Desktop Vs laptops for live gigging

[Uncle E]

Nothing against desktops, particularly if you're using an internal interface, but why the £2k laptop? I'd feel 100% comfortable taking my 2013 MacBook Air on stage, even running virtual instruments live.

[spukin]

hmm i was thinking of 1.5k max laptop because i thought it will be necessary to spend so much cash to be able to live gig without big latency. Slowly im starting to understand that only thing i should be worried about is CPU (i wanted i7 7700hq) and musi card? If anyone can give me some good links about latency etc i would really apreciate it. Im not 100% sure about laptop now. Maybe really i will buy mini atx / atx and later just invest in some i5 mackbook just for live drumming.

[pnoman]

most companies lease their laptops.
you can get used 1-year-old business laptops for about half the price.
i bought a lenovo t440p a couple of years ago for half the price of a new machine.
a one year old laptop is still fast enough for live use on stage.

go for an expensive soundcard for low latency. i am running a rme-ucx with 48 samples and never had a problem.
expensive brands like rme are cheaper on the long run as they update their drivers even when the soundcard is not sold anymore.

[BertKoor]

Im not interested in mac because i will be also using graphic design programs to draw.

Im a total noob but i heard about ASIO for all and later will probably also buy some sound card to make the latency even smaller.

First time I hear of a graphics designer NOT preferring a Mac. Usually it's the graphics design programs that make them buy a Mac.

Since you are a drummer, every millisecond latency is one too much. The VDrums module itself already adds plenty latency. So I doubt a solution without proper interface (and thus Asio4All) will make you happy.

If money is an issue, just use the VDrums builtin sounds for a while (you will get used to it) and save up for some proper gear. Otherwise it's a waste on failure...

[dangayle]

For the price of a Macbook Pro, you could throw together a pretty beefy rackmount CPU with all the goodies.

The biggest issue is the monitors, but with some of the newer tech, this isn't even as much of an issue anymore. Check out the ASUS MB169BPlus. 15.6" 1080p portable USB-powered monitor, just get a long USB cable and string one or two of them up.

[emcee]

Looked into these little Intel NUC boxes?
Desktop power (albeit not full blown) and very portable at 4x4 inches.

https://www.intel.com.au/content/www/au ... s/nuc.html

There's even a few business's that offer rack kits for them. Here's one that looks the goods as an example.

http://g2digital.co.uk/products/rack-pc/

[Daags]

The only advantage of lap top is that it lightweight and has attached monitor.

not the only advantage ... the fact that it has a built-in battery supply is a massive plus. any disruptions to power, and your laptop keeps ticking. even if the power for the whole venue goes, it's still a plus since just randomly killing the power for your desktop is not good, can corrupt data for a start.


edit: derp. apologies for necrobump, I'm searching for discussions on kvr about the i7 cpu and thought I was replying to a current thread.

[dangayle]

The only advantage of lap top is that it lightweight and has attached monitor.

not the only advantage ... the fact that it has a built-in battery supply is a massive plus. any disruptions to power, and your laptop keeps ticking. even if the power for the whole venue goes, it's still a plus since just randomly killing the power for your desktop is not good, can corrupt data for a start.


edit: derp. apologies for necrobump, I'm searching for discussions on kvr about the i7 cpu and thought I was replying to a current thread.

It's not that bad of a necro. I never thought of the power supply issue. I have an awesome rackmount power conditioner, but I suppose I would need to invest in a small rackmount APC unit.

[thecontrolcentre]

A fast processor, plenty of RAM and an ASIO audio interface is your starting point. I'm using an i7 laptop, 24GB RAM with an NI interface and there's no noticeable latency.

[Daags]

A fast processor, plenty of RAM and an ASIO audio interface is your starting point. I'm using an i7 laptop, 24GB RAM with an NI interface and there's no noticeable latency.

curious what your audio settings are ... bit rate, sample rate, buffer settings ...what a typical set looks like, and subsequently the typical CPU loads you're operating at.

not to bombard you with scrutiny or anything I just ordered an i7 laptop during an amazon black friday 'lightning sale' (they have a 'black friday' week starting from today), so I'm pretty psyched as it is an absolutely massive computational upgrade for me.
Was planning to build a workstation this year, but I want to let the dust settle on the new intel & amd developments, and maybe wait until the new mac pro's are out next year (or firm details at least) as I want my workstation to be a dual booting hackintosh. Anyway, decided to upgrade the laptop first.

I'm expecting thermal/heat issues ... are you experiencing any ? do you use turbo-boost ?
Regardless, I think I will open up the laptop anyway and reapply my own 3rd party thermal paste, replace thermal pads and undervolt the cpu and tweak the gpu's volt/speed settings ... to get the best thermal bang-for-buck, to enhance the life span of the laptop if nothing else.

[Daags]

The only advantage of lap top is that it lightweight and has attached monitor.

not the only advantage ... the fact that it has a built-in battery supply is a massive plus. any disruptions to power, and your laptop keeps ticking. even if the power for the whole venue goes, it's still a plus since just randomly killing the power for your desktop is not good, can corrupt data for a start.


edit: derp. apologies for necrobump, I'm searching for discussions on kvr about the i7 cpu and thought I was replying to a current thread.

It's not that bad of a necro. I never thought of the power supply issue. I have an awesome rackmount power conditioner, but I suppose I would need to invest in a small rackmount APC unit.

I think it would be a good idea ... I guess 99 times out of 100 you won't need it, but when the time comes that you do, it could earn its cost in one use.

[thecontrolcentre]

A fast processor, plenty of RAM and an ASIO audio interface is your starting point. I'm using an i7 laptop, 24GB RAM with an NI interface and there's no noticeable latency.

curious what your audio settings are ... bit rate, sample rate, buffer settings ...what a typical set looks like, and subsequently the typical CPU loads you're operating at.

not to bombard you with scrutiny or anything I just ordered an i7 laptop during an amazon black friday 'lightning sale' (they have a 'black friday' week starting from today), so I'm pretty psyched as it is an absolutely massive computational upgrade for me.

It was a huge upgrade for me too. My previous laptop was an HP Pavilion running XP, with 2MB RAM. My current audio specs with an NI Audio Kontrol 1 are:

44.1 sample rate
96 sample process buffer
2ms USB buffer

I don't tend to run massive track counts, and I've always done lots of bouncing to audio. I'll usually have no more than 2 aux FX and a few track comps and eqs running. I've never seen Live hit more than 50% CPU on any of my projects.

I cant talk technical, coz I don't know enough. I had my current laptop built by SCAN. I just told them what I needed. i7, 24gb RAM, 3x 1TB SSDs, BluRay burner. It has 2 x USB3 ports, 1 x USB2 port and 1 x Combi port, and runs nice 'n' quiet, except when its reading or writing CDs

[Hooj]

lmao. I have never seen a desktop on a gig setup. Everyone use laptops or Mac.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFra-suzuBM

[thecontrolcentre]

Well ... back in 1996 laptops still weren't really up to it. I was gigging with an Atari STe and Pro-12 back then (and a ton of analog synths)

[metamorphosis]

One other advantage of a laptop is that it essentially has a built-in UPS - kind of irrelevant at a gig, where power failure means problems anyway, but at least the HDD won't get a bad write and go FUBAR if the power goes out.

Plus they use less power, typically.