Dual Locations??

MONTE

MONTE

New member
Here's my dilema. I usually record other musician's or have someone sitting in the control room to start/stop the record process. I now am going to start doing a "solo" project and I need to be able to set levels, start/stop, etc. the workstation remotely. There will be nobody available to babysit the control room where the workstation and board are sitting. I have a laptop and could network it to the workstation or is there a better way to control the pc remotely? I'm just starting to consider this fiasco so any and all options are open at this point. Will networking the two pc's together slow down the DAW substantially? Are there ways to hook up a remote keyboard, mouse, and monitor. If anyone has ideas let me know. Thanks.
 
Hmmm....13 key board extensions?? Better yet look into an RF or IR remote for your computer. Should only run about 50 bucks and you can map keys to do what you want.

x10.com has the RF one. Ummmm....Maybe someone else could tell you where to find the IR one.

Beezoboy
 
I agree with Beezoboy - usually keyboard and monitor extensions don't come in huge lengths, so IR is your best bet.

You can also look into MIDI controllers. They can sync up to your recording app, and you can program buttons on the controller to do specific tasks (i.e. record, arm, etc..). I saw a review in a recent Electronic Musician mag. There's also a post from Cordura a few months ago that has an excellent resource for building your own if you're technically inclined (I was going to and never got around to it).
 
Good point - I hadn't thought of that. I use it almost every day for work (duh). If you could network them via 100baseT, you'd be home free - it moves pretty nicely (not like the old dialup days).
 
I am not familiar with PC Anywhere. Is it similar to a wireless device where you asign hot keys, or can you actually view what's happening on the other PC so that you could navigate around the DAW? That's kind of what I'm looking for. Also, does anyone know if it hogs much RAM? In other words, will it slow down the PC that's running the DAW much?
 
PC Anywhere is software that allows you to completely control one computer from another (don't remember how much it is, but I'm pretty sure it's under $100). There is a host PC (your DAW), and a remote PC (your laptop). When connected, you'll see your DAW's screen on your laptop, and everything you do on your remote - type, mouse movements - are actually happeing on the host.

To be honest, it probably will slow down your DAW a bit, but not much. If you can live with 16 or even 256 color mode while you're connected, I think you'll be fine. This is how I control the beef-monster computers I have at work.

You'd need to network them, and I strongly suggest 100 base T ethernet cards instead of the older 10 base T. You'll probably just need the 2 network cards and a crossover cable - you can get by without a hub if it's just the 2 computers that are being connected.
 
I was gonna run into the same problem in the near future and this solution seems pretty amazing, I would have never have come up with the idea on my own. Cool that you resourceful guys are here replying to these posts.;)
 
I didn't think Netmeeting did full realtime control - just connectivity & screenshow jazz. My contract tech company said the only way was via PcAnywhere (but of course, he doesn't make any money on free software). If it's free, it's worth a look. Anybody used GoToMyPC.com? Haven't checked it out, but it's supposed to be similar to PC Anywhere.
 
Yeh netmeeting uses whats called remote desktop sharing which allows you to fully control your computer from any other location.

Tukkis
 
Thanks a ton fellas. I've gotta get a PCI or USB to NIC adaptor for my laptop and I'll try this stuff out. Again...thank you for your help. You guys are great.
 
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