Ableton Forum

I´m planning to get a live setup together consisting of hardware instruments and fx. I´d like to use ableton live exclusively for routing, recording and playback of midi signals from and to the instruments ( with some of live´s native midi-effects).

I think since there´s no audio-processing involved, there might not be a need for a very powerful (and expensive laptop) and a cheap windows netbook with the minimum system requirements for live would fit the bill. I could have really small audio buffer sizes and the most lofi audio resolution settings to decrease latency, since i don´t do audio processing within live. Also the small screen would not be an issue, since all relevant controls will be assigned to a midi-controller.

Do you think that´ll work? Are there maybe people around here, that run a similar setup and can share some experiences?

I just paged netbookjoey.

beats me wrote:I just paged netbookjoey.

what does that mean?

to claryfy my initial post further: The audio signals of the instruments connected to live via midi won´t be routed into live. they´ll go straight into a small hardware-mixer with my fx on the returns and from there into an Amplifier / PA

spend a little more and get a decent laptop, if you are going to perform it has to work as close to perfect as it can, else you look like a total dufus standing up there while your shit cuts out and glitches

netbookjoey wrote: netbook's do not really meet Live's minimum system requirements (Windows: 2 GHz Pentium® 4 or Celeron® compatible CPU or faster (multicore CPU recommended).

ok, that´s an information. then a cheap, small notebook, or what about the new windows 8 tablets? they should be able to run live.

netbookjoey wrote:
Here's what is stable for me:

8 AUDIO CLIPS playing at the same time with no effects.
or
4 MIDI tracks with vsti's (mostly DSK free instruments vsti's) with no effects..

and one more time: no audio in the box! midi only! audio is produced and processed outside the box! in other words I want to use live as a midi sequencer with a computer as cheap and small as possible.

simmerdown wrote:spend a little more and get a decent laptop

netbookjoey wrote:
yea get a netbook then.

or maybe this:

http://www.elektron.se/products/monomac ... n=overview

and sequence some nice synths with it.

grunzlaut wrote:ok, that´s an information. then a cheap, small notebook, or what about the new windows 8 tablets? they should be able to run live.

Absolutely nobody outside Microsoft has used Surface yet. Even the announcements didn’t demo any software. So at this point there is no “should” about it.

netbookjoey wrote:

grunzlaut wrote: or maybe this:

http://www.elektron.se/products/monomac ... n=overview

and sequence some nice synths with it.

Okay, let me transfer you to our monomachine department.

Hey Beats Me, can you page TAREKITH on this one?

He has my pages blocked because of all the zero value added comments I’ve made in his helpful posts.

This will absolutely work on a netbook. I used a netbook for my guitar for a long while using ableton & 3rd party fx & all worked well. I used a lexicon vst reverb on it so just using midi will easily work.

bupper wrote:This will absolutely work on a netbook. I used a netbook for my guitar for a long while using ableton & 3rd party fx & all worked well. I used a lexicon vst reverb on it so just using midi will easily work.

hm, that sounds promising...

thanks!

I am also pretty sure this would work. However, I would recommend getting a dedicated midi interface with good drivers like a MOTU to be sure everything is really tight.

Where the hell is netbookjoey?! This is his time to shine.

For not too much more than a netbook you could get a decent 17.x" HP Laptop (the G6 A4 AMD processor) that is fairly lightweight (Price was $429 as I got one for my gf recently and she is not a poweruser) 500Gb HDD, 4Gb memory. So maybe a couple hundred more than a netbook but much larger screen (and not a heavy lappy), more storage space, processor power, did I mention screen-size

But you can get one that has decent umph for ~$400-480.

my whole point of using the netbook was especially to not have a too big a screen on stage. There are occasions where a big screen is too much

you will need to try your specific set on a netbook. Live 8 is processor- and ram-hungry, and 4 midi instruments plus some efx might max out a netbook easily.