Hi to you all,

I need your opinion and your experience, if you have one.

I've got a new netbook, a Packard Bell dot_M/06 with XP and an Intel Atom cpu.

That's not my main machine to use as daw, of course, but i love this unit beacause of the "large" 11.6" screen, for the portability and for the size.

I'll use it mainly for Internet but i would like to run also a sequencer and an audio editor.

For the sequencer: what do you think about energy XT 2.5.2 ? I've a full license, i've used it sometimes and now i think it's the only software that can run on an Intel Atom cpu...

I don't pretend to create full blown arrangements with a netbook, only to track down some ideas (even with the built-in synth)...

I'm also thinkin' about a "lighter" Linux os like Ubuntu Remix or similiar to be used with a realtime kernel and the Jack server; i've tried Ubuntu and, while i like it as an every-day os, i believe it cannot match against XP for the music, but i have less experience with Linux !

Thanks for every attention and for the patience

What could be better than XT 2.5 for your purposes?

Perfect for tracking down ideas, light, fast, no real installer (nothing in the registry), built in synth/sampler and drum machine and and and...
Nothing to loose, since you do even own XT 2.5.
'Install' it and check if it's working with the onboard soundcard.
If there is no designated asio driver for the onboard soundcard use asio4all,
otherwise the driver.

Enjoy!

P.S.:
No, I don't get paid by XT software...

Hi ZonderP and thank you very much ! I appreciate your suggestion.

I realize i've not post the ultimate question about XT, i've a little experience with both netbook and energy XT so i prefer to ask beforeheand in order to avoid some sort of disillusion about to make some music with my new toy !

I'll use one of my handy usb interface (StealthPlug, TonePort GX or Transit Usb) in order to have a real ASIO device and, then, start to learn more about energy XT...

Again, thanks and have a nice day ;

Well the CPU usage in XT2 is very heavy ( i have done a lot of tests on this the last few days for something)

If you need to stick to linux then there are other apps available to use but the only one really as slick as XT2 in Linux is Renoise

If you intall windows then personally i would suggest XT1
It has a much lower CPU usage level and works well enough for netbook stuff

NAS

I've got an Asus 1000he and I can use xt2 on it. ASIO4All can't keep it together for more than a few tracks. It's much much better with an external device. You can get 6-12 tracks if you go light on the plugins.

Get the very light CPU use MDA plugin set if you don't have them. Stay away from the heavy stuff and turn wifi off when you are using the sequencer.

Thanks tomg and NAS,

I'm doing all the relevant tests (for now, with XP only) but without success.

XT 2.5.2 starts fine, but when i try to playback some of the demo projects, the sound is very crappy, with a lot of crackles at every latency settings (even with a buffer of 2048...).

I've tried, for now, asio4all 2.9 (with the built-in Realtek soundcard) and an ESI UGM96 usb interface with the latest drivers: same results. Other software bundled with the netbook (Power DVD 8 and Media Player 10) works well within a simple playback of mp3, divx and YouTube streams. Especially for the ESI sound card, with my notebook Acer Aspire 5100, works very well with a decent latency (5-10 ms).

I've installed also a copy of Ableton Live Lite 4 (old version) and Cubase LE version 1, same results: orrible sound playback at every latency settings.

I suspect some kind of drivers issue, for now, i've updated the vga drivers with the latest version found on Intel website, but, again, without success...

I know, these netbooks are very good for surfing and films playback: but i'm wondering why an about 1.3 ghz cpu with 1 gb of ram cannot handle some simple task like few plugins and two or three audio tracks...

If any of you have some ideas...

Not fully tested, as I mostly use my netbook to edit samples on the go, but I get better results running 1.8 version of asio4all. (Acer aspire one and XT1.4.1, under xp.

you can get it here:

http://tippach.business.t-online.de/asio4all/Setup A4A.exe

good luck!

i sort of plan on getting a netbook next year sometime - if and when i do - i want to try this - http://lmms.sourceforge.net/

Sounds like you are headed in the right direction. My 1000he has a 1.8Ghz processor and 2Gb of ram so there is a small difference. An Atom 1.6GHz processor is about even with a 800-900MHz celeron speed wise. You are even a bit slower. That's Reason, Logic 4 and VST32 territory.

Try playing around with the 'Advanced' options in the Asio4All configuration panel. Especially the 'Buffer size' which I think is also effective if 'Hardware buffer' is off.
See the Asio4All manual for further details.
For me this was the solution for my computer at work...

Thank you VERY MUCH tomg, you've took me to right place !

I've done this: after a recovery of the full system, i've updated both vga and internal audio card drivers, update XP (win update) and tweak my netbook in order to slim down all the unecessary services, background items, Packard Bell stuff and so on...
(there are a lot of guides on internet about XP daw optimization, one the best i've found is this: http://www.pcmus.com/TweakXP.htm)

Install the latest drivers for one of my usb sound card: M-Audio Transit, the drivers of this card are very light on the cpu and still it is a good asio soundcard with a decent quality.

Installed four "light" applications: Cubase LE, Sonar LE, Wavelab Lite and Rebirth... Everything work fine, i've a latency of about 10ms and the demo session of both Cubase and Sonar play without any crackles or distortion.

The first time i've installed a Cubase disk, i've done a sonorous mistake: i've installed my copy of Cubase LE 4, not 1 !!! Now i've done the right thing...

About Ableton Live Lite 4 and energyXT, unfortunately, they are both too heavy on the cpu, maybe these sequencers can run on an Atom N280, my Z520 is less powerful...

I don't know if this is the ultimate "Z520 daw optimization", i can still say that a netbook is not for a demanding task on the audio production side, i believe that they are beautiful toys to surf Internet and ALSO make some music.

For ZonderP: thanks to you also, i've discovered that forcing WDM drivers to work at 16 bit make asio4all more reliable.