I have to build a mobile DAW using another XITE-1 for solo gigs. I did tonights happy hour then my bands gig, and I can see that the band can afford to rent my 8U design, and hire another keyboardist after my contract expires. Same old story of using my income to justify and pay for the gear.
I could use my 8U as I am doing now, but small nearfield monitors and a 2U is what I want to use so I can do 2 of these solo gigs per day.
BTW thanks for any help as I am getting jerked around by salespeople and trust my Brotha's here over them anyday of the week.
I wish to use PCI-e eSATA connector for a 2 x HDD mini tower. This could be used w/ all of my DAW's since it is a storage only for sampled content. I will also need on the same laptop another way to connect the XITE-1. I have viewed some powerful notebooks that use E series CPU's, and this is what I need. A desktop version of a notebook / laptop. The ability to go 64bit is something I will be using w/ Gigastudio 4 and XITE-1. This won't be used right away, but after New Years I have decided to do this but can start designing now.
All searches for custom laptop only show what parts you can pick from. I want to choose my CPU / RAM / Motherboard and HDD myself. So any tips on a builder would be appreciated also.
The idea of an O.S. + Apps only for the internal drive is all I need. I just don't know about the PCI-e outs for the XITE and the mini eSATA tower.
If anyone here uses notebooks / laptops in their studio or for gigging, please chime in, as I am feverish to know if it's possible before I try and find my replacement.
My solo gig will be based on a trio where the bass and percussion / drums will be from VDAT as it's quality inside of Scope is a notch above evrything else, and @ 96k through a pair of quality nearfields, or even that weird Bose monitor that projects the sound in unique ways should be way above the cheapskates gigging that I have encountered.
I always strive for the best that I can get, as it creates more bookings, and people not only notice your talent, but when the sound is pristine and of a higher fidelity, I can bare playing some the cheesy requests that I am forced to do.
Thanks.
Laptop Advice
Re: Laptop Advice
It's a good time to buy a production/performance laptop. The current trends are the ultra low power/slimline models or the newer "EEE" style sub-$500 models based on cpu's like intel's atom. Neither of those are what you want, but that also means that models like you're looking for are going to be priced more competitively and if you deal with a systems builder (dell, hp etc) that can customize a build for you then you could potentially achieve what you want. I would definitely collect some input here and elsewhere before going too far with customizing your laptop though to avoid misdirection from a sales clerk or a potential hardware issue that was well known. With a business purchase and looking to customize I'd certainly give the sales staff a call when ready to purchase, that way you have a person to hold accountable for the sale to insure you get what you're after 
The first thing to consider of course is what OS you want to use. And this isn't just an OSX/Windows issue, this also included WinXP & Vista. Assuming that you'll be able to take a relatively new laptop from any manufacturer and downgrade it to Xp is bad, as there may not even be drivers available for everything even if you have an extra Xp OEM/retail copy on hand.
For direct sales Apple's offerings & Lenovo's upper line seem to be standard fare among most of the people I know in music that can afford to purchase based on more than affordability. Lenovo separated from IBM a while back and is entirely chinese for its business structure & manufacturing, but their US offerings do get some integration here so you might be able to do a custom job or find something suitable in the options they offer. Downside to the Apple route is if you're going to boot to windows for performance you're stuck with one trackpad button by default. Also some of Apple's laptops experienced nvidia related issues, as they used these chipsets. One would assume they've addressed this now but again look out for older 'bargains' at low prices.
If you can afford to go through an audio retailer, it might benefit you to use someone that can help you 'test drive' models for long enough to do a proper evaluation & troubleshoot on them. You might also be able to do this at an Apple store but only with Logic and specific software. Xite specific testing would of course have to wait for the hardware to be available to you, but there are some generalized testing tools that can reveal potential bottlenecks in the Windows realm:
CPUID has PC Wizard which can help determine what components are actually installed in a system ( CPU-Z and GPU-Z are also useful for cpu's & gpu's respectively).
