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Looper's Delight
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I've used a couple of Windows XP laptops for looping in Mobius and found them totally stable. In fact a little more "snappy" in the feel compared to Macs. I tried to run software instruments too but that was too CPU demanding back in the days of 1 GHz Centrino machines. So I used two laptops then; the PC for Mobius and a Powerbook with a 1250(?) MHz G4 CPU for synths and piping the synth audio digitally by ADAT lightpipe into the looper machine. I think that if yo buy secondhand computers you should at lest get a used box with Intel Duo 2 Core processor. But I wouldn't recommend buying second hand. The computers of today costs less than those of four years back and are way more powerful! If I was your friend I would look into two alternatives: 1) Buying a new and cheap PC plus three or four synths I like. Keeping money ready for buying a replacement PC if the first one dies (nice option with the cheapest machines). This alternative is a bit of gambling, you have to weight the lower cost against the calculated loss if it turns out unlucky. You can't fully calculate stability and CPU efficiency before you have all the stuff in your hands. 2) Buying a new Macbook Pro plus Logic Pro Studio. You get a big number of synths and a sampler with a large sound patch library included. It all "just works" with very low CPU taxing, no need to buy anything more. Be sure to pick up the three year insurance so you can get a new machine on the spot if it should go belly-up. The new i7 Macs are like three to four times as efficient with the Logic stuff since the software can use the four cores as eight virtual cores (we recently tested that with a mag here). In both examples you have to stay away from the most CPU demanding instruments in order to set up a stable rig. During the last years I have been playing EWI in a band using a 2.2MHz Macbook with Mainstage hosting a couple of Logic synths plus the sampler. I've found this palette very useful in a live band situation, as you can swap between synth+fx patches with a midi foot pedal as you perform the set with the band. Greetings from Sweden Per Boysen www.boysen.se www.perboysen.com www.looproom.com internet music hub On Wed, May 11, 2011 at 1:32 PM, Simeon Harris <simeonharris40@googlemail.com> wrote: > ok, so my keyboard player has his garage destroyed by a runaway car a few > months ago and included in the items damaged was one of his spare >keyboards. > now instead of replacing it with another keyboard, he's interested in the > idea of getting a laptop instead. i suggested to him that the best reson >for > doing this would be to run a few really good emulations of specific > keyboards - a hammond, a rhodes, a moog and a mellotron. all sounds which > are not covered by the two keyboards that he currently uses. the laptop > would be an addition to those. > now he could go into PC World and pick up a windows PC for 300-400 quid, >or > he could look at secondhand macbooks for 500-800 quid. he has 700 to >spend, > but he'll need a decent controller keyboard and an audio interface as >well. > my question is, if he gets a windows machine for 400 quid, is this going >to > be a false economy? is he better off getting a used macbook instead? he's > not bothered which...he just wants reliability so it doesn't crash on >stage > and it can run three or four softsynths, either standalone, or hosted. > as a macbook user myself, i know this would be a "safe" option, but i'm > clueless about windows laptops. the specs look good, but are they really >ok? > sim