[Bishbashbosh]

Hi all,
I do a great deal of work as a drummer playing behind many different artists. Part of this role has always been to be in control of any backing tracks/sequences that a particular artist may require - whether for backing vocals, or a sequencer line lifted from an their album or whatever.
Till now I've used a combination of Akai MPC2000XL and a Minidisk player. I usually use the MPC just to get the tempo of the track, and also if there's a loop playing I'll run it from this. It's also a handy tool for backing up MIDI SysEx info, and for dumping MIDI sample dump info to my DDrums.

I use the Minidisk in mono with click on one side, and track on the other. This is perfect if the artist has a lot of BV's needed.....

HOWEVER, I'm getting pretty hacked off with Minidisk as a format. It jumps if you're not careful to acoustically isolate it from the drum monitors. It sounds pretty terrible, and the start-up time is pretty slow on most models. It also takes a long time to do a 'realtime' transfer from PT to Minidisk.

So what's a better solution? I carry my laptop with me on tour anyway, so perhaps running a DAW (either Logic or PT) is the answer..... but I'd need to keep an MPC with me also.... Often if an artist loses their place in the song, I'll punch out the backing track, and punch back in when they're in the right place. The MPC is great for this as it begins INSTANTLY, whereas there's always a buffering up time with a DAW.

Any thoughts on this? Anybody have any experience with a DAW's reliability for live?

Is the MPC4000 a possible?
If that would stream audio from the hard drive then that might be the best of all worlds!! Otherwise the memory is probably too small to cope with a 3hr gig.

Are there any other options I should check out?

Thanks