DPC Latency Checker is a wonderful tool to identify devices and drivers that will degrade audio performance. In most cases this will be specifically driver related (and not a driver compensating for a hardware design issue) so changing drivers can improve matters when the option is available. June issue of Sound On Sound covers the tool in full in the PC Notes section.
CEntrance ASIO Latency Test Utility can help reveal how a particular system will actually perform under high ASIO loads (Rightmark Audio Analyzer also offers similar functions in addition to its other tests). Miditest offers similar tests for your midi interface.
Dawbench.com has a variety of tests you can perform and then compare your results to others to see how your system matches up to other comparable makes/builds under specific sequencer loads.
If you head into the discount/used market, there's something to look out for right off the bat. Models from earlier this year (and end of last year) with Nvidia's mobile chipsets (both the MCP and the GPU) are having a warranteed failure issue, which nvidia has been taking a beating over. So in the overstock/wholesale outlets you'll find a ton of these laptops at very low prices, avoid them. Specifically systems that have mobile G84/G86 chips are under recall. There's one particular site that has been very vocal in extending this issue to all of nvidia's lines for the last year or so (desktop as wel), but this isn't relevant to this thread and so is just anecdotal info for pz readers.
That's all I've got time for at the moment, time to get back to work!
The first thing to consider of course is what OS you want to use. And this isn't just an OSX/Windows issue, this also included WinXP & Vista. Assuming that you'll be able to take a relatively new laptop from any manufacturer and downgrade it to Xp is bad, as there may not even be drivers available for everything even if you have an extra Xp OEM/retail copy on hand.
For direct sales Apple's offerings & Lenovo's upper line seem to be standard fare among most of the people I know in music that can afford to purchase based on more than affordability. Lenovo separated from IBM a while back and is entirely chinese for its business structure & manufacturing, but their US offerings do get some integration here so you might be able to do a custom job or find something suitable in the options they offer. Downside to the Apple route is if you're going to boot to windows for performance you're stuck with one trackpad button by default. Also some of Apple's laptops experienced nvidia related issues, as they used these chipsets. One would assume they've addressed this now but again look out for older 'bargains' at low prices.
If you can afford to go through an audio retailer, it might benefit you to use someone that can help you 'test drive' models for long enough to do a proper evaluation & troubleshoot on them. You might also be able to do this at an Apple store but only with Logic and specific software. Xite specific testing would of course have to wait for the hardware to be available to you, but there are some generalized testing tools that can reveal potential bottlenecks in the Windows realm:
CPUID has PC Wizard which can help determine what components are actually installed in a system ( CPU-Z and GPU-Z are also useful for cpu's & gpu's respectively).
DPC Latency Checker is a wonderful tool to identify devices and drivers that will degrade audio performance. In most cases this will be specifically driver related (and not a driver compensating for a hardware design issue) so changing drivers can improve matters when the option is available. June issue of Sound On Sound covers the tool in full in the PC Notes section.
CEntrance ASIO Latency Test Utility can help reveal how a particular system will actually perform under high ASIO loads (Rightmark Audio Analyzer also offers similar functions in addition to its other tests). Miditest offers similar tests for your midi interface.
Dawbench.com has a variety of tests you can perform and then compare your results to others to see how your system matches up to other comparable makes/builds under specific sequencer loads.
If you head into the discount/used market, there's something to look out for right off the bat. Models from earlier this year (and end of last year) with Nvidia's mobile chipsets (both the MCP and the GPU) are having a warranteed failure issue, which nvidia has been taking a beating over. So in the overstock/wholesale outlets you'll find a ton of these laptops at very low prices, avoid them. Specifically systems that have mobile G84/G86 chips are under recall. There's one particular site that has been very vocal in extending this issue to all of nvidia's lines for the last year or so (desktop as wel), but this isn't relevant to this thread and so is just anecdotal info for pz readers.
That's all I've got time for at the moment, time to get back to work!
Re: Laptop Advice
Dayamn Brotha' Man Valis,
You pointed me in the tight direction, thanks. I was thinkinh abouy an Apple also.
