Laptop Musician - Best Notebooks? - Page 4

Oh yes, goes without saying; get an external sound card. I use RME Multiface with Cardbus adaptor. This interface has 8 analog ins and outs, ADAT, SPDIF, and MIDI. You might not need so much, but get an external interface from a company that does good drivers for low latency work.

Also, I use a dual-boot system with one operating system only for audio apps and another completely seperate operating system for internet, office, and games. When I am playing games using the non-audio operating system, I just use the internal soundcard and it is fine.

THat RME set up kicks ass!


For something a little more basic, the Echos cards are cool too.

Which soundcard do you use, and what sort of latencies are you getting? I do hardcore multi-channel work (interfacing with an 8-buss mixer), using the computer as a glorified effects engine in realtime. I heard that high-end PCI-Express graphics and legacy PCI-cardbus soundcards had possible problems (with unusually high latency and CPU resource usage).

Read this: "Sound-On-Sound article: How Good Are Centrinos Laptops For Music?"

Old (it references back to Banias), but still relevant. It whupped the Apple in every aspect, bigtime.

Er, yes, I think you pulled those figures from mid air! A maximum of x1.5 is usually the suggested 'all-round' figure (therefore 2GHz PM = 3GHz P4), and a lesser ratio than x1.5 when using high-end sequencers (Cubase SX etc.) as they rely less on the large L2 cache of the dothan, or similar.

Extra grunt is always good to have. I'd pick a 2.26GHz dothan for sheer mathematical muscle compared to a 1.6GHz of the same kind any day. I settled for a 2GHz for financial reasons. Also, the higher clocked CPUs of the same kind use the same energy as the lower clocked models. Look at the wattage figures on Intel's site.

K

>Which soundcard do you use, and what sort of latencies are you getting? I do hardcore multi-channel work (interfacing with an 8-buss mixer), using the computer as a glorified effects engine in realtime. I heard that high-end PCI-Express graphics and legacy PCI-cardbus soundcards had possible problems (with unusually high latency and CPU resource usage).

You heard right, and the common theory is they have problems with the high powered video cards hogging the bus but I havent heard it confirmed yet. The other odd thing about it is while the NForce4 Chipset is particularly bad for it, some motherboards seem to not be effected by it(Like my Opteron K8WE) seemingly at all. For instance my current setup has under 3 mS of latency, is very stable and have no problems. I have yet to do a serious stress test on it since i just set it up again for the first time in a couple of months, but that wont take long.

>Read this: "Sound-On-Sound article: How Good Are Centrinos Laptops For Music?"
>Old (it references back to Banias), but still relevant. It whupped the Apple in every aspect, bigtime.

Heh couple things to keep in mind, I wasnt referring to sheer processing power. I was referring to the niceities it had for music(Power over Firewire, find my a decent PC laptop that has that for example) the nearly silent operation, the decent battery life, even when supporting external firewire interfaces(My Firewire 410 plugged in and running off the laptop I still get over 2 hours of battery life) and the stability of the OS compared to MS's. That beats out raw processing power any day in my book when looking for a dependable mobile platform to do a couple tracks of recroding at a time. It is more than powerful enough to do that.

If you need raw processing power that has to be attached to a power outlet, by yourself a flex-atx desktop and carry it around. Itll be MUCH cheaper and carrying it around in a rolling case not to much more difficult to handle. Since you are going to have to be near a plug anyways why not? Not to mention the audio interfaces that support PCI are fiarly nice.

>Er, yes, I think you pulled those figures from mid air! A maximum of x1.5 is usually the suggested 'all-round' figure (therefore 2GHz PM = 3GHz P4), and a lesser ratio than x1.5 when using high-end sequencers (Cubase SX etc.) as they rely less on the large L2 cache of the dothan, or similar.

I am fairly certain I said I did pull those numbers out of thin air.

>Extra grunt is always good to have. I'd pick a 2.26GHz dothan for sheer mathematical muscle compared to a 1.6GHz of the same kind any day. I settled for a 2GHz for financial reasons. Also, the higher clocked CPUs of the same kind use the same energy as the lower clocked models. Look at the wattage figures on Intel's site.

And yet my point still is missed, I was comparing the Pentium M models to the Pentium 4 models. Not comparing inbetween the same models. In between the smae models yes feel free to pick up the extra power if you can afford it, but between the various models I would always reccomend the Pentium M line compared to the Desktop chip line with the higher clocks.

Seablade

True. But they do offer powered USBv2 at 5 Watts. Powering via firewire would require 15watts of the same battery to drive the extra peripheral hardware.

You can't get much more silent than a Pentium M, so long as you don't go with a high-end graphics card.

