switch from mac to pc> sony vaio or toshiba satellite pro

[QUAZAR]

Hi everyone
Thanks for all your input. As I started this thread I just wanted to let you know that I went for the Sony Vaio (especially after the reply from Agnishvatta). 15' screen, AMD Athlon 1600 1.4. It cost me 1300 euro. I took extra RAM (have 512 now) and also bought an external firewire HD (LaCie d2). This whole set up works really well. I also posted my tests, comparing this system to my G4 733 (Sony 4/14% - Mac 17/38%).
The Sony Vaio looks nice, feels solid and is exactly what I need.

There are some problems with my new set up though. I feel a bit like a cross between a true pioneer and a testrabbit with the brandnew Remote 25 from Novation, which I plan to use as a midicontroller but which doesn't work too well (yet?). And also with the EMI 2/6 interface which Live and the Remote both are not happy with, so maybe I'll follow Ryan's advice and go for the RME multiface
(I can still bring back the EMI if I want)
But I'll post all these troubles in a new thread when I am back from the Sonar-festival in Barcelona
cheers & thanks
Gert van Veen, Quazar

[raapie]

I am using the RME Hammerfall, with my desktop and laptop. Rock solid, low lantecy and a very, very open and clean sound!

[QUAZAR]

that's what Quandry keeps saying on this site too
actually in the shop that suggested the EMI they discouraged me to go for the RME and said that it was an unnecessary waste of money: the EMI sounded just as good and was much cheaper.
I mentioned some (not too good) things that were said in several threads here about the EMI and about USB audio in general, but they said they'd never had any problems with it. (so i believed them)

i'm going to do some more practical research, but my first impression is that USB audio is not very solid

thanks for your advice
Gert van Veen, Quazar

[Guest]

Quazar I just picked up the remote 25 yesterday, what are the problems you are having with it. I was planing on getting a sony laptop for it too.

[QUAZAR]

I have to do some more research, but what I found out so far:
- sometimes it loses its connection with the laptop. then I get an error message: NO USB COMMS, after which it won't respond until I quit Live, restart the computer, restart the Remote and open Live again

this happens for instance after some fader/filter movements in Live made with the Remote
but I'm not sure if this is because of Live, the Remote or the EMI 6/2 USB audio, which so far doesn't seem to work well with the others
(see also the last posts on the thread Switch from Mac to PC, which is somewhere in the top 10 now)

I wanted to use this set up for playing Live, but feel that I at least need an OS-update. Yet any Remote-info isn't even on the Novation website yet..


sorry, I'll be away for 4 days and nights, but I'll tell you all that happens to me when I get back

good luck
Gert van Veen, Quazar

[machinelove]

the only problem with the Vaois is that very few models support USB spec 2.0, which could mean a much more extensible (and faster!) laptop in the long run, especially for use with MIDI controllers and such. Also always be sure to check the bus speed (400mhz or better) and rpms of the hard disk (5400 or better is needed if you intend to record any audio at all on it). I just picked up a Fujitsu Lifebook, it;s extremely competitive price wise, looks damn cool and meets all the specs mentioned above.

[arar]

..actually ended up with a sony vaio, fX905P, (athlon 1600+ 256mb ram)..flies on Live2 with loads of internal effects, and one or two vsts...

[Agnishvatta]

I've got a couple of ideas even though I don't have either the Vaio or the ReMote:

1. USB:
a. If your only choice is to use USB, then I recommend that you get a high quality USB PCMCIA addin card. There were compatibilities problems in the past with certain USB controllers and midi devices. The key for many people was to simply get an addin card. This will also allow you to power your ReMote from USB, if your Vaio cannot supply enough. You can check how much power your USB has available in the Windows device manager (Windows key + Pause key).

b. Keep your audio and midi USB devices on separate USB controllers. Keep all other peripherals on separate USB controllers from both the audio and midi device (in this case the EMI and the ReMote). A hub is not suitable for this, you actually need separate USB controllers.

c. I think you need to use the Options.txt trick to get better performance from the EMI. Just create a file with Notepad called Options.txt and add the following line to it:

-AsioSupportProcessNow=1


If Novation just has some serious driver problems right now, then your only option is to use a standard midi connection. If your midi interface is also a USB and you still experience problems, then check to see if your Vaio has a Gameport connector. These are the original legacy MIDI interfaces for Windows, they didn't become gameports until lator. If you have one, then all you need is a Gameport to MIDI cable. This MIDI connection is actually better than a top of the line USB MIDI interface. They have less latency and jitter than USB MIDI devices. Yeah, MIDI does introduce latency in addition to audio.

