Re: Lots of fun.

[Alex Stahl <alex@pixar.com>]

The audio quality of the built-in I/O on any computer is 
questionable, but high-fidelity is not always the first priority.

Personally I like great sound quality but regardless, built-in audio 
is only stereo and I like quad or 5.1. So I'm stuck with a card for 
now. However the newest Magma expansion chassis works with Pismo 
powerbooks, works with the MOTU PCI-32 card (providing a mere 7 msec 
latency) and is not much bigger than the laptop itself, so it can all 
fit in a carry-on bag.

I've used a VX Pocket live but only a few times. We had trouble with 
the breakout cable. The CPU overhead was not 30 percent, but it was a 
hit.

The latency problem is a big one but for looping, it can be 
compensated IF the OS provides a constant latency. I have a 
latency-compensating looper which I am diligently refining into 
share-able condition.

By the way, when was the last time you measured the latency of your 
outboard rack?

-Alex S.





At 10:23 PM -0400 7/18/00, pvallad1 wrote:
>If I understand you correctly, Max/MSP/Powerbook users are getting along 
>just
>fine without an add-on card, using just Sound Manager?  David Zicarelli's
>comments at cycling74.com leave an impression that Sound Manager is a
>performance dog on Powerbooks.  Maybe I just got the wrong impression?
>
>Thanks,
>Paolo
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Andrew Pask" <andrew@kaleidacousticon.com>
>To: <Loopers-Delight@annihilist.com>
>Sent: Friday, July 14, 2000 7:42 PM
>Subject: Re: Lots of fun.
>
>
>  > As far as the VX pocket is concerned  the word on the street for Mac 
>users
>  > (at least Max/Msp users) is that the VX pocket adds a 20 or 30 
>percent cpu
>  > overhead, and if you go to 24 bit it's a real hog.I don't know anyone 
>who's
>  > using one live, the sound manager spec is fine for live gigs.The rule 
>with
>  > live gigs as always is "keep it simple": having a studio quality ADDA 
>rig
>  > with ASIO drivers and all the fruit seems to me to be asking for 
>trouble.
>  >
>  > L8r
>  >
>  > A
>  >
>  >