Laptops for RME FF800

[dcharrison]

I'd like to hear from people who are successfully using FF800 on laptops. Which models work, which blow, and which outboard drives play nice?
Ideally, it would be nice if the on-board firewire interface worked and there was a built-in port for eSATA drives, but what are the chances?

[Trp]

Logic 7 and 8 run run very smoothly on my MacBook Pro (2,2 Ghz / 4GB Ram / 160 GB internal drive) with my FF800 and a 500 GB LaCie (FW400/FW800/USB2.0). I use the external drive via FW 800.

[John Moran]

Originally Posted by dcharrison

I'd like to hear from people who are successfully using FF800 on laptops. Which models work, which blow, and which outboard drives play nice?
Ideally, it would be nice if the on-board firewire interface worked and there was a built-in port for eSATA drives, but what are the chances?

the chances are 100% of meeting those criteria. in fact how about firewire 800 as an option in addition to the stock 400? and yes it does have SATA port in addtion to firewire. no buss conflicts.

look at this :

LiveTracker Laptop

they have been bench tested with the FF800 and the os is set up very nicely for audio with all the froo-froo taken out or turned off. they are guaranteed to work and come with a two year warranty.

very good pricing for the machines, less than the comparable retail consumer crap. i just did the search a month ago and this was the clear winner.
i have an extreme model laptop running Sequoia and it's quite slick.

excellent support from the company for any questions. orange hills audio was using their systems for their booth at AES demonstrating samplitude, sequoia, algorithmix, etc.

do not get a dell, that is a recipe for disaster, wrong chipsets in those things.

hth

[Inner Light]

I have a simple cheap Acer, and it works great. Haven't really done more than 4 tracks at a time at 24 / 44.1. And I even use the internal drive, and back up to external afterwards.

[dcharrison]

That "LiveTracker" looks to be an Asus C90. There's A nice look at the internals here:
PC Perspective - Computex 2007 - Asus goes all out

Looking around at prices, Sonica doesn't seem to be charging much of a premium for the audio tweeking. I'm a pretty hard core DIY guy, but lately I am asking myself, "Why?"

The ability to upgrade processors in a laptop is particularly appealing.

I understand that nobody is actually doing Firewire 800 in duplex mode in the wacky world of Windows. Apparently Microsoft "broke" it with SP2. Now, with a few select controllers and the right array of drivers and patches, you might be able to get 400 one way and 800 the other. There's a very interesting (make that frightening) discussion of firewire problems on the RME site. RME Intelligent Audio Solutions: Tech Info Overview

Still, I like this one. What else is out there? Anybody using a tablet PC?

[John Moran]

Originally Posted by dcharrison

That "LiveTracker" looks to be an Asus C90. There's A nice look at the internals here:
PC Perspective - Computex 2007 - Asus goes all out

Looking around at prices, Sonica doesn't seem to be charging much of a premium for the audio tweeking. I'm a pretty hard core DIY guy, but lately I am asking myself, "Why?"

The ability to upgrade processors in a laptop is particularly appealing.

I understand that nobody is actually doing Firewire 800 in duplex mode in the wacky world of Windows. Apparently Microsoft "broke" it with SP2. Now, with a few select controllers and the right array of drivers and patches, you might be able to get 400 one way and 800 the other. There's a very interesting (make that frightening) discussion of firewire problems on the RME site. RME Intelligent Audio Solutions: Tech Info Overview

Still, I like this one. What else is out there? Anybody using a tablet PC?

i feel the same about about DIY particularly with a laptop. if sonica has done the heavy lifting and sorted out the particulars and guarantees performance with specific items for two years, i have to ask myself what's the time/money/aggravation factor vs reinventing the wheel on this one. screw it, get it built and if it screws up, which mine hasn't, there's actual support rather than another trip to the parts store and time spent figuring it out solo. there are larger screen versions of the asus coming soon.

[videoteque]

The LiveTracker II cost exactly the same as the basic MacBook Pro. Why bother with Windows at all???