Powerbooks manage better than 5 hours, real world? Check out the Compal barebones centrino laptop sold by NuSystems, or a Dell centrino with an ATI x300 graphics card for these runtimes.

Under Windows XP, I can hand on heart never recall a blue screen of death. Regularly on 98se (daily, even), but never on XP. The "BSOD" argument has become irrelevant as long as you have compatible hardware. Music computing firms (Carillon, Red Sub, NuSystems, etc.) assure this moreso. Besides, Macs aren't impervious to crashing, too, you know!

Pentium M has more muscle, more processing power, while boasting less heat, more battery life, just as stable........ I can't see the comparison, here.

In case you failed to notice the benchmark graph in the SOS article, here it is again (bear in mind these are using old 'Banias' Pentium-M CPUs, and not the latest 'Dothans' which are even faster:



[This graph shows the results of a test to see how many Reverb A plug-ins could be used, with a single A1 virtual synth as an audio source to avoid factoring peripheral devices (hard-drives, etc.) to focus on processing power alone. The solid colour shows the number of Reverb A plug-ins that could be run until the audio started failing, while the lighter region shows the number of plug-ins before the processor actually maxed out.]

The only thing it doesn't have is powered firewire. But it does have powered USB v2 and also PCMCIA Cardbus (or the newer PCI-ExpressCard), so you have to plan accordingly.

But for powered firewire, when are you really going to go into the wilderness with a laptop that lasts just two hours (ie. an Apple powerbook) while hooked up to a firewire external soundcard recording multi-channel audio without mains power nearby? That's quite a specialised and rare occurrence, although not unprecedented.
However, a Pentium-M with Emu 1616M cardbus (without its breakout box while out of the studio) or an Echo Indigo I/O would suffice for high-quality stereo recording and would extend battery life significantly, as well offering a neat, 'all-in-one' solution as opposed to having to take a bulky breakout box and accompanying interfacing cables with you, as well as your laptop.

Lastly, bear in mind that Apple will be moving over to Intel in the coming years and no doubt enjoy the benefits of the evolved Pentium-M line. When will Apple be (finally?) releasing the G5 Powerbook? I'd imagine the reason it has been put back for so long is due to heat/noise/battery-life issues, although IBM's involvement with Sony (for the Playstation 3) is not entirely insignificant. However, Apple's transition to Intel is a colossal declaration, and not one Apple would have taken lightly if they didn't think it wouldn't massively benefit them.

All in all, though, I'd say both computers (PentiumMs/Powerbooks) have their pros and cons, but the original postee would really have to think about how they would like to work, such as which particular music programs, sequencers and associated applications they feel would be the most effective, flexible and workable solution to them; which hardware peripherals would they like to integrate into the DAW; which operating system they would feel accustomed/or prefer to use; and lastly (if not most importantly) factoring all the costs; and then all being well they should work towards the goal that would suit them the most.

Cheers,
K

>In case you failed to notice the benchmark graph in the SOS article, here it is again (bear in mind these are using old 'Banias' Pentium-M CPUs, and not the latest 'Dothans' which are even faster:

No I saw. I also noticed that they were against the older and a little slower clocked G4s, although that really doesnt matter. Now once again you are arguing something I dont really care about that much though(No offense intended), you are arguing that they are faster, thats fine, and they are, I never argued that but speed isnt everything. The powerbooks are quite capable of handling a good amount of processing easily, or multi-track and for a portable recording setup once again that should be fine. If you need more get a better setup since you will probably be attached to AC anyways.

>You can't get much more silent than a Pentium M, so long as you don't go with a high-end graphics card.

As you hinted at but didnt fully explore, the CPU is FAR from the only factor that affects the amount of Noise. GPU like you siad, but also HD and CDRom are NOTORIOUS for this in laptops. ESPECIALLY the CDRom in a laptop. And of course your cooling fan.

>True. But they do offer powered USBv2 at 5 Watts. Powering via firewire would require 15watts of the same battery to drive the extra peripheral hardware.

Yep but there is more selection and in my opinion a better selection for Firewire for the Semi-Pro/Pro market. Not to mention a firewire 800 interface can be capable of more than a USB interface is possibly capable of.

>Powerbooks manage better than 5 hours, real world? Check out the Compal barebones centrino laptop sold by NuSystems, or a Dell centrino with an ATI x300 graphics card for these runtimes.

I said plenty of battery life, I didnt say 5 hours. I typically get about 3 hours out of it if I am working on the computer. 3 Hours is more than enough for me(And many others I know), and is still at least about average for laptops.

>Pentium M has more muscle, more processing power, while boasting less heat, more battery life, just as stable........ I can't see the comparison, here.

