Help!...need recommendation for live laptop use.

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Doe
Posts: 4
Joined: 01:05, 14 April 2008

Help!...need recommendation for live laptop use.

Post by Doe »

Help Please!.... My wife plays a Juno G which we want to use live on stage. She has a laptop with tons of sounds. This works fine for recording but the laptop sound chip has a terrible latency problem outputting from the sound-out to our sound system. Can anybody recommend a external unit as a interface. She uses the USB cable to connect to the laptop. It has 2 more USB's + Firewire capability. The laptop is a Compaq R4000 with an AMD64 3200+ and 1 gig of memory. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I know this might be off topic but I'm drawing blanks trying to resolve this issue.
Thanks in advance,
Doe and Alan
javaj_
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Joined: 20:49, 7 January 2008
Location: Calgary, AB, Canada
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Re: Help!...need recommendation for live laptop use.

Post by javaj_ »

Sonic Cell
RobJuno
Posts: 315
Joined: 17:43, 3 January 2008

Re: Help!...need recommendation for live laptop use.

Post by RobJuno »

I assume from your other (now locked) post, that you don't have a specialised audio/midi interface and that you are using the laptop's built-in capabilities? I don't agree with the response you got at the other post. It's all about software drivers and what they can achieve in relation to the hardware they're written for.

I bought the Cubase System4 package when it existed (not sure if it still does now) which was Cubase SL3 with Steinberg's own MI4 audio/midi interface. The specific ASIO drivers written specially for the hardware allow low latencies (which also vary within other software such as softsynth on a per-program basis, but alwats acceptably quick). In my experience ASIO drivers have always been quickest for me, but within these, the specific-to-hardware (midi/audio interface) are also much faster than genearal ASIO full-duplex or ASIO Mulitimedia drivers.

Basically, if you haven't added a professional midi/audio interface to your Juno-laptop set up, I would never expect low latency to be achievable. My PC could only manage about 50ms before i got mine, which was absolutely unusable. Anything that brings latency under 10ms becomes viable, but the quicker the better.

Any USB/Firewire audio interface should be fine, and they don't have to cost much at all, i.e. Edirol - a Roland sub-brand.
Doe
Posts: 4
Joined: 01:05, 14 April 2008

Re: Help!...need recommendation for live laptop use.

Post by Doe »

Thanks RobJuno, I knew the latency problem has been the Chipset but wasn't sure which interface would be best. I'm looking at the Edirol equipment now. I appricate the response. Will post winning result when achieved. Thanks again,

Alan and Doe
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