[BrianT]

Originally Posted by John Moran

i feel the same about about DIY particularly with a laptop. if sonica has done the heavy lifting and sorted out the particulars and guarantees performance with specific items for two years, i have to ask myself what's the time/money/aggravation factor vs reinventing the wheel on this one. screw it, get it built and if it screws up, which mine hasn't, there's actual support rather than another trip to the parts store and time spent figuring it out solo. there are larger screen versions of the asus coming soon.

The biggest upside to a 17" version would be the second internal drive bay. RAID 0, RAID 1 or just dedicated OS vs Audio drives (depends on your idea of a good time) would have to be a plus in a laptop.

[BrianT]

Originally Posted by videoteque

The LiveTracker II cost exactly the same as the basic MacBook Pro. Why bother with Windows at all???

Funny you should say that.

I'm typing this on a 17" Macbook Pro with 4GB of ram.

I spend more time on XP in my Bootcamp partition than in the OSX partition, when I'm working on audio. Seems faster with the same apps, which includes PT 7.x , Ableton Live and Nuendo 4 on both the Mac and PC partitions.

I bother with Windows for the same reason I bother with OSX. Because I need the computer to boot up, so I can get to my apps. Once in the app, there's not much difference either way, except XP with the eye candy turned off seems a little leaner and quicker than OSX. Of course, it seems a lot leaner and quicker than Vista.

Mac vs PC grief is sooooooo yesterday. The reason I use a MBP is because it's both.

[videoteque]

The reason I use a MBP is because it's both.

Exactly, if you buy a LiveTracker you are stuck with Windows, if you buy a MacBook Pro you have both OS X and Windows. Choose your poison???

[Don S]

Using a older G4 titanium 1.5 without any problems.

[John Moran]

Originally Posted by videoteque

The LiveTracker II cost exactly the same as the basic MacBook Pro. Why bother with Windows at all???

The specific rationale is I needed Windows for some apps that I prefer, have used for several years and that are not available in Mac OS. Given this was to be a pretty specific audio box for this application, why should I have this machine have the pertinent operating system, XP, running as a subset to the primary host operating system of OSX on hardware optimized to OSX. Common sense seems to say that stability and ease of service would be best served by having the hardware, application and operating system completely matched, no questions asked. There are some hardware oddities like no right click built into the trackpack switches, different key assignments on the keyboard and other not so optimized for XP issues with the Macbook. Apple talks about some of them here: Apple - Support - Bootcamp

I don't want to compromise or adjust or workaround, I want things to work as they are designed to do.

Secondly, the ability to upgrade the hardware in the Asus/Sonica down the road was considered. If I can easily upgrade the cpu and other components with newer parts as the Asus is intrinsically designed to do, that extends the life of that box greatly. I have enough laptops in Mac and PC that cannot be upgraded currently being used for doorstops and paperweights.

Thirdly, and this is a good one, the Asus has SATA external port built in. I can have disc drives on that and not tie up the Firewire ports or the card slot with hard drive traffic leaving those free to deal with audio interface i/o traffic. Macbook doesn't offer a built in external SATA port.

Now just for clarity sake, I'm a long time Mac for audio user, going back to Sound Tools on original Macs, then Sonic Solutions SSP & USP on Quadras, then adding Digital Performer on dual processor G4 and then Pro Tools HD3 Accel also on Mac. A Sequoia rig on a Dell XPS with Lynx AES interfaces replaced the Sonic rig several years ago becoming the first Windows based dedicated audio box in the string. Now comes the Asus/Sonica laptop to replace the Dell and make that system faster, smaller and portable as needed. You should also note that at this time, it is XP and not Vista for the operating system on the Windows side of things.

It's a fairly logical progression. If I need a Mac for something, I'll get it because it is optimized and serves that purpose the best. I'm application driven, not OS driven. FWIW, I understand that Asus is the oem for Apple's laptop line. Now will Apple allow the building of component upgradeable laptops if Asus is successful with the C90 and its forthcoming ilk? No telling.

[John Moran]

Originally Posted by BrianT

The biggest upside to a 17" version would be the second internal drive bay. RAID 0, RAID 1 or just dedicated OS vs Audio drives (depends on your idea of a good time) would have to be a plus in a laptop.

