After a week of fishing and having the pleasure to see a demo of a Dual Core laptop w/ Cubase 4.1, I have recieved some great advice from Nashville of all places.
Most cats get to use hardware because of management and crew, etc. One of my old crew hooked me up w/ a touring keyboardist that uses a MacPro w/ Logic and VSTi plugs.
He has been a Logic guy since the EMagic days and uses the EX24 sampler for Piano libs., and VSL strings, the EVB3 plug and some other libraries of Acoustic Guitar and Electric, etc.
But he never loads during a show, and also uses a real Leslie ( I hate him )
.
He explained his downsizing to me over the last 3 tours and explained that the most important consideration was the CPU being as close to possible to the rig being downsized. Seemed wise as he was using a 2.53 Quad as Logic & Mac are well optimized.
He then mentioned a few CPU's that would be what he considered similar, but unavailable till next year. The Intel T9800 is a low watt 2.9 something GHz CPU that is a lighning fast Core 2 Duo.
So after NAMM it is then.
The little mobile rack can be my entire rig on a notebook. The hell these big racks.
The little portable rack above will hold a 1U eSATA 4 x HDD array, a Furman PL+, A16U, XITE-1, hardware reverb if I even need it, and my Analog 3U synth. The cables can be ported through the top of the racks too. So 8U worth of gear on both sides.
My quest is over.
This will be the most powerful, mobile Live PA / recording rig around, I shall see to it.
Even the Barbetta's will be sold for the Bose LII's & their ATA cases. 6 small ATA cases total !!! That's insanely portable.
For the first time in my life I can fly the entire live rig, no more sharing rooms and busses w/ smelley roadies. 55 minute flight to Las Vegas for 169 round trip.
I am XITED all over again.