Ableton Forum

hi everybody

i just bought a laptop the other week, reasonably priced (£700 toshiba, p4 3.2ghz, 40g hd, 512ram as im not that flushed with cash) for doing live shows as i was sick of carrying my big desktop about.

anyhow, i practiced what i was going to do on it at home first to make sure it would run ok and be able to cope and it seemed to be fine, using live 4.1.2 and an mk425c keyboard usb midi thing.

However (you've probably heard posts like this before) when we did this show last night my brother, who was doing vocals and kind of theatrics all dressed in cardboard and straw, started jumping about all over the place and caused my table thing to vibrate and this is what (i think) caused the sound coming out of the laptop to momentarily stop a couple of times. i got through it to the end but it was extremely unnerving in front of about 250 people.
so...does anyone have any top tips to reduce vibration coming from the stage through to my delicate laptop electronics? like some sponge mat or something or is there some kind of official product that can help? we got to do another couple of shows at the end of the month and i just know he's going to dance around like a tool again. (but thats what people like to see i guess). or do you think something else may be responsible and not vibration?

also... this hasn't happened before in the other few performances ive done, but i use this behringer mini mixer thing which i plug the lappy into, along with a minidisc backup and sometimes a mic, but last night on the stage monitors there was some kind of shitty earth buzz which im fairly sure was caused by the mixer. we made do with it but i'd like to get it sorted out for the next time. anyone got any advice or know of any kind of device which will sort out the buzz?

any advice will be much appreciated, sorry if my questions are a maybe a bit dumb or something but these gig things seem to be happening a little faster than i can learn and im just about managing to wing it so far and i feel i got to ask plenty questions to people with more experience than me or probably sooner rather than later im going to come unstuck.

cheers

You can get these inflatable turntable isolation cushions which might help isolate your laptop from the vibrations. I forge the name, though - Freefloat?

you've probably heard posts like this before <..snip .. > doing vocals and kind of theatrics all dressed in cardboard and straw

oh yes, the jumping man wearing cardboard and straw problem eh!

we have many posts like that

We always suspended our tables from the roof when possible, otherwise a couple of reasonably firm couch cushions oughta do it.

For the ground hum get yourself a second powerbar and cut off the ground plug (the round one) and see if that helps, you can also buy a line amp with a ground lift possibly (our tech makes ours here)

Good Luck

If you have the resources, get a bag of pea gravel and try that. It will absorb vibration pretty well.

Alternatively, you could make a 3-4 inch tall wooden skirt that fits around your laptop with about an inch to spare all the way around. The wrap three long, thick, rubber bands horizontally, and three more vertically. Make sure the rubber bands aren't too tight, they should be just loose enough to let the laptop hang, but tight enough to accomodate your connectors.

i dont now anything about them, but does anyone know if going into a 'di box' before the clubs pa might sort out the buzz problem? i think i might have to take a wander down the local music tech store on my lunch hour.

thanks for the vibration tips, i'll take them on board. i hope i get it sorted by the time the next shows come up, this live performance thing is a bit more stressful than messing around with tunes at home