Put as many drive(s) as you want on the SATA port then swap them out at will. I do that right now.

[BrianT]

But you can't have a mirrored OS drive or a compact, battery driven dual drive setup that way.

I know what you're saying, but I can't see where dual internal drives as an option is a bad thing. I'm sure Sonica will have a dual drive 17" option soon.

[John Moran]

Originally Posted by BrianT

But you can't have a mirrored OS drive or a compact, battery driven dual drive setup that way.

I know what you're saying, but I can't see where dual internal drives as an option is a bad thing. I'm sure Sonica will have a dual drive 17" option soon.

Battery doesn't mean that much to me as running time is going to be pretty short for internal batteries; it's more the comfort factor of having a built in UPS. Most every thing else runs on shore power, ie the better preamps, converter boxes, etc. It's more a question of reduced size of the rig for portability as compared to lugging a tower or rack frame and monitor about. The modern laptop, a small i/o rack, some headphones and mics and you are off to the races for many things at performance levels unachievable in a studio ten years ago. Five years ago it would have taken a maxed out tower with a bunch of processor cards to do what we can today with something that fits in a carry bag. Somehow we still find things to complain about.

I'm not knocking dual internals at all; swappable drives give me more flexibility for extended recording or quickly changing out ongoing projects. Raw drives are now less expensive than 2" tape while holding and doing more. To that end, what's the point of data tape or optical backup these days? Copy the drive and put them on the shelf; it's faster and more easily recovered.

I think one of the cool things with the Asus "white box" approach is that a machine could easily offer a dual drive option if they lay out the guts of the machine to allow the room. Where do you put it or what would you trade out to make space? Then again a 17" or larger might not have to lose anything and simply have room for two drives. I wonder if they are considering this for their upcoming machines. I don't know of any laptops that do this presently. Asus claims they want to have tower configuration flexibility in laptop frames. I hope they succeed. I hope Apple is paying attention. So far, so good with the first iteration.

[dcharrison]

Originally Posted by videoteque

The LiveTracker II cost exactly the same as the basic MacBook Pro. Why bother with Windows at all???

I go through the "Screw it! I'm buyin' a Mac" exercise about every 18 months. I have the ultimate respect for Apple as a company, I spent 2 days out in Cupertino with senior Apple execs and some of their high-level nerds (Mostly they were NeXt expats.) Great OS (Carnegie Mellon's port of AT&T's Unix). Leading industrial design. Same Intel procs, now. Serious cool factor, and membership in a cult at no extra charge.

For me, things always tilt back to Windows when I add up all the software I would have to replace and re-learn. Still, I'm open.

Frankly, for performance recording, I wish someone would just strap an imbedded linux machine into one of these converters, put record and play buttons on the front and let me snap the drives out when the performance is over. Trinity actually is working on a two track version of this Trinity Specs

Meanwhile, I'm looking for something that will support tracking and some light editing and processing. Clearly both of these are possible on either platform. There are also tricks and traps on both sides of the divide. Let's keep this thread concentrated on what's working and what's not. What's "best" is more appropriate to a cage fight than a forum.

On the Mac side, is Firewire 800 working with the Fireface 800? Anybody actually using 2 Fireface 800s cascaded off an 800 port?

[dcharrison]

Originally Posted by BrianT

But you can't have a mirrored OS drive or a compact, battery driven dual drive setup that way.

Boy, does this open a can of worms (and perhaps another thread). It was probably someone trying to optimize both reliability and performance in disk operations who said, "It is difficult for a man to sit between two stools."

Striping (RAID 0): Fast and cheap, but twice as likely to fail as a single drive.
Mirrored drives (RAID 1): about the same speed as a single drive on writes, usually a drain on the processor, and essentially twice as expensive, but can recover from drive hardware failure (usually). Drive corruption from software (in my experience, more common) gives you two sets of the same corrupt data.

I am starting to think that backing up nightly to a network drive, and replacing working drives every 18 months whether they are broken are not might be the way to go.