Better quality Laptop, few PC laptops match the quality I have found in Apple Laptops, there are some yes, but not many. Power over firewire. Better OS(To be covered later) and a well designed layout. Much more so what you listed depends MUCH on the laptop itself and how it was manufactured.

You are arguing CPUs. The question is about laptops. A laptop is MUCH more than a CPU.

>But for powered firewire, when are you really going to go into the wilderness with a laptop that lasts just two hours (ie. an Apple powerbook) while hooked up to a firewire external soundcard recording multi-channel audio without mains power nearby? That's quite a specialised and rare occurrence, although not unprecedented.

Yep so in which case if you are doing heavy duty multichannel recording use a desktop anyways. If you are doing a few tracks or recording use a laptop and that power over firewire makes it that much easier. One less thing I have to find a plug for, or even need a plug for.

>However, a Pentium-M with Emu 1616M cardbus (without its breakout box while out of the studio) or an Echo Indigo I/O would suffice for high-quality stereo recording and would extend battery life significantly, as well offering a neat, 'all-in-one' solution as opposed to having to take a bulky breakout box and accompanying interfacing cables with you, as well as your laptop.

Neither of those I believe have a decent quality mic Pre without external equipment or the breakout box. Again besides the point. Yes there are some, but see above I think there are more chooices and better choices for firewire than for USB. Not to mention less drain on the CPU.

>Lastly, bear in mind that Apple will be moving over to Intel in the coming years and no doubt enjoy the benefits of the evolved Pentium-M line. When will Apple be (finally?) releasing the G5 Powerbook? I'd imagine the reason it has been put back for so long is due to heat/noise/battery-life issues, although IBM's involvement with Sony (for the Playstation 3) is not entirely insignificant. However, Apple's transition to Intel is a colossal declaration, and not one Apple would have taken lightly if they didn't think it wouldn't massively benefit them.

There wont be a G5 laptop. If you want info on that entire transition I would reccomend arstechnica.com as they have done a pretty good job covering it and should still be able to find it in the archives.

You seem insitant that this is all about the CPU, which in my opinion it isnt. There are many other factors into it, and overall I find the PC Laptops lacking in ability(Mainly quality) when it comes to competing with the apple laptops.

>Under Windows XP, I can hand on heart never recall a blue screen of death. Regularly on 98se (daily, even), but never on XP. The "BSOD" argument has become irrelevant as long as you have compatible hardware. Music computing firms (Carillon, Red Sub, NuSystems, etc.) assure this moreso. Besides, Macs aren't impervious to crashing, too, you know!

You are lucky. ANd I dont mean that in a good way, though I wish I did. MS platforms and software just arent all that stable.

You do realise the BSOD has shown its ugly head in TWO microsoft presentations in recent years. Both on XP and I believe a topic recently covered in one was that the BSOD was no longer existant in MS. Oh yes I forgot, now it is just driver incompatibility that crashes your system completly, iunstead of your system crashing complet... oh wait there isnt a difference, the end result is the same.

I can name off tons of various places ranging from PCs to University installations to entireprise situations. Not common people but actual IT people setting up these computers and the BSOD is definitly still evident in XP. And yes a Mac can crash... but for comparison... a HP laptop, brand new fresh out of the box, ran for 1 hour before crashing. Literally the only thing I did was watch a DVD. Running Windows XP. Had not hooked it up to the internet, had not installed anything extra. Still a factory install.

I could give many other comparisons involving viruses, worms, etc, but I really dont feel it is needed.

Times I have crashed a Mac or Linux system in the past several years? I can probably count them on one hand. I am not a noob at computing either, I run platforms that range from MS to Mac to Linux, a fair spread. My personal preference is a Opteron based Linux platform I currently run my audio work on. But hands down the quality of the powerbook beats most options in the PC world. Does that have to do with the fact it runs a G4? Actually I doubt it very much. I think it is more that apple keeps a tighter leash on the peripherals and configuration and thus can create a more stable platform easily, and make sure that the hardware is of a certain quality. As I said I consider the Powerbook a better choice, it is better quality even if it isnt the fastest thing out there. And Fast isnt what you need when you are just laying down a few tracks at a time on the road, or doing some editing.

Quality is more important.

Seablade

A Fast car that breaks down 20 miles off the Lot does you exactly how much good?

I had a question, do you pople kow of anyone that gigs with a lap top, that doesn't have ac plugged in when performing? I did a wedding gig this week end with my hp and a keystation es61 playing only piano. It struck me that I always have the laptop plugged in. If I didn't, the battery only has a 1 and a half hours on it. BTW, my HP is DAMN NOISY! When the fan comes on, it's comparale to multiple F-18 hornets taking off! Fortunately, in the home studio, I'm not doing any live recording right now so noise for me isn't a big issue working ina 100% virtual environment.