If Novation has an OS problem, then you'll have to put it away for a while.

As a side note, I agree 100% with Ryan regarding PCMCIA or USB.

Go to the RME site and read up on Notebooks for audio at the link below if you haven't already:

http://www.rme-audio.de/english/techinfo/index.htm

Here's a great from the information on the RME website:

Sony Vaio PCG-FX405

Another debut from Sony: this notebook with 1 GHz Athlon CPU shows top performance. CPU- and memory throughput are on the same high level as the components used. Under Windows 2000 the Sony achieves a click-free latency of 3 ms - but only as long as the hard disk is not involved. Due to a very low PCI throughput, the Hammerfall DSP can only use up to 7 record devices (14 channels), more is not possible without heavy drop-outs and distortion. Therefore we can only warn against this notebook.

A lot of things could've have changed since then (chipset, bios, etc...), but if the RME doesn't work right with your setup then, might I suggest Echo Audio's Layla24 or Mona, as they are also known to be great with PCMCIA. The Layla24 and Mona have top of the line sound quality and really good Windows drivers as well, but I haven't tested Echo stuff with Live. I heard that they finally got the Indigo drivers right too, so if you don't need an input that's another PCMCIA option.

Goodluck

[Agnishvatta]

I forgot to say where you should put the Options.txt file. Here is the tip from Alex:

There is an improvement for the EMI 2|6 on Win2000 / WinXP since the 1.5.1 update.

To activate it, please do the following things:

1) Please create a text file called "Options.txt" in the ".../ableton/Live 2.0.2/Preferences" folder if it still doesn't exist there.

2) Open this file and add the line "-AsioSupportProcessNow=1" and save the file.

3) If you start Live now it should be possible to get better latencies with the EMI.

Of course you should substitute "Live 2.0.2" with whatever the name for your installation folder is.

[cperezzz]

enjoy the sony

[djsynchro]

thank you

[Anubis]

I went with a 17-inch HP Pavilion because of the dual internal HDD's. I swapped them out for dual 7200 rpm drives. Content on the aux disk and OS and proggys on the primary. It took me two years but I finally got it toned after disabling nearly everything in the OS and superfluous hardware resources. A suggestion... if you don't need a lot of I/O, get an Indigo IOx to stick in that empty expresscard slot. That'll free up all your usb ports for dongles and controllers and other knick knacks.

[Geezus]

Dude if anybody is going the PC laptop route you should be getting a business model laptop, preferably a Lenovo thinkpad. These things are the shit

[cenik11]

I've been looking for a laptop to use for playing with Live; I believe I've decided on the Toshiba Satellite L350-OLG: http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/prodde ... &langid=EN

17in screen, 320gb hard drive, 4gbs ram, etc. I found out that XP can be installed on it successfully so I'll be getting rid of Vista as soon as I buy it and loading XP Pro.

[quandry]

I bought a second toshiba after 3+ great years with the old one (which still works great). I have the Tecra A9, and it is the bomb--works great with Live, even with a bunch of tracks and convolution reverbs and such. When I bought it direct from toshiba.com, you could "downgrade" to XP for a nominal fee, meaning that it comes with XP installed and a vista install disc should you ever decide you want to screw yourself. Anyhow, still a big Toshiba fan here, if your looking at pc laptops I don't think there is a better bang for buck. Sure, you can drop serious cheddar on a sony or alienware or whatever, but I personally don't see the point when the Toshiba covers all me needs for way less $$$$.