It's laptop time

[siriusbliss]

Now that express cards are being released for Xite, it's time to gather a list of working laptops.

Ralf mentioned that they have been testing using a Thinkpad T61 and different ASUS laptops.

I'm leaning more towards a more custom laptop such as ADK's or Eurocom's.
I have never had much luck with off-the-shelf laptops.
My current Alienware has lasted almost 4 years with no issues (related to hardware).

Anyone else looking at laptops for Xite?

Greg

[dawman]

I am looking for Guinnea Pigs........ .............Ankyu.
You see nothing but ADK laptops everywhere in Nashville. The JoBobs do decent mock ups w/ Kontakt 4.0 w/ Piano & Wavelore Pedal Steel Guitar...
I have spoken w/ Scott a few times from ADK and he definately leans toward tech savvy rigs, but is more than aware of the stability issues from certain developers.
Most Mac guys have no issues w/ PLAY instruments, but PLAY on a PC is a crapshoot.
Scott is well aware of compatabilty, cross platform apps., etc.
That is important when having an audio laptop.
Alienware has always had great stuff but leans towards gaming GPU heavy builds.
Call Scott and have a chat. The guy builds lots of DAW's and doesn't have the usual Mac vrs. PC, AMD vrs. Intel attitude. Tell him what you want and which apps and he'll make it happen.
Being in Kentucky makes the JoBobs in Nashville all happy and shit.....

By all means keep us posted on what's working.

[siriusbliss]

I am looking for Guinnea Pigs........ .............Ankyu.
You see nothing but ADK laptops everywhere in Nashville. The JoBobs do decent mock ups w/ Kontakt 4.0 w/ Piano & Wavelore Pedal Steel Guitar...
I have spoken w/ Scott a few times from ADK and he definately leans toward tech savvy rigs, but is more than aware of the stability issues from certain developers.
Most Mac guys have no issues w/ PLAY instruments, but PLAY on a PC is a crapshoot.
Scott is well aware of compatabilty, cross platform apps., etc.
That is important when having an audio laptop.
Alienware has always had great stuff but leans towards gaming GPU heavy builds.
Call Scott and have a chat. The guy builds lots of DAW's and doesn't have the usual Mac vrs. PC, AMD vrs. Intel attitude. Tell him what you want and which apps and he'll make it happen.
Being in Kentucky makes the JoBobs in Nashville all happy and shit.....

By all means keep us posted on what's working.

I HAVE heard mixed reviews on ADK - in other words, tech. support after-the-fact is good, but I don't WANT to have to resort to tech. support if the units are poorly built (or have bad parts).

Yes, the Alienware (now Dell) are GPU intensive, and tend to be famous for heat and fan-noise. I'm not a huge Dell fan these days. I've dealt with all the IBM's, Compaqs, HP's, etc. through work-related projects, and they're just too bloated with redundant crap to even consider.

The other one I'm looking at are the Sonica's - http://www.sonicalabs.com/.

It's going to have to be a balance between 'verticality' for the RAM-intensive Omni and Kontakt, and the 'horizontal' streaming throughput for Scope.

Greg

[dawman]

Unless you have really big templates for single pass recordings the 1066 RAM should be fine.
MacPro's use 1066 and stream some really large 64bit templates.
You will see better results w/1600 but from what I have seen just higher polyphony for sample apps. Piano w/ heavy sustain pedalling is a great test, as the sustain pedal while being held won't release earlier note ons, which cause the polyphony to skyrocket.
I always do a slow high velocity glissando from the low octave to the top ocatve and listen carefully to hear the first note still being sustained.
That is the best case scenario for sample apps.
I don't have experience w/ Omnisphere but I do know it is degined from the ground up for 64bit, so core assignments and no jive bridging tricks tells me K4 and Omni are the 2 best 64bit apps right now.
I'm feverish for Flexor VST. I can only imagine using 2 Modular apps. Scope and Native on an XITE-1/1U DAW ......
I am anxiuos to see the Sonica or an ADK w/ the Express 34 Card.