laptop

deepdirtydub · Post by **deepdirtydub** » Sun Aug 01, 2004 8:22 pm

ok this is what im looking at for running Ableton Live

P4 3.0 Ghz 800mhz fsb
1 GB Ram
40 Gig 5400 Rpm Harddrive

only catch is that the video/audio/lan is all integrated stuff

should this be a concern for me?

should i expect any less performance?

Does anybody have any experience with Cicero laptops??

thanks a lot for any help

futureproof · Post by **futureproof** » Sun Aug 01, 2004 8:30 pm

deepdirtydub wrote: only catch is that the video/audio/lan is all integrated stuff

To me "the catch " is the 5400 drive. Are you planning to buy an external ?

deepdirtydub · Post by **deepdirtydub** » Mon Aug 02, 2004 4:10 am

im planning on using the ram for a lot of the loops

deepdirtydub · Post by **deepdirtydub** » Tue Aug 03, 2004 3:19 am

any other opinions???

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Tue Aug 03, 2004 4:26 am

Most probably not the thing you want to hear, but I'll suggest it anyway: Apple Powerbook.

Petteri Karjalainen · Post by **Petteri Karjalainen** » Tue Aug 03, 2004 7:42 am

I would also recommend rather getting a powerbook, or even an Ibook ..
even tho I'm a PC person myself .. but for some odd reason the mac laptops outperform the PC laptops hands down .. well .. that is my personal experience and opinion

I mean ... on an Ibook with a 4200rpm HD .. I can play 28 tracks of audio simultaneously .. not loaded to ram.. try that on a PC laptop .. that costs the same

cheers.

AdamJay · Post by **AdamJay** » Tue Aug 03, 2004 7:49 am

dont sweat the 5400rpm hd. its much better than 4200rpm and most tests show 5400 and 7200rpm laptop drives dead even when testing read speeds. The 7200rpm being only faster when writing to the disk. Of course 3.5" desktop hard drives are a different story.

when you say Integrated do you mean crappy onboard? or integrated as in... they have integrated an Ati Radeon 9600 onto the mainboard.
in techy speak "integrated" is better than "onboard", but since you are concerned about performance - me thinks you mean onboard and not integrated.

i wouldn't worry too much about the onboard video if that is what it is.. worst case scenario is that it shares the system Ram for video, and since you have 1GB of that, you're fine.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Tue Aug 03, 2004 7:55 am

Petteri Karjalainen wrote: I mean ... on an Ibook with a 4200rpm HD .. I can play 28 tracks of audio simultaneously .. not loaded to ram.. try that on a PC laptop .. that costs the same
cheers.

my ibook g4 800 never got more than 15 tracks until i hit about 75% on the CPU meter. at which point if i tried to add a single effect to the 15 dry tracks it would hang up.

so i think that anyone trying that on their pc laptop that costs the same, which would probably be a P4 3ghz, would get the same track count, plus effects, plus headroom.

Petteri Karjalainen · Post by **Petteri Karjalainen** » Tue Aug 03, 2004 8:21 am

ok.. lemme do a test right now as im writing this .. the ibook specs:

1GHz G4 with 768 Mb DDR Ram.
live 4.01 demo with Coreaudio set to 44100 with 11ms latency.

--
at 22 tracks playing the disk "led" lights up and 28%cpu is used .. but no clicks or any problems to the audio.

at 26 tracks I start hearing slight glitches, cpu at 29-30%

now some fx on the master.
I load the Live's own reverb with factory preset on.
1 = 48%
2 = 69%
3 = 93% and some serious glitches.

dont know if that helps at all .. but I think its ok

.. for a laptop retailing at 1299USD

hyerstay · Post by **hyerstay** » Tue Aug 03, 2004 8:24 am

Now try increasing the latency and see if you can get away with even more...

Petteri Karjalainen · Post by **Petteri Karjalainen** » Tue Aug 03, 2004 8:46 am

hmm... I set the latency at 30ms .. makes actually no difference

running 20 tracks of audio (none in ram) and 2 reverbs on the master gives me 60% - 66% cpu load .. cant hear any glitches...

dunno... you figure it out

.. I think its ok

.. tho I dont ever need to use more than 8 tracks during a live ..
but still .. it is comforting to know

hyerstay · Post by **hyerstay** » Tue Aug 03, 2004 8:48 am

In that case, put it as low as possible!

How low can you get it when your iBook is at maximum glitch-free performance? You could also try using RAM mode on your audio clips to squeeze a bit more juice.

Cheers,

jason

Petteri Karjalainen · Post by **Petteri Karjalainen** » Tue Aug 03, 2004 10:48 am

ok ..
cant play anything below 3ms..
at 3ms live starts to produce some glithces playing 18 tracks of audio and using 28% cpu .. so lets load some loops in the memory.

..loaded 5 of the loops in ram and all the glitches are gone...

dunno what else I could do here .. its using 30% cpu
.. maybe some fx ?

ok .. with 2 reverbs at the master out it starts producing some issues

tho the cpu is only at 72%

but this is 3ms latency

anything else ?

deepdirtydub · Post by **deepdirtydub** » Tue Aug 03, 2004 9:13 pm

i'd really like to get a powerbook but i dont think audiomulch will run on a Mac

and id really like to be able to use that program

either way thanks for all the help !!

ekko · Post by **ekko** » Tue Aug 03, 2004 9:27 pm

I gig and do recording to my iBooks internal stock drive all the time with Live, Reason and Cubase. Never had a problem.

I have no idea what Audiomulch is. What does it do? Is it *that* necessary?

laptop

laptop

Re: laptop

no

???

thanks a bunch!!