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

[Warren Sirota <wsirota@wsdesigns.com>]

Hi Travis,

I see how the math adds up. Interesting. It is true that computers, like
almost all electronic devices (vintage gear excepted) seem to depreciate in
the real world at about 50%/year, and that software pretty much depreciates
100% the day you "drive it out of the showroom". The latter is mostly
because of the whole software protection/piracy mess which makes it nearly
impossible to establish or transfer ownership in a trustworthy manner. Sad
but true.

OTOH, I don't know too many people who paid $2700 for their laptops - my
Powerbook G4 is not state of the art, but together with 1GB of RAM it was
about $1800, and while it's not as fast as main desktop pc, it is fast
enough for now (until I start loading up with plugins, I guess). You can
probably get a pretty fast Wintel laptop with a couple of gigs new for 
$1500
(just a guess). 

And - this point was made before, mostly - to be really nitpicky about it,
the right way to calculate the cost of the computer is to calculate how 
much
*extra* you had to pay to make the computer music-ready above and beyond
what you were going to pay for an email/word processing/web/(and possibly
work) computer anyway (which I assume is a necessity of life for anyone on
this list). For me, that amount was $30 for the firewire card on my latest
computer, and probably another $100 for extra hard disk space for audio
files, since I need a fast machine for work anyway. The audio interface was
pricey, but I paid for that with the last computer and just transferred it
to the new one.

Best wishes,
Warren Sirota


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Travis Hartnett [mailto:travishartnett@gmail.com] 
> Sent: Wednesday, January 04, 2006 7:50 PM
> To: Loopers-Delight@loopers-delight.com
> Subject: Re: Using a laptop onstage: Dominic Frasca's take is 
> misguided
> 
> 
> 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
> >
> >
>