I did find this so far........... http://mini-itx.com/projects/itx-laptop/
Money will be steady for a while and I always get my ROI, so I can afford something really well designed by that time. Your advice is always appreciated, thanks so much.
Your links and ideas will keep me occupied and I'll let you know what I come up with.
You pointed me in the tight direction, thanks. I was thinkinh abouy an Apple also.
I did find this so far........... http://mini-itx.com/projects/itx-laptop/
Money will be steady for a while and I always get my ROI, so I can afford something really well designed by that time. Your advice is always appreciated, thanks so much.
Your links and ideas will keep me occupied and I'll let you know what I come up with.
Re: Laptop Advice
If you can afford it and are used to having the aid of someone like GaryB in setting things up, it might be worth getting an audio-specific reseller involved even if purchasing apple (for instance Sweetwater). Mostly because one would assume they've gone to at least some lengths to insure that there aren't problematic drivers & hardware in a given laptop (wireless, firewire, etc), but also because they'll be more understanding of your needs than a 'normal' sales rep.
I think that Apple's laptops are more competitive in the laptop arena than their other machines are in the desktop arena, though once you get the cpu and harddrive you like you're much better served getting RAM upgrades and other addons from other reliable sources (ie, get your ram configured to be easily expandable and buy the rest elsewhere).
In the desktop world, Apple's Xeons are competitively priced against other high end workstation hardware, but some storage & expansion is given up for the aesthetics and configuration decisions that Apple has made for you. In the rest of the apple desktop line you have solutions that either are targeted at the 'it just works' small form factor (apple tv, mac mini) with very little expansion capability, and then you only have the iMac which is mostly based on integrating laptop hardware into the monitor and doesn't actually compete with PC desktops as much as it does similar 'all-in-one' products from Dell, HP etc that have cropped up to adopt the laptop-motherboard-in-monitor form factor and exist in the same 'premium' price range. So there's a bit of a gaping hole in a single cpu minitower/desktop case form factor that isn't really served even by the lower end Xeons. So in the desktop world you go Apple/Mac either because of brand loyalty, desire to use Apple's OS-X, use of tools that run on OS-X (Logic, Final Cut studio) and/or some combination of the above.
Coming back to Apple's laptops, aside from cosmetics they're not really that far from other laptops on the market (there's no 'minitower hole' in their laptop product line) in terms of configuration and the price premiums aren't as bad as they once were. The choice of OS issue is lessened by the fact that you are generally going to be looking at some form of Vista as the windows option. You won't find a laptop running Xp now without paying the downgrade fee and running the risk of still finding out that some hardware isn't properly supported. I know of more than one case where someone has gotten the OEM Xp cd from the laptop maker and it's still missing wireless drivers or something stupid. Welcome to computing as a commodity. In any case OSX compares much more favorably to Vista on a laptop both in terms of performance and application support, and both can boot into WinXP equally (and OSX can boot to Vista) when necessary.
That being said if you don't ever see yourself using OSX, a mac laptop is a poor investment and not worth the 10% or so price premium they command.
I think that Apple's laptops are more competitive in the laptop arena than their other machines are in the desktop arena, though once you get the cpu and harddrive you like you're much better served getting RAM upgrades and other addons from other reliable sources (ie, get your ram configured to be easily expandable and buy the rest elsewhere).
In the desktop world, Apple's Xeons are competitively priced against other high end workstation hardware, but some storage & expansion is given up for the aesthetics and configuration decisions that Apple has made for you. In the rest of the apple desktop line you have solutions that either are targeted at the 'it just works' small form factor (apple tv, mac mini) with very little expansion capability, and then you only have the iMac which is mostly based on integrating laptop hardware into the monitor and doesn't actually compete with PC desktops as much as it does similar 'all-in-one' products from Dell, HP etc that have cropped up to adopt the laptop-motherboard-in-monitor form factor and exist in the same 'premium' price range. So there's a bit of a gaping hole in a single cpu minitower/desktop case form factor that isn't really served even by the lower end Xeons. So in the desktop world you go Apple/Mac either because of brand loyalty, desire to use Apple's OS-X, use of tools that run on OS-X (Logic, Final Cut studio) and/or some combination of the above.
