morning babez a new problem just came into ma mind. i sorted me out some buxx and wanna get a laptop 4 vsti live performances. now i had a look what the market offers and best thing 4 audio live, seems the dell inspirio 8100. BUT: this biatch costs $5000 without some scard. so i feel kinda lost now ma question is what setup others have ,less expensive...any1 has ideas, what could fit ma needs and doesnt make me need to rob a bank? ) thx

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Originally posted by kaz:
wanna get a laptop 4 vsti live performances.

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Dell has (at least in Norway) programs to help finance the laptop. I'm leasing one from them, with the option of upgrading it to the latest model once a year... it costs a bit more in the long run than buying one, but the advantages are worth it to me.
Check your national Dell site.

Remember you need to buy a pro sounddevice (firewire/usb/pcmcia) aswell.

Check out the new Toshiba 5005-S504. It is brand new and $2099 fully loaded. 512MB RAM, 1.1GHZ P3, firewire, etc.

Also I got the Emagic EMI 2|6 USB interface and it rox. On my celeron 650 laptop I can go down to 10ms with no probs. You can probably go lower with faster procs.

bioroid

I've used Dells and personally would *strongly* recommend you avoid them. Their build quality and component choice in the industry is legendarily poor (I buy notebooks for my company). Toshibas are poor too. Their power management can cause havoc too.

Personally, I've found the IBM a series to be the best choice. They're excellently built, certainly no more expensive than anything else. The other one you might want to check out is a Sony Vaio. I Myself have used a notebook live before (and yes it was an IBM) and it went well so I know it can be done.

Mind you, whatever you want, you'll pay top dollar for a notebook unless you buy it used. The other thing you might want to consider is getting a desktop system and a rackmount, shock tested chassis. This will typically be cheaper, more powerful, more stable and give you a much wider choice of hardware which you can use. Oh, and whatever you get, install *ONLY* those programs you wish to use and nothing else at all.

I use a Compaq Armada M300, very nice little machine... mine is 600MHz, but there is an 850MHz model out now, I think. It's a "slimline" type laptop, with a detachable portable drive bay that clips on underneath. Without the bay, it weighs about 3lb, with it, it's more like 6.something but still comfortably portable.

I paid UK£600 for mine (about US$900), second hand. For audio I/O I'm getting a Hammerfall DSP.

Hint: there's a lot of good laptops going cheap on eBay etc. at the moment, as all the sacked dot.com staff are selling theirs!

Here's my experience. The following is in U.S. dollars...

Sony VAIO FX220 about $1500 a couple months ago
PIII 750, 128 megs ram
Advantage: 15" screen; two usb, one firewire
(The sony was very hard to find - out of stock everywhere, they couldn't get enough of them in)

RAM
About $60 each for two 256 meg sodimms also about a month ago www.oempcworld.com
(BTW currently 512 meg pc100 dimms are $35 there)

HD
Fantom Drive 60 gig firewire
Advantage: fast as hell, faster than my cheetah
Advantage: hot swappable and totally useable for work on main studio computer; also with other studios who have firewire

CARD
MOTU 828 12 ms with above
Advantage: can (supposedly) expand to 126 channels of audio (e.g. 7 828s)
Advantage: freely interchangeable and totally useable for full blown work on main studio computer (usb only lets you do 4 in 4 out streams - or is it 4 total?)
Also has GSIF support.
(Needless to say, I sent my Lexicon packing.)

All of which is to say that I wouldn't pay $5000 for a Dell, for that money you can have all of the above AND a whole new studio computer too.

If you get firewire card for your studio computer, make sure to get Adaptec which uses Texas Instruments chip. NEC chip won't work with the MOTU. Ditto when shopping around for notebook... if you plan to get MOTU, make sure onboard chip is TI based.

Good luck!

Correction: make that $49.95 for those 512 meg dimms at oempcworld.com.

Sorry.

ibook

the latency of the inbuilt sound card is not too bad actually. Outperforms any PC laptop.

and with the money you save you could easily afford a USB or Firewire Interface. Emagic EMI or even a MOTU 828

Spas

quote:

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Originally posted by kaz:
now i had a look what the market offers and best thing 4 audio live, seems the dell inspirio 8100.

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AVOID DELL! They have a well known problem with the fans going on and off and causing audio drop outs... I've got an IBM that I'm extremely happy with, although I had to get a PCMCIA USB adapter to run my USB Audio and Midi interfaces working properly together (putting a USB Audio card on a hub is not recommended)

i guess i gotta jump in here :-)

i have a dell too (inspiron 8000) and i gotta say that its

1. very well made (aint a latitude mind you). this thing is one stable and heavy sucker...different league than my old toshiba thingy (note i dont know the new toshibas so i cant ocmment on that)
2. the "fan bug" doesnt exist on mine. guess its related to some mainboard hardware rev or whatever.

either way, theres already a tool that solves this problem for ppl with the fan bug. pretty easy, since the dropout is said to be caused when the fan is activated, the tool simply keeps the fan running at minimum speed (or at maximum, whatever you want).

having said that, the best source for notebook info right now is the RME homepage (dont know the link for sure, i think RME-audio.com but you might have to do a yahoo search). they made a huuuge comparison of all kinds of notebooks a while ago - the tool i mentioned above didnt exist at that time so they make a big deal out of the inspiron fan thingy, but anyway, might be more interesting for you that theres another pc notebook thats almost equal in performance but cheaper - it was a gericom notebook, i think "millenium" was the model name.

it looks a bit weird but its said to be very good, two friends of mine have one and keep raving about it.

the other option of course is a mac notebook - they have the disadvantage that they give you a little less performance for the price, but their big plus is that their onboard soundcard can work reliably at a low latency. 11 ms if i remember correctly, most pc notebook onboard soundcards only do 23 ms without dropouts.

so, if you want to have the absolut minimalist setup with no external audio interface, the mac is the way to go. if youre on a pc already and all your software is pc and youre familiar with the OS and all, i would suggest to switch though but rather take an external audio interface then. same if you are on a mac at the moment, if youre used to that, i would stay there and take an ibook or powerbook. the differences arent big enough IMHO to justify a switch, in either direction.

oh, and if you get a pc notebook, you might consider taking win 2000 - the PC OS of choice for ultra low latency playback, at least when its about notebooks. read more on the RME homepage too. note that this is no option if you use logic - logic doesnt work with win 2000 yet (dongle driver missing).

i use win ME on the inspiron and get cool results too, just thought id mention it since win 2000 is supposed to be better.
similar difference: nuendo is supposed to be better suited for constant low latency output than VST is. again, a possible plus but not a must. both should work OK fwiw. hope this helps.

me idiot wrote:

"if youre on a pc already and all your software is pc and youre familiar with the OS and all, i WOULD suggest to switch though but rather take an external audio interface then."

of course this was supposed to be "WOULDNT". sorry.

Hi Laptoppers,

Say I'm looking into a laptop, what would be in your opinion the best audio card solution? Wanting to do Audio, VST, and MIDI of course....

Thanks, look forward to your insight

Kenfen

id say hammerfall DSP or the new MOTU firewire stuff, depending on your OS and sequencer choice.