Laptop for live use

[Lord Choc Ice]

How do you think an Echo Indigo PCMCIA sound card works with heavy VST use?

It may not be heavy, but I would normally want to use only NI B4 in addition to a piano module like NI Elektrik Piano on my live sets (i play with a big band).

The Indigo would be much more practical concidering space use and cable mess. It only has a mini-jack output though. (however - it's supplied with a 1/4" adaptor)

BTW: Can anyone recommend me a good piano module for "normal" piano sounds? It should include some rock pianos/"power grands" too. Rhodes/clavinet is not important, as I already have Elektrik Piano.

[netzer]

@Lord

I don't think that Echo Indogo will be limitating your VSTi use. I had it for a week in normal production use (8-12 tracks with 5-8 VSTi) and didn't encounter any problems.

Be careful of the Notebooks chipset, cause e.g. O2 micro controllers sometimes mess up with PCMCIA cards.

I also wouldn't mind the mini-jack, cause that says absolutely nothing about the out's quality.

cya
netzer

[Lord Choc Ice]

@netzer

Is the Indigo any good for live VSTi playing? I cannot play it if I can hear any latency...

[netzer]

@Lord

It depends on the power of your Laptop, not only on the Echo.
With my current setup (Centrino) I get 10-15 ms, which is sufficient for me.
I don't believe that the FW interfaces mentionend can get a significant lower latency.

cya
netzer

[MarkM]

I have the Indigo and it's great. I use a Sager Notebook. With Chainer I'll have 4 or 5 Reaktor VSTs running without a problem. I also can run Sonar 3 PE with a heavy load of vsts and effects without problems.

[Lord Choc Ice]

I have looked at a more expensive alternative to Indigo, the Digigram VX Pocket v2. The specs look a lot better, although it can only process a maximum of 48 kHz. However - this won't be any problem, since I'll only use it for live play. I will use my desktop DAW for sound recording/editing. My desktop is running a Waveterminal 2496 by the way.

Is there anyone out there who has used the VX Pocket v2 in an ASIO environment? Is it ASIO 2.0 compatible?

Has anyone tried brainspawn's VST chainer programme "forte" yet? I have the demo, but I would also like to have a second-hand opinion. The Steinberg V-Stack seems to have limited MIDI-options compared to forte - is this true?

[Lord Choc Ice]

I've taken your Centrino recommendations under heavy conciderations, and have found an alternative Sager notebook - Centrino based.

Here are the specs:

Sager 3760-S
15" WXGA Active Matrix LCD
Pentium® Centrino 1.7 GHz
1024 MB 266MHZ DDR
60.0 GB HD (7200 RPM)
8x DVD / 24x10x24 CD-RW Combo
10/100/1000 Mbps Ethernet
Internal V.92 Fax/Modem
Smart Li-ION Battery
4 speaker system
Internal CMOS Video Camera

Price: $1820

Do you think this is better suited than the P4 set-ups?

[herr_prof]

I have looked at a more expensive alternative to Indigo, the Digigram VX Pocket v2. The specs look a lot better, although it can only process a maximum of 48 kHz. However - this won't be any problem, since I'll only use it for live play. I will use my desktop DAW for sound recording/editing. My desktop is running a Waveterminal 2496 by the way.

Is there anyone out there who has used the VX Pocket v2 in an ASIO environment? Is it ASIO 2.0 compatible?

Yes it is. i got mine after being stuck in egosys hell, and it works great. Very nice performance on a pIII 500 and next week I can see how it does with a 1.6 centrino

[Lord Choc Ice]

I have looked at a more expensive alternative to Indigo, the Digigram VX Pocket v2. The specs look a lot better, although it can only process a maximum of 48 kHz. However - this won't be any problem, since I'll only use it for live play. I will use my desktop DAW for sound recording/editing. My desktop is running a Waveterminal 2496 by the way.

Is there anyone out there who has used the VX Pocket v2 in an ASIO environment? Is it ASIO 2.0 compatible?

Yes it is. i got mine after being stuck in egosys hell, and it works great. Very nice performance on a pIII 500 and next week I can see how it does with a 1.6 centrino

Cool! Post your thoughts after inserting it in your new laptop. How is the latency by the way?

[SARcazm]

I've recently ordered a Compaq Centrino 2.0 Ghz, I gig Ram and 80 gig 7200 hd, which I will use as my main DAW.

Bit pricey at 24k (hong Kong Dollars) or just over USD 3k

Not got it yet, but will give you my thoughts once I have it up and running.

Will make a pleasant change from my 1.5 desktop, I hope!

[SARcazm]

grr - duplicate

[SARcazm]

ditto - double

[herr_prof]

Cool! Post your thoughts after inserting it in your new laptop. How is the latency by the way?

Pretty Good. I play alot of lead type lines in
real time and its handles well. The computer I have been using had been kinda slow anyways for live audio processing, so i will how that goes next week.

[Miles1981]

One of my teacher used the vx440, and he was impressed by this card. It is very precise - time invariant -, the drivers are very good, and they are Open Sourced for Linux. A really good choice.

[Lord Choc Ice]

Despite your recommendations, I think I'll go for a P4 based machine - merely because of its performance. The Sager 5690-V has received excellent reviews, and it looks very good on the specs. I just want a power box to launch my VST synths, and it looks more than good for the job. With its low price, I might even add 1024 RAM - for a total amount of 2048 lovely megs.

And for those of you who are ripping your hair off and are yelling to tears in sympathy of my choices: It's not bought yet, and it won't be for some time. I will make my final desicion in about a month I hope - so bring on your suggestions!