Coming back to Apple's laptops, aside from cosmetics they're not really that far from other laptops on the market (there's no 'minitower hole' in their laptop product line) in terms of configuration and the price premiums aren't as bad as they once were. The choice of OS issue is lessened by the fact that you are generally going to be looking at some form of Vista as the windows option. You won't find a laptop running Xp now without paying the downgrade fee and running the risk of still finding out that some hardware isn't properly supported. I know of more than one case where someone has gotten the OEM Xp cd from the laptop maker and it's still missing wireless drivers or something stupid. Welcome to computing as a commodity. In any case OSX compares much more favorably to Vista on a laptop both in terms of performance and application support, and both can boot into WinXP equally (and OSX can boot to Vista) when necessary.
That being said if you don't ever see yourself using OSX, a mac laptop is a poor investment and not worth the 10% or so price premium they command.
Re: Laptop Advice
I think I have a solution for what I'll need. The laptop choices are too expensive, and lack the connectivity to eSATA / XITE-1, etc. While the Mac laptops from Sweetwater are excellent and can run a healthy Logic rig, the extra connection I require are currently unavailable.
The whole idea of a laptop is the portability, but the expense and lack of connectors have caused me to re think a mobile set up. I need a one trip mobile rig, that can be loaded w/ a single 88 noter w/ Flight case, the stand and monitor. This is the best option I currently have while maintaining the desktop features and connectivity required. This rig won't even require eSATA and I can use the good old quiet and cool 3Ware 4 into 3 SATA RAID cage.
The below case can hold my old 18" NEC instead of a mixer. Then a short 4U rack can carry a 4 x drive config using the same old SATA RAID Cage. Since it is very short 15" deep, the back side of the case can house the A16U / XITE-1 and have 2U of short depth space's left over.
The top side of the case can have the LCD angled up which is cool, and instead of the laptop pictured on the slideover cover, I will use a simple PS/2 QWERTY & Trackball.
This is much cheaper and can use many parts from an older DAW like the PSU / HDD's / SATA RAID cage. While providing the power and connectivity I require.
http://www.marathonaudio.com/mama10uslmir2.html
http://www.bose.com/musicians
The whole idea of a laptop is the portability, but the expense and lack of connectors have caused me to re think a mobile set up. I need a one trip mobile rig, that can be loaded w/ a single 88 noter w/ Flight case, the stand and monitor. This is the best option I currently have while maintaining the desktop features and connectivity required. This rig won't even require eSATA and I can use the good old quiet and cool 3Ware 4 into 3 SATA RAID cage.
The below case can hold my old 18" NEC instead of a mixer. Then a short 4U rack can carry a 4 x drive config using the same old SATA RAID Cage. Since it is very short 15" deep, the back side of the case can house the A16U / XITE-1 and have 2U of short depth space's left over.
The top side of the case can have the LCD angled up which is cool, and instead of the laptop pictured on the slideover cover, I will use a simple PS/2 QWERTY & Trackball.
This is much cheaper and can use many parts from an older DAW like the PSU / HDD's / SATA RAID cage. While providing the power and connectivity I require.
http://www.marathonaudio.com/mama10uslmir2.html
http://www.bose.com/musicians
Re: Laptop Advice
You might look for a shockmounted rack to help shield your computing components from vibration while packed up.
Re: Laptop Advice
yes, otherwise i think a combo rack like that would be just dandy DJ.
does that case hold a full sized atx motherboard?
does that case hold a full sized atx motherboard?
Re: Laptop Advice
Negative on the ATX so far.
But A&S Case of Hollywood, the guys who have made the best stage Prop protection tents, and expensive but downright awesome cases might take the challenge.
But I hope they don't have those Hollywoos prices.
The custom mini-ITX crowd has some awesome ideas, but the mobos are untested.
The idea of a P45 chipset on a mATX is the trendsetter to watch IMHO. DFI has caused Asus, and other top tier manufacturers to announce their versions this Fall.
