I'm an old school keyboardist that just stumbled into a gig with a successful live show. I need a wide array of meat & potato patches, sequences, loops & custom sampled sound FX. I have no desire to hump 16 rack spaces of modules. And it all needs to fit in my large 4-door sedan. I'm thinking "virtual synths/DAW on a laptop". I own an M-Audio Keystation 88 controller with USB & midi. I'd like to run one cable from my keyboard to the laptop for my sounds, and a stereo send out of the laptop for monitoring. I'd prefer to stay with PC as opposed to Mac. Questions: If cost were no object, (although I do have a $2500 laptop cap); What speed laptop? Off the shelf, or custom built? AMD or Intel? How much ram? Which midi/usb interface box? OS? Any all-in-one software you'd recommend? (i.e. Cubase, Sonar etc.) Obviously low latency is vital for playing real-time keyboard parts & triggering sound FX. Any other tips or anecdotes greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance! -Jake- Posted Via Usenet.com Premium Usenet Newsgroup Services ---------------------------------------------------------- ** SPEED ** RETENTION ** COMPLETION ** ANONYMITY ** ---------------------------------------------------------- http://www.usenet.com
"John Freal" <> wrote in news:41be2293$1_2@127.0.0.1: > I'm thinking "virtual synths/DAW on a laptop". I own an M-Audio > Keystation 88 controller with USB & midi. I'd like to run one cable > from my keyboard to the laptop for my sounds, and a stereo send out of > the laptop for monitoring. > > I'd prefer to stay with PC as opposed to Mac. Sorry, wrong group, this is live sound reinforcement issues > > >
On Mon, 13 Dec 2004 17:19:50 -0600, "John Freal" <> wrote: >I'm thinking "virtual synths/DAW on a laptop". I own an M-Audio Keystation >88 controller with USB & midi. I'd like to run one cable from my keyboard to >the laptop for my sounds, and a stereo send out of the laptop for >monitoring. > >I'd prefer to stay with PC as opposed to Mac. >What speed laptop? Well, eMachines makes a 64-bit AMD based laptop, but they tend to be Russian Roulette on hard drive speed... >Off the shelf, or custom built? ....so you're probably better off going with an AlienWare laptop, to make sure you get a good fast hard drive, if you're using any modules that load samples (or any other good reputable manufacturer that'll let you choose drive speed... Toshiba doesn't *usually*, Dell does on some, I'm not sure about any others). >AMD or Intel? Audio and the 64bit AMD tend to get along pretty well, but the P4's are better for audio in general. >How much ram? I'd opt for at least a full gig... >Which midi/usb interface box? M-Audio MIDISport 2x2 >OS? If you'd rather stick with a PC, you're pretty much limited to XP (if you were geek enough to run Linux, you know what kind of machine you'd need ), though it wouldn't hurt to try and find XP Media Edition (supposedly, it's 'optimized' for media, but I don't buy it... I haven't noticed it showing up as an option on many of the DAW websites...) >Any all-in-one software you'd recommend? (i.e. Cubase, Sonar etc.) You might want to take a look at some of the hardware VST Host solutions, so you can avoid lugging a laptop around. http://www.museresearch.com/receptor_overview.php >Obviously low latency is vital for playing real-time keyboard parts & >triggering sound FX. Cheers jtougas listen- there's a hell of a good universe next door let's go e.e. cummings
If you need any lengthy, complex or synchronized sequences, a laptop is probably your best bet, otherwise I think you should take a serious look at just getting the Roland Fantom XR module : http://www.rolandus.com/Multimedia/Flash/fantomxr/ It comes with lots of great sounds, a ton more can be added with plug in ROM cards : http://www.rolandus.com/products/subcategory.asp?catid=13&subcatid=55 and it's a sampler so you can record your own samples for specific sound effects, etc. It's under $1400 street price so you'll be able get it plus two additional ROM sound cards and some more user memory for under $2000. Throw it in a light 2 space rack, grab your controller keyboard and you should be good to go. Make sure to listen to the samples on the websites, it sounds really great. Best of luck and congrats on the gig! John L Rice "John Freal" <> wrote in message news:41be2293$1_2@127.0.0.1... > I'm an old school keyboardist that just stumbled into a gig with a > successful live show. I need a wide array of meat & potato patches, > sequences, loops & custom sampled sound FX. > > I have no desire to hump 16 rack spaces of modules. And it all needs to fit > in my large 4-door sedan. > > > > I'm thinking "virtual synths/DAW on a laptop". I own an M-Audio Keystation > 88 controller with USB & midi. I'd like to run one cable from my keyboard to > the laptop for my sounds, and a stereo send out of the laptop for > monitoring. > > I'd prefer to stay with PC as opposed to Mac. > > > > Questions: If cost were no object, (although I do have a $2500 laptop cap); > > What speed laptop? > > Off the shelf, or custom built? > > AMD or Intel? > > How much ram? > > Which midi/usb interface box? > > OS? > > Any all-in-one software you'd recommend? (i.e. Cubase, Sonar etc.) > > Obviously low latency is vital for playing real-time keyboard parts & > triggering sound FX. > > > > Any other tips or anecdotes greatly appreciated. > > Thanks in advance! > > -Jake- > > > > Posted Via Usenet.com Premium Usenet Newsgroup Services > ---------------------------------------------------------- > ** SPEED ** RETENTION ** COMPLETION ** ANONYMITY ** > ---------------------------------------------------------- > http://www.usenet.com
Apologies to all in the irrelevant newsgroups. The original poster apparently doesn't understand that broad cross posting is bad form, and if he's compelled to do it anyway, doesn't know how to concentrate replies to a single newsgroup that he actually reads. Anyway . . . . In article <41be2293$1_2@127.0.0.1> writes: > I'm an old school keyboardist that just stumbled into a gig with a > successful live show. I need a wide array of meat & potato patches, > sequences, loops & custom sampled sound FX. > > I have no desire to hump 16 rack spaces of modules. And it all needs to fit > in my large 4-door sedan. Have you looked at some of the new keyboard synths lately? Mighty impressive, and you don't have to fool with a computer. Just plug it in and play. Get one with a sampler at heart and you can load your custom samples and sound effects too. I'd avoid taking a computer on a day-to-day gig. Too much haywire, takes too long to load samples, too much to get wrong, too much to go wrong. It might work out after you've lived with it for a year (that will give you a year's worth of use before you feel the urge to upgrade) but it sure doesn't make sense to me to go out and buy what are essentially the components of the sampler/synth you really want, then have to accessorize and configure it yourself. You have to be pretty darn good to do that, and here you are asking which computer to buy. Don't do it. -- I'm really Mike Rivers () However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over, lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring and reach me here: double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo
<> wrote in message news:... > Apologies to all in the irrelevant newsgroups. The original poster > apparently doesn't understand that broad cross posting is bad > form, and if he's compelled to do it anyway, doesn't know how to > concentrate replies to a single newsgroup that he actually reads. My sincere apologies for cross posting, I'm new to Usenet. Thank you for not flaming me into worthless particulate. -Jake- > > Anyway . . . . > > In article <41be2293$1_2@127.0.0.1> writes: > > > I'm an old school keyboardist that just stumbled into a gig with a > > successful live show. I need a wide array of meat & potato patches, > > sequences, loops & custom sampled sound FX. > > > > I have no desire to hump 16 rack spaces of modules. And it all needs > to fit > > in my large 4-door sedan. > > Have you looked at some of the new keyboard synths lately? Mighty > impressive, and you don't have to fool with a computer. Just plug it > in and play. Get one with a sampler at heart and you can load your > custom samples and sound effects too. > > I'd avoid taking a computer on a day-to-day gig. Too much haywire, > takes too long to load samples, too much to get wrong, too much to go > wrong. It might work out after you've lived with it for a year (that > will give you a year's worth of use before you feel the urge to > upgrade) but it sure doesn't make sense to me to go out and buy what > are essentially the components of the sampler/synth you really want, > then have to accessorize and configure it yourself. You have to be > pretty darn good to do that, and here you are asking which computer to > buy. > > Don't do it. > > -- > I'm really Mike Rivers () > However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over, > lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If > you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring > and reach me here: double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo > > Posted Via Usenet.com Premium Usenet Newsgroup Services ---------------------------------------------------------- ** SPEED ** RETENTION ** COMPLETION ** ANONYMITY ** ---------------------------------------------------------- http://www.usenet.com
