Portable Live advice?

lunabass · Post by **lunabass** » Thu Sep 18, 2008 12:59 am

Mike Goodwin wrote:and to " myself

Lets start another lame ass conversation about how much computers suck and do that all day long in place of actually making music with the fantastic tools that we have at hand. In fact well where at it lets debate 44.1 vs. 96Khz and analog Vs. Software and we will be sure to never make another track ever again

unfortunately i cant make tracks at work!

Tone Deft · Post by **Tone Deft** » Thu Sep 18, 2008 1:01 am

lunabass wrote:
Mike Goodwin wrote:and to " myself

Lets start another lame ass conversation about how much computers suck and do that all day long in place of actually making music with the fantastic tools that we have at hand. In fact well where at it lets debate 44.1 vs. 96Khz and analog Vs. Software and we will be sure to never make another track ever again

unfortunately i cant make tracks at work!

yes you can.
http://themes.hobnox.com/papaya-themes/ ... cation.swf

Plastic Hassle · Post by **Plastic Hassle** » Thu Sep 18, 2008 1:11 am

I just want to make music. I used to have a Mac PowerBook G4 which was great. It worked out of the box and never gave me any problems until the motherboard fried four years after I bought it. I come from a guitar + pedals + amp + fourtrack background but ran out of space and ideas in that format. I now make two kinds of music using Live. One is studio based which you can hear here if you're interested http://www.palaceofswords.com/page2.htm The other stuff I do is pretty much live with a singer and that's what's relevant to my original post. I need a low maintainance, portable solution to rehearsing and performing. The music is pretty basic, think Suicide meets, Harmonia meets 70s dub, check my original post for more info. This whole PC thing seems like having to forge your own guitar strings/grow a tree then carve a guitar or something. I was looking at home keyboards because they're cheap but they're massive, seem to have a pretty steep learning curve and sound like shit. So I've decided to stay in, save money, sell stuff and get a new Mac. Thanks again for all the responses. Like I say I just want to make music.

lunabass · Post by **lunabass** » Thu Sep 18, 2008 1:16 am

Tone Deft wrote: yes you can.
http://themes.hobnox.com/papaya-themes/ ... cation.swf

awesome tone, thats gone straight to the top of my bookmarks list!

adventurepants_ · Post by **adventurepants_** » Thu Sep 18, 2008 1:21 am

Plastic Hassle wrote: This whole PC thing seems like having to forge your own guitar strings/ grow a tree carve a guitar or something.

lunabass · Post by **lunabass** » Thu Sep 18, 2008 1:26 am

Plastic Hassle wrote: So I've decided to stay in, save money, sell stuff and get a new Mac.

my fellow bandmate just bought the lowest spec 13" macbook for about $1400 (Oz $) with an education discount. it's been working really well for him. he's mainly using it with reason.

adventurepants_ · Post by **adventurepants_** » Thu Sep 18, 2008 2:09 am

lunabass wrote:
Plastic Hassle wrote: So I've decided to stay in, save money, sell stuff and get a new Mac.
my fellow bandmate just bought the lowest spec 13" macbook for about $1400 (Oz $) with an education discount. it's been working really well for him. he's mainly using it with reason.

ive recently put in a mac mini running Gband for some digital media students. runs great, has a small form factor and GB is the perfect soft for what they want to do.

the only downside is that i can build a quad core pc with about 3 times the raw power for about $100 less.but i recognise that not everyone is a geek with the expertise, werewithal, time or even interest to do this.

its all about the right tool for the job.

leedsquietman · Post by **leedsquietman** » Thu Sep 18, 2008 2:48 am

I use macs and pcs daily too and I like macs.

But saying keeping them (PCs) off the internet is a bit overly paranoid. Although I would certainly agree with get a good firewall and a/v / a/s solution and only stick to trusted sites. Do not go surfing porn sites or such.

I've had my Dell laptop for 4 and a half years, no probs and it still is going strong although I am glad that Ableton put a great implementation of track freezing in. I tested my Dell against a Powerbook G4 in 2004 and it totally smoked the G4 Powerbook(might have been different if Apple had got the G5 into a laptop), had double the ram, and even with a complete care warranty (covering accidnetal droppages, and spillages etc) cost 350 bucks less. It also had a better graphics card, a 7200 rpm drive vs a 4200 rpm drive. Etc, Although the Apple looked nicer and weighed about half.

Having said all of this, my next computer will very likely be a Mac but mostly because Vista is so messed up and OSX is tried, trusted and reliable (for the most part). I'll probably wait for either quad core Imacs, or for Mac Pro to release a cheaper model, so could be 18 months -2 years before I go there, by that time MS might even have a new nightmare o/s to replace Vista.

If you're careful with surfing habits and protect yourself well and don't open email with dodgy attachments or from unknown people, you can do surfing just fine. I've only had 1 virus /spyware in 4 years and that was when wifey went on my machine and downloaded some ridiculous emoticons. Also stay away from google ads and high ranked searches on google as spyware vendors buy that exposure as the top links/referrers very often.

Hidden Driveways · Post by **Hidden Driveways** » Thu Sep 18, 2008 4:04 am

leedsquietman wrote:If you're careful with surfing habits and protect yourself well and don't open email with dodgy attachments or from unknown people, you can do surfing just fine. I've only had 1 virus /spyware in 4 years and that was when wifey went on my machine and downloaded some ridiculous emoticons. Also stay away from google ads and high ranked searches on google as spyware vendors buy that exposure as the top links/referrers very often.

Okay. I've bit my tongue long enough. OR YOU CAN JUST BUY A FUCKING COMPUTER THAT WORKS!

Pardon. Seriously. Pardon me. I prefer the civilized vibe that's been happening in this thread.

abergenner wrote: i'm too neurotic to not suspect that there are files buried in folders that i cant get to and delete...

Okay. One more thing. You are worrying about shit that shant be worried about. Take a deep breath and relax. Now. Repeat after me... "I am supposed to create music, then brush my teeth and go to sleep. Wake up the next day, and do it again."

adventurepants_ · Post by **adventurepants_** » Thu Sep 18, 2008 4:22 am

Hidden Driveways wrote:
Okay. I've bit my tongue long enough. OR YOU CAN JUST BUY A FUCKING COMPUTER THAT WORKS!

youre just embarrasing yourself, and youre not being the slightest bit helpful to the OP.

if OSX grows out of being a marginal OS, then youll have exactly the same issues as windows users as far as security goes. there is absolutely nothing inherently more secure about OSX, compared to a windows install where the user isnt logged in as administrator. In fact you would shudder to find out how full of holes Safari is.

Its security through obscurity, nothing else. Windows should have forced a similar model with Vista instead of the excremental UAC, another crap halfway solution.