Four years ago I never would have dreamed of such a powerful mobile Scope / Giga rig.
XITE-1 ain't no 1 trick pony, and sure ain't no dream.
They asked me at the case company if this was for a touchscreen.........&^$(((
But A&S Case of Hollywood, the guys who have made the best stage Prop protection tents, and expensive but downright awesome cases might take the challenge.
But I hope they don't have those Hollywoos prices.
The custom mini-ITX crowd has some awesome ideas, but the mobos are untested.
The idea of a P45 chipset on a mATX is the trendsetter to watch IMHO. DFI has caused Asus, and other top tier manufacturers to announce their versions this Fall.
Four years ago I never would have dreamed of such a powerful mobile Scope / Giga rig.
XITE-1 ain't no 1 trick pony, and sure ain't no dream.
They asked me at the case company if this was for a touchscreen.........&^$(((
Re: Laptop Advice
imho mini-itx is rather sh*tty stuff, serving mostly the '...ah, how cute is this...' kind of folks
btw my new notebook just arrived this afternoon
installed W2K on a 4GB SSD and the fan didn't start once yet, so it seems to get along with it's speed-stepping tricks.
A Thinkpad A21p in mint condition running a whooping 850 MHZ and squeezing 1600x1200 dots on a 15" screen
unfortunately I missed a RME pc-card that went dead cheap on eBay yesterday, otherwise I could torture it with a bit of audio processing...
cheers, Tom
btw my new notebook just arrived this afternoon
installed W2K on a 4GB SSD and the fan didn't start once yet, so it seems to get along with it's speed-stepping tricks.
A Thinkpad A21p in mint condition running a whooping 850 MHZ and squeezing 1600x1200 dots on a 15" screen
unfortunately I missed a RME pc-card that went dead cheap on eBay yesterday, otherwise I could torture it with a bit of audio processing...
cheers, Tom
Re: Laptop Advice
Please keep us posted on the success of the SSD as an O.S. + Apps solution where space and tempurature's are concerned. I already can see the advantages of removing overworked HDD's to an external mini tower or rack, and your notebook is a perfect example. My Bro' here in Vegas showed me his set up, but it was done just to see how the O.S. would work, and has since returned to it's external tower for video transfers.
Your example would be the only one used for a period of time. An important consideration before I make a decision.
Your example would be the only one used for a period of time. An important consideration before I make a decision.
Re: Laptop Advice
Jimmy, it's a true vintage notebook (from the pre-Lenovo days) and not very representative...
well, it certainly was, though in a different sense around 2001 when it sold for an equivalent of 6k Euro (non-value corrected)
but it's top quality and this particular specimen's main purpose must have been 'representation' indeed, as it shows almost no wear at all. Features the famous Intel BX chipset - ok, 512 MB of memory is all it can eat and that just did cost me the same amount as 2 GB of regular Ram, but... this one is dead silent.
It's a fairly good performer btw - almost exactly half the speed of my P4 2.6G machine with just one 3rd of the clockrate (according to the bench in my developement system).
For developement the slow speed can even be an advantage as it will reveal uneffective algorithms more effectively
The SSD is a cheapo Transcend TS4GIFD25 - soon there will be (lot's of) much better performers.
cheers, Tom
well, it certainly was, though in a different sense around 2001 when it sold for an equivalent of 6k Euro (non-value corrected)
but it's top quality and this particular specimen's main purpose must have been 'representation' indeed, as it shows almost no wear at all. Features the famous Intel BX chipset - ok, 512 MB of memory is all it can eat and that just did cost me the same amount as 2 GB of regular Ram, but... this one is dead silent.
It's a fairly good performer btw - almost exactly half the speed of my P4 2.6G machine with just one 3rd of the clockrate (according to the bench in my developement system).
For developement the slow speed can even be an advantage as it will reveal uneffective algorithms more effectively
The SSD is a cheapo Transcend TS4GIFD25 - soon there will be (lot's of) much better performers.
cheers, Tom