I think one of the biggest factors in determining laptop choice would be the fan noise. My Dell centrino, on the other hand, is much more quiet than the HP. Poor HP.

i gig with a laptop.... for a year i used a sager 5660 with flawless results.... just switched to a dell 700m and so far during rehersals i get the same results.... keep in mind im just triggering VSTI's through this and we're running our backing sequences through an averatec p4 3.02ghz machine through ableton live 5

if you have any questions feel free to IM me at AIM SN: Neuralsequence

Fachiro I run live theater shows off a laptop though I usually have it plugged in unless something odd happens. If it wasnt for the fact I have to use that same computer elsewhere I would be running it off a dekstop(More specificly rackmount) though because there isnt a point not to if it can do the job just as well. I intend to build one in the next couple of years to do just that that I would edit my shows elsewhere and just upload them onto the rackmount, possibly use the rackmount for effects or other uses as well while I am at it.

Seablade

I also have a dual boot system with XP for day-to-day use, and Fedora 64-bit for experimenting. Are external soundcards compatible with 64-bit Linux? Could you provide a few links to decent manufacturers please?

Thanks Seablade.

My current desk top is an old 733 mhz ABS behemoth. About the only audio stuff I've done on it was some mastering (If I can call it that!) with soundforge. It's just too slow and with 126mb ram.............ancient, and running Windows 98 for that matter.

I've always wanted to get a new desktop, but the limiting factor for me has always been my soundcard. I really like the performance and form factor of the Echo card and the only PC I know of that has a built in PCMCIA interfacxe is that chasis made by ASUS.....forgot the name of it, but I think it has provisions for a P4 3.4. It's bigger than a shuttle, and is kinf of in between that and a mini tower.OH yeah, it's the Asus Pundit!

You're right though, sometimes I feel, man, if you're going to plug it in, might as well have a desktop. They have smaller ones that are relatively portable these days.

Merlin, yes some external cards are compatible, part of the reason for this is because the drivers dont come from the manufacturers, but are provided through ALSA(http://www.alsaproject.org)

Look through there for external soundcards that are compatible, Right now there arent to many though unfortunatly, some M-Audio, some RME I believe, some Edirol(I am personally looking at the UA-1000), and some Tascam, and I am sure some I have forgotten about, for external cards anyways, PCI cards are a different matter and MUCH better supported. There are alsa a few supported by the FreeBob project but unfortunatly I dont have a link to that right now.

For the most part unfortunatly Firewire cards are kinda out of the question due to manufacturers refusal to submit to the standards of the firewire bus and thus requiring a LOT more work to write, even if they did give out the information which they rarely do. So for that USB is your best bet, but make sure you look it up on teh above website before you buy it if you are going to be using it in linux.

Seablade

Heh I used to run adobe audition on a machine not to dissimalr to that, a little more ram, a little less clock speed. Ran it for years and loved it I still say that is thebest single file editor out there, multitrack work though you need to go with something else for serious work.

But yea that is exactly why I am considering Rackmounted computers, I figure since half my equipment uses a rack anyways it wont really make to much difference to throw a computer in there as well.

Seablade

GROUND LOOP FEEDBACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

...it's getting to be a common problem with many laptops with three prong ac plugs...lol



seablade, if you will.......................

Oh come on Fachiro... You act like Ive talked about this already once recently


TwoFlutes...

Read this entire thread very carefully. There is some really good conversation about this exact problem, no there wont be a replacement power supply and it is not a good idea to lift the AC ground of your laptop, safety devices are there for a reason.

After you have done that if you are still having problems post up your exact setup and I will give you my advice. Ground Loops are notoriously difficult to fix, the cheap and easy and more dangerous way to fix them is to remove the AC ground of your laptop... BAD IDEA. The more correct and safer way to fix them is to isolate the audio grounds between your computer and the rest of your system. As I beleive you surmised on multiple outs this means you have to do it on EVERY wire and connection connecting between your laptop and the rest of your system.

There are some multichannel rack units that will do this for a lot of outputs, or you can wire your own solution if good with a soldering iron and have the ability to get 1:1 transformers.

Also read through the SOS site for lots of info on this.

Seablade

You are on the right track, if switching to balanced cables helped some then part of your problem wasnt a ground loop, but rather picking up EMI in your cables. BAlanced cables are very good at dealing with this and should be used whenever possible, wether or not you have a problem.

The part that is not effected by volume changes is most likely a ground loop as that is seperate and unrelated to your volume. Post back with how those DIs work out and if you have any problems and I can see about giving you a bit of help.

Seablade