choosing a computer for live audio

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verytorpe

New member
I want to route live audio (guitars, vocals... up to 5 instruments at a time, a couple fx plugins per instrument) through a computer in order to mix and add effects. Ocasionally, the same computer would be also receiving midi data and playing a software sampler , with maybe a couple of fx too.
which of those computer do you think would be better (if any) in order to accomplish this?

a option: barebone p4 asus pundit-r, 3.2 ghz 1GB
b option: minimac 1,42 ghz 1 GB?

Any advice will be welcome, i'm abolutely new to all this live audio stuff

thanks
 
verytorpe said:
I want to route live audio (guitars, vocals... up to 5 instruments at a time, a couple fx plugins per instrument) through a computer in order to mix and add effects. Ocasionally, the same computer would be also receiving midi data and playing a software sampler , with maybe a couple of fx too.
which of those computer do you think would be better (if any) in order to accomplish this?

a option: barebone p4 asus pundit-r, 3.2 ghz 1GB
b option: minimac 1,42 ghz 1 GB?

Any advice will be welcome, i'm abolutely new to all this live audio stuff

thanks
Click to expand...

Personally I would go for the PC as it has far more power.
Are you sure the minimac is not much cheaper than the PC though - it's not a fair comparison unless they are the same price.

Also, bear in mind that 'barebones' means no hard drive, no optical drive, no RAM, no CPU etc etc.
 
i don't care too much about price (at least about this price range) as far as i get a powerful and stable machine. Reading all that "macs are so powerful/stable/etc" thing is making me doubt if would it be a good idea buying a pc. i don't think that 1.42 ghz Mac cold be better than 3.2 pc, and win xpsp2 is not win95, but i'm not a computer expert and i need some feedback. thanks for your advice!
 
verytorpe said:
i don't care too much about price (at least about this price range) as far as i get a powerful and stable machine. Reading all that "macs are so powerful/stable/etc" thing is making me doubt if would it be a good idea buying a pc. i don't think that 1.42 ghz Mac cold be better than 3.2 pc, and win xpsp2 is not win95, but i'm not a computer expert and i need some feedback. thanks for your advice!
Click to expand...

I know pros who use MACs for audio and I know pros who use PCs.
Go with whatever you're most comfortable with or what you've been trained on.

Personally I build my own PCs as I can fix them myself without worrying about warrenties and if an optical drive goes wrong (for instance) I don't have to send the entire machine off to be fixed - I just remove the broken part and replace that and still have a computer to work with.

I highly recommend getting into DIY PC builds - it's not difficult, it's cheap, fun and gets great results IME.

If you're sold on MAC/OS though then go for one of them...
I would steer clear of the mini though - they're cute, portable and very very quiet but rather under-powered for DAW work IMO.
 
Yeah, The mac mini is good but theres the question about upgrading also with it. It can have a max of 1GB ram which is enough at the moment, but if you keep it for a year or 2 then it might start to lack a little.. Also theres no PCI slots in the mac mini which means you can only use firewire or usb soundcards. Like codmate said, go with whichever your most comfortable with. I would suggest, if your go with a mac, look into the G4 powermac, or if you want more portability, go with the G4 powerbook.

Good luck
 
If the powerbook had 1GB and was the 1.2ghz i would think it would be just as powerful yeah. If one is more powerful than the other, it wouldnt be noticeable at all. I think in your case it all comes down to which you feel more comfortable with, Windows or OSX?
 
It would be *much* less powerful.
The Apple powerbook is crippled by a very old-fasioned low-speed front-side-bus as well as a rather antiquated CPU (clock speed *does* matter for audio work).
But then I wouldn't go with the P4 either - AMD offer the best bang for buck these days.

An AMD64 system would be an excellent choice IMO.
I've just built one here in work for rather a low price - it's a multi-media editing workstation and cost under £800 to build.

It has a GB of decent RAM running in dual channel mode on an NForce4 mainboard with an AMD64 3000+ chip.

If you're looking for a decent spec you could do worse than the one below...
The machine isn't amazingly quiet (I would recommend getting a full-size case and filling it with Zalman products if you want to go the quiet pc route) but it is small form factor and far from the noisiest machine I've heard. Getting a graphics card with no fan would be a good move for a quiter life :)

I haven't specified a sound-card/audio-interface here either.

BareBones
---------
Shuttle XPC SN95G5V2 Aluminium Barebones System - AMD 64
(Socket 939)

CPU
---
AMD Athlon 64 3000+ Winchester 90nm (Socket 939) - Retail

RAM
---
GeIL 1GB (2x512MB) PC3200 Value

HDD
---
Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 Plus NCQ 300GB SATA
8MB Cache - OEM

Video card
----------
Sapphire ATI Radeon "The Beast" 9600XT All-in-Wonder 128MB
DDR VIVO TV-Out/DVI (AGP) - OEM

DVD-RW
------
NEC ND3520 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter OEM
 
besides that silly one-button, i have no problem in using xp or osx. but, would a 1,2 ghz iBook outperform a 1,42 minimac? there is such a diference between their processors?
About amd, I had some serious problems with the one i owned, so i think this time i'll go for intel. But yes, they were somewhat cheaper. Anyways, the price difference is not that much.
Does any of you ever had any experience using computers in live situations? Am I focusing correctly this problem? All i've used until now are my boss and zoom stomp boxes
 
Think it will mater more how rugged the box is than what is actually inside. It will have to survive on the road.
 
verytorpe said:
would a 1,2 ghz iBook outperform a 1,42 minimac? there is such a diference between their processors?
Click to expand...
I'm pretty sure the iBook and Mini are architecturally quite similar - same processor core, same bus, etc... I think they even have similar hard drives.
 
