What software do you recommend for a laptop in live gigs?

I have a dig.piano and a laptop (no sound card yet), so im about to buy the proper cables to link them, but I have no software, only cakewalk and fruity loops
My main interest would be a rich piano sound, what do you recomend me?
Any other software (apart from the piano) you may wanna name?

Some hot talk uh?

Wish I had an answer for you. Might as well discuss this topic though, because I'm in a similar situation. I've been using Fruity Loops for 4 years now (STILL learning new things to do with it) and I also play keyboard in a band. I'd love to finally integrate Fruity Loops into our live performances but right now I don't have a laptop to handle that of processing.

Sorry this doesn't really answer your question, but I am also interested in this, and I do think that Fruity Loops would be an awesome addition to a live gig.

I wouldn't recommend any software or laptop at live gigs. Too much could go wrong and ruin a show. I could just see your piano playing evolving into the windows theme music as it shut down for some unknown error. Or worse, the note just freezes because the mac has moment to consider itself above all others.

Don't do it man!! Not even to trigger samples!!!

True it could be risky and - to be sure nothing goes wrong - expensive, but I know it has been done and can be done.

My instinct tells me to go with a mac anyway and avoid this altogether.

We bring a laptop to live gigs only for samples. We don't plug it in to the sound system and we only load samples from the computer to the keyboard if we need them. Even Mac has problems. I posted on this before. I know it can be done but it is sooooooo risky that I wouldn't chance it live.

Besides, our keyboards pretty much do everything else for us. All of our sequences are running full bore while MIDI messages control program changes in my bassPOD, all of our lights are triggered in real time (and on time) from our keyboards, all our samples are loaded in the boards and we have no fewer than 4,000 sounds at our fingertips at any given time. We could buy a few racks (yamaha and roland racks for instance) and have as many sounds as we wanted (seriously, we could have more than 50,000 sounds if we wanted to expand that far).

There are so many great units that just don't fail that we can live without a computer on stage. If you wire your keyboards right, there isn't too much you can't do with MIDI. Hell, you can even have videos running in the background and producing images that relate to your songs in real time.

I have seen people use laptops and even full towers on stage but, I have also heard them talk about the inevitable happening from time to time. This just isn't a choice I like to consider.

Damn, man. Got any photos of your setup on stage in full effect?

No - mainly cause I hate pictures. I can stand in front of anyone and give a speech, cold call anyone for any reason but, when it comes to pictures I get all self conscious...

Sorry man. Perhaps in November when we play next (we are on a remix holiday), I'll ask someone to take some sneaky shots for ya

I can however take pics of our rack and keyboards and bass and list all of our equipment. We keep a lot of our equipment stacked in a storage room between shows so, that might be tough.

Also, if you want to know how we do the things we do, I can go through the list if that helps.

(just an afterthought)

Interesting, a stage performer who hates pictures of himself. At least you can get up and play on stages in front of people despite being self-conscious.

Anyway, not to get off-topic; I was just interested in seeing how you set up everything with even the lights synced up like you said. Sounds like your music comes with quite a stage presence.