> controller with special features becoming obsolete or a synth dying is 
>that
> I *can* pay for an upgrade to the software. Since I'm a software
> manufacturer, I don't mind paying other software manufacturers for 
>updates
> at reasonable intervals and reasonable prices. Now, some manufacturers 
>seem
> to be a bit extortionist when it comes to their prices for updates (or
> frequency - but how can you complain about frequent updates?), and for 
>those
> I usually fall behind until the latest version presents a compelling
> value/price proposition.
>
> Upkeep costs are not limited to sw. When I got my first mono tape 
>recorder
> as a teenager, I was shocked by my first repair bill only a few years 
>later.
> When the repair guy said, "expect to pay 1/4 of the price of the machine
> every year for maintenance", I staggered out of the store in shock, 
>thinking
> "they didn't tell me that when they sold me the machine."
>
> I think your best point about incompatibility relates to DAWs. They 
>mostly
> use proprietary formats. But now that's largely addressed, isn't it, by 
>the
> OMF format?
>
> Travis, you were unfortunate in your timing with the OS's - you adopted 
>OS9
> during its death throes. The transition from 16-bit pseudo-multitasking
> operating systems to 32-bit pre-emptive multitasking OSs was a huge one 
>for
> both Microsoft and Apple, and both companies learned how to create a
> "modern" OS in the process (more or less). Both had to scrap 
>compatibility
> in the process - the 16-bit systems weren't designed well-enough to 
>survive.
> Windows 3.1 users moving to Windows 95 had similar problems.
>
> However, this won't happen in the switch to 64-bit. The installed base of
> 32-bit software is a zillion times bigger than the installed base of 
>16-bit
> software ever was. The stakes are huge. Plus, the big players in the 
>music
> sw world have been around long enough that at least a few of them can be
> trusted to provide upgrade paths (not for free, of course). Sonar already
> has a 64-bit version, and there's a bridge that lets 32-bit VSTs run 
>under
> the 64-bit version of Windows.
>
> To me, something doesn't become obsolescent if there's an upgrade path, 
>even
> if it costs something (reasonable). I care about being *able* to perform 
>all
> my pieces, even after my current computer or footcontroller breaks or is
> repurposed.
>
> Bottom line for me: I've had to discard or replace tens of thousands of
> dollars of hardware, and at least temporarily retire quite a few pieces
> because of this. Hw doesn't become obsolete? It sure hurts like it 
>does...
>
> Best wishes,
> Warren Sirota
>
>