I'm an avid Mac supporter, but I wouldn't recommend a Mac Mini or iBook for live audio. I know my 1.5ghz Powerbook can do at least 4 tracks at once (some people say it can handle up to 8), but if you add effects, MIDI, etc... I think it'd keel over and die. I have one of those Pundits at work. It's a pretty slick machine.
 
verytorpe said:
do you think a g4 powerbook would be more powerful than a p4 3.2 ghz 1GB?
Click to expand...

As both Mac/PC user, my sentiment is not reflecting platform liking, one vs other, certainly not in this case. But even formulation of making these two for comparison is preposterous.

Processing power of particular P4 truly makes even surface consideration with mentioned G4, affair obsolete by all means. Far from suggesting that G4 is powerless, it can be employed in useful work, but with this P4 every serious speed and power consideration ends as only choice for your work.
 
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But even formulation of making these two for comparison is preposterous.
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That's what I thought, but after reading all that stuff about macs pissing off pcs for audio, I was starting to be intrigued, specially after having been working with both platforms using graphic applications and noticing no special advantage in using mac over pc.

Anyways, thanks everybody for your help!
pundit p4 3.2 ghz+ 1gb ram + 80 gb hdd + delta 1010lt + 15'' tft = 600 e (roughly). that money is not enough in order to buy just a minimac 1.42 + 1gb ram, which besides is a slower machine... well... apple rules!
 
verytorpe,

the one thing missed here is that you do NOT use a computer for live audio mixing.

if you wanted to use a computer for midi/softsynths...ok. maybe if you wanted to use it for one or two "special" effects...ok.
a few backing tracks? ok...maybe...

as a general live mixer...NO!!!

for live audio you need something that is critically dependable/stable...not "my computer has never crashed stable..." you need "it can't crash" stable.

then comes the whole interface problem. at the very least you'd need a control surface with knobs and faders...which you could get...but i'd imagine you'd still have to click your way to edit parameters for those small things that ALWAYS need adjusting in live audio...and that added time could spell disaster.

then comes the whole problem with latency...and setup time...

and what about when you want to start routing to monitors and stuff?

if you like the idea of having a mixer with built-in effects at your disposal (vs. having hardware effects)...then maybe you'd be interested in a digital board like the yamaha 01v96. yamaha is even developing add-in effects for it.
consider that digital live boards are just starting to be used ("starting" in the grand scheme of things)...but a computer???

bottom line:
do not purchase a computer with the idea of using it as a live mixer.
 
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I'd mostly use it for fx and triggering some samples (and some sonftsynths). About mixing... i didn't even think about the subject. should I route the audio through the buses of the mixer to the computer? isn't that similar to use it for general mixing, in terms of stability?
excuse me if my questions seem to be a little silly, basically i've always worked just with computer and plugins.

Thanks!
 
for the softsynths and midi triggered stuff you'd probably be using a program along the lines of energyxt...or perhaps ableton live...

you may want to ask around at the kvraudio.com forums and/or some live keyboard forums...

general signal processing (comps, gates, verb, delay etc...)
should be handled by standalone units...or the built-in effects of a digital board.

however, if you were to use a special vst (amp modeling, lo-fi sounds, etc.) for live signal processing...i probably wouldn't want to use the same computer that was also handling your softsynths and midi triggers.

also, you wouldn't be chaining a bunch of vst's together for tonal sweetening like you do in daw recording....a lot of it would be lost in the live setting anyways...plus...latency, latency, latency...and crash, hiccup, crash, hiccup, etc.

as far as routing....many ways to do it...from using your aux sends/direct outs/groups/splitting the signal, etc...i'd be weary of using a computer in a channel insert though.
 
I've been using ableton with a p4 2,7 ghz 2 GB and a gina42 (audio card) in my bedroom, playing 2 audio tracks with about 3/4 vst plugins each controlled from a boss gt5 (guitar multieffects), exs24 played from a roland tr5 (triggered drums) and ocasionally shooting short samples from the gt5 midi out.

latency, by now, does not seem to be an issue. theoretically, its 3ms long, or that's what ableton preferences say (i don't notice it). the vst plugins are filters controlled in realtime from the gt5; controlling the gt5's choruses, delays, etc produces some kinda zipper noise. No hiccups, no crashes... but i wonder how much do I need in order to route at least four additional audio tracks

I didn't think about monitoring neither... it seems that i have to make some research yet, i'l take a look at those forums you say. but I see pcs, even laptops, next to the mixing desk when I go to live gigs. what are they for?

thanks again!
 
many times they are for running an audio analysis program such as smaart, spectrafoo, macfoh, etc...

also, you tweak some of the dsp processor settings (driverack, protea, etc.) with a computer/laptop.

in addition to kvr for the vst stuff, ask around at prosoundweb.com for the live audio aspect...
 
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