Zero Footprint PC ... no laptop!

jms5881 · Post by **jms5881** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 2:10 am

I too hate working from laptops. I do not care about people seeing it, I do not like the keyboard, display or mouse. What I did for a while was build my PC in a rack mountable case thinking it would intergrate easily with other rack mountable music equipment. I used a wireless keboard and mouse and my controller and a nice 19" flat panal display.

There was a major performance advantage to having a real PC to gig with but I do not think things intergrated as wells as I would have liked. The wireless features helped a lot.

Right now, I am using a laptop but I use a real wireless keyboard and mouse (wireless) and my 19" falt panel. I have found that flat panel monitors intergrate well with a DJ setup. I try to use the controller as much as possible but sometimes I have to have a keyboard or a mouse handy. Having these components wireless means I can tuck them away easily and use them from anywhere stationed around me.

Sometimes, this is all too much a pain to setup and I just have laptop but I always find it easier to attach a real wireless keyboard and mouse. I use a light weight BElkin keyboard, its wireless and a pretty small foorprint.

The pains of being a digital DJ.

hambone1 · Post by **hambone1** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 7:46 am

I put my G5 under the stage and use this monitor, which I got for £120 (about $200). It folds down to within about 15 degress of flat, so it doesn't get between you and the crowd. If you've got more money to spend, check out the Wacom Cintiq.

I don't use the pen thingy, because it's PC only and something to lose.

If you set things up with your MIDI controllers, it's not impossible to do your entire set without a monitor, mouse, keyboard at all. It's quite liberating to break away from the geeky e-mail/secretary keyboard, mouse, and screen! The only reason I need to see a monitor is to see which scene I'm scrolling to, and I need it to monitor live video feeds. I'm saving my pennies for a Lemur, then I won't need to see scenes to scroll to, I'll just assign a button to each scene/clip/effect. You could do the same thing with a Faderfox or two, or even a 'traditional' music keyboard with scenes/clips assigned to the piano keys.

supster · Post by **supster** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 9:40 am

hambone1 wrote:I put my G5 under the stage and use this monitor, which I got for £120 (about $200) ... .

hambone, what is "this monitor" - it says LG but i cant find the model anywhere ..
.

Michael-SW · Post by **Michael-SW** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 9:58 am

I would love to have a touchscreen, but they usually are expensive as hell.

You got quite a deal there, Hambone!

hambone1 · Post by **hambone1** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 11:26 am

hambone1 · Post by **hambone1** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 11:26 am

supster wrote:
hambone1 wrote:I put my G5 under the stage and use this monitor, which I got for £120 (about $200) ... .

hambone, what is "this monitor" - it says LG but i cant find the model anywhere ..
.

LG Flatron Tablet L1530TM is the model number.

It's pretty lo-res (XGA, 1024 x 768), but the entire surface is water/beer/sweat proof!

tomperson · Post by **tomperson** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 1:11 pm

Hey, how about custom case-building??? I was researching on that but didn't find much info. I remember seeing a pic posted here of a guy doing a DJ set with a PC built into a suitcase, the thing seemed quite sturdy. And you get the advantage of a "real" pc: high performance, standard components, etc, etc...

atomic · Post by **atomic** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 1:40 pm

I think the idea of the hardcore custom case could be cool but it all comes down to how easy it is to cary around for me. For example even if i had to cary around two laptpos it would be more compact than one little pc and two monitors and a keyboard/mouse setup.

I saw this...... http://www.nature-one.de/552.0.html And i thought hey that is a good idea. If you dont want your gear to get seen or trashed then do what all the techies have been doing for the last 50 years or so and put them in insulated road cases. Again though the problem is that your 7 pound laptop now weighs in at 25 pounds LOL.

i dont know what my point is here other than laptops work pretty well it seems. But that tablet moniter looks like a great idea. Even if it is just plugged into a laptop.

tomperson · Post by **tomperson** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 1:46 pm

Hey, is it me or those guys look quite nerd? Even more with the NI t-shirt...

Michael-SW · Post by **Michael-SW** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 1:54 pm

tomperson wrote:Hey, is it me or those guys look quite nerd? Even more with the NI t-shirt...

I think at least one of them hangs out here...

I'm pretty sure I've seen someone post with an "Acid Junkies" signature.

tomperson · Post by **tomperson** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 1:58 pm

Yeah, nevermind, and the look probably works, since they are the ones rocking an arena full of people, not me!!!

When I first bought my laptop I thought about getting one of those insulated cases, but when I got it, and got accustomed to carrying just a back pack (or two), I left that idea behind. I risk my equipment more, thats for sure, but being able to gig with low footprint is soooo cool.

atomic · Post by **atomic** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 2:03 pm

i thought the video was pretty sick. Ya the NI shirt is a little off in my books but hey it is hard to diss REAKTOR5. I think they are in need of better tech support in a big way though.

supster · Post by **supster** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 5:32 pm

hambone1 wrote:
supster wrote:
hambone1 wrote:I put my G5 under the stage and use this monitor, which I got for £120 (about $200) ... .

hambone, what is "this monitor" - it says LG but i cant find the model anywhere ..
.
LG Flatron Tablet L1530TM is the model number.

It's pretty lo-res (XGA, 1024 x 768), but the entire surface is water/beer/sweat proof!

im looking pretty hard at this. couple of things:

- at the site below it says the screen is HDTV compliant. is it? you're saying its pretty low res. theyre also saying you cant buy it for personal use (??) but im sure that will be easy to get around

http://www.monitoroutlet.com/M90108.htm

- im not seeing any prices yet for less than $750.00. how the hell did you get it for near 200

montrealbreaks · Post by **montrealbreaks** » Tue Oct 04, 2005 3:46 am

I'm pretty impressed with that form factor.

Seems I had one like that back in the early 80's... A Texas Instruments 99/4A.

I'm surprised that people forgot about that form factor for almost 20 years. It was certainly useful.