Music Production on the Sager

Hi. I am considering the new 8890 to do music production. I am currently using a Dell 8200 with an Echoaudio Layla24 audio board via the cardbus connection. I am using Sonar for the sequencing software.

This setup has been quirky from the start and I have spent more time goofing around with settings than music making. I suspect it is because the Dell has many peripherals using the same IRQ setting, i.e. the cardbuses, USB's, firewire AND the video adapter to boot.

Any info on how the 8890 will spread the IRQ's would be appreciated. Also, any other comments on this endeavor would help to. PC's in general do a fine job with music as do MAC's. However, laptops present a unique challenge in that you can't simply swap slots or mix and match components to solve compatibility problems. Add to that the plug n play aspect of Windows XP making it difficult to change IRQ assignments and you can see th hurdle.

Thanks

sonar/cubase

Actually, you can get zero monitoring latency through most outboard audio boards these days. My Layla board using ASIO drivers and Cubase produced enough latency to make using the VST synth undesireable, although my Layla provides zero harware latency.

I think my choice of the Dell 8200 laptop was not good in combination with the Layla and Sonar duet. My Dell desktop worked just fine with them.

I think whatever works for you is great. The M-Audio Quattro, which I tried before the Layla24, only provided one stereo input pair using the windows WDM drivers. My layla does 4 pairs simultaneously - which I need for my home studio. Also, Layla24 is a cardbus input, versus the M-audio which is USB. The throughput on the cardbaus is much greater than for the USB.

Thanks for your input ems.

raid0

Hi and thnks for the reply. What does the raid0 do for you in the context of music? Usually, I run the audio program on one drive and the audio files on the other.

What is ENE by the way?

I places the blame for my dell 8200 not working well on the IRQ settings, but then I hear that WinXP dynamically assigns them anyway so it doesn['t matter. Also, the dell had ti controllers as well.

I was intersted in the 8890 but lately the weight and size is scaring me off. You don't think the 5680 will do the job?



Thanks

Apple

How do you like the Sager versus the Apple for music? I have gotten so frustrated with the problems I've had with the mobile setup that I have actually considered an Apple notebook.

I have a Korg Triton ProX, a Midiman Radium 61, a roland XV2020, and now a Roland GR33 guitar synth along with a Mackie VLZ1402 mixer to tie it all together. I travel a lot so I am looking for the "mobile" solution. The Dell 8200 was working out for a while - until I decided I wanted to run a software synth in Sonar. It just turned out to be too much of a burden for the Dell.

Oh well, off in search of the Holy Grail!

The Plunge

Well, I decided to order an 8890, fairly well decked-out. It is the 3.2GHz, 1GB ram, 2-60GB 7200 rpm drives, WXPPro. If this doesn't cut it, no mobile PC will!

I had a chance to look at the IRQ assignments (courtesy of David at Sagernotebooks.com) and they are very well spread out among the devices. If my theory is correct, this will preclude audio glich problems with my card bus Layla audio board.

I am running DXi software synths, like LiveSynth Pro, in Sonar. This is where I had the most trouble and will be the acid test in comparison to the Dell 8200 Laptop. Running these plug-ins is a big CPU drain.

I'll keep you posted on the results!

Cheers

RAID0/Fan noise

I studied up on what RAID0 means and understand that in the case of having 2 - 60GB drives, the hardware raid will make the operating system think there is one large 120GB disk.

Now, from what I have read about audio sequencing programs in general, and for Sonar specifically, it is best to have two physical drives with the program files on one and the audio data files on the other. That way, there is minimized interference between disk operations relative to the program data and audio file data writing. With RAID0, the data is written to both disks simultaneously - i.e., "striping". So, as you are recording audio(and let's say you are using features that require reading program data) the audio data is written the disk and you are performing disk operations pertaining to the program data from potentially the same disk.

I realize that with RAID0 you are writing to two disks at the same time, making it much faster than with a single physical disk. However, could it be that using RAID0 provides the same performance as having the operating recognize two separate disks and program data disk ops are done separately from audio data read/write ops?

There is a good discussion going on fan noise you might be interested at the following URL.

http://talknotebooks.com/showthread....2&goto=newpost

BTW, I ordered one of those PCMCIA-PCI adapters. Thanks for the link!

8890 and sonar

Hi and thanks for the response. Sorry for taking so long to follow up.

How's the 8890 doing so far? Are you getting reasonably low latency with you set-up yet?

I ended up building my own XPC: a small form-factor shuttle SB61G2 bare-bones (7.5"x7.5"x11") using a 2.8 GHZ P4/ 800fsb/PC3200/1GB ram/2-120GB S-ATA drives and a 128MB ATI9200. The system is really fast and so far I can get the software latency down to 2.2 ms using a firewire Motu828MK2 audio interface. This is great for the software synth work I want to do. I carry a Radium-61 keyboard with me on the road. I am trying out the sampletank free version and so far no glitches. pops or other audio anomalies when used in Sonar (I use a VST adapter for use with Sonar).

Although this XPC system is very portable, I am still considering the 8890 for my work away from home. I'd be really interested in how your setup, and the 8890 in general, is doing thus far.

BTW, I just ordered Sonar 3 and the Project 5 package from Cakewalk. We'll see if there's much of an improvement over my Sonar 1.3XL version.

8890 sound/project 5

The Project 5 software is an effort to emulate Reason. I downloaded a trial version of the program and it seems like it has a lot of potential. It will require a good bit of time to figure out how to exploit it, though. Probably by that time, the next version will be knocking at the door.

On my previous Dell laptop the on-board sound was awful too. The sound on the XPC (realtek ac97) is not too bad, however.

I had problems running USB audio on my Dell also - must have been the IRQ conflicts - oh well!

Thanks again for the input!