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Re: Using a laptop onstage: Dominic Frasca's take is misguided



>>> Travis Hartnett wrote:
>>>> If anyone out
>>>> there is doing all their signal processing and looping on a laptop,
>>>> I'd love to hear the specs of what they're using

I can do it without bogging down my processor too much, but it still isn't
stable enough for me to go live given my effect requirements. I can run my
VST host (EnergyXT) with various VST effects (reverb, chorus, delay, and
some tone mangling stuff) and Mobius as a VST. It works most of the time,
but occasionally the systems crashes if I try some really wild stuff,
looping while shifting between various complex VST effects and patches, 
etc.
However, my effect requirements are intense (using VST programs like 
Antares
Filter, PSP84), and I don't think this is a processor or notebook issue (my
processor usage is still moderate in this context), but a contention issue
between the software.  I'm running a Compaq Presario 2525US, Pentium 4, 2.4
Ghz, 500MG of RAM. It could be a cache issue, however

If I were looping with the above, minus the effects gymnastics...meaning,
I'm just using reverb, chorus, and delay, with Mobius...then, yes, no
problem, I would perform with nothing but my laptop. I'd plug my acoustic
guitar straight into my soundcard, and go directly out into my mixer board.

Now, I'll try my souped up system on the new laptop I get later in the 
year,
on one of the new Intel dual core notebooks, which also have a dual cache
setup. I've seen the specs and the performance benchmark comparisons on the
processors,  in the context of gaming and music applications, and how they
deal with the severe strain of more than one application trying to perform
their tasks, and they kick butt. My wife is convinced I'll be able to do
what I want with these new notebooks.

Kris


> On 1/5/06, Per Boysen <per@boysen.se> wrote:
.
>>
>>
>>
>> An example of CPU efficiency:
>>
>> I have been running almost identical Ableton Live looping set-ups on
>> a powerbook and a centrino PC laptop. The CPU meter of Live does show
>> 70-90% on the powerbook and 30-40% on the pc. Below are
>> specifications.
>>
>> Powerbook 15". 1,25 MHz, 2G ram.
>> Zepto "Centrino" laptop. Intel P M 755 2.0 GHz Dothan. 1 GB ram.
>>
>> On the pc the looping was done on four tracks, in four parallel loops
>> of Möbius VST plug-in (distributing through four Ableton channels).
>> On the Mac looping were done on two tracks, in two parallel loops of
>> Augustus Loop. Except that both environments had the same post
>> treatment plug-ins applied as send/return loops: 2 Pluggo effects, 1
>> OhmBoyz delay, Abletons' Reverb. Two or three effect plug-ins were
>> also applied directly on the tracks hosting loops.
>>
>> To save CPU, no software compressor was used, but both laptop outputs
>> were run through a hardware master stereo compressor before going
>> into the PA.