Which notebooks do you use on stage?

Go with Mac :wink:

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I have never had to tweak my Mac for audio stuff. Everything just works out of the box. In fact, just today, I plugged in a new Tascam US20x20 audio interface into my Mac and it just worked. No drivers to install, etc.

There are some important reasons for this. OS X has always had built-in support for real-time audio and MIDI whereas in the Windows world, that stuff was bolted on almost as an afterthought. Also, because there are so many hardware configurations in the Windows world, it’s much harder for developers to get things working well there (Trust me on that one - even though Gig Performer runs just fine on Windows, we had some serious headaches along the way to make it be that way - other developers will have had similar problems).

Because of this there are many restrictions on what you can do on Windows. For example, most audio drivers only allow one application to access them at a time, same with MIDI. If you want virtual MIDI ports, you have to install third party drivers.

As for the B5 vs. Blue3, obviously use whichever you like better. I haven’t tweaked Blue3 myself other than keyclick amount but I love it (I have B5 and VB3 and several others as well!) . Also, I much prefer physical modelling to sample-based systems.


Disclaimer - the above is my personal opinion as an end user of Gig Performer, plugins and laptops, and not in my official capacity as one of the GP developers.

Even RME interfaces with their supposedly solid drivers didn’t help? I have been thinking of purchasing an RME interface for my Windows machines myself, but I better wait.

There’s one Kontakt library that I just can’t run in Windows machines no matter how much tweaking I did. Virtuoso Ensemble by Kirk Hunter. When I run its multis, just way too much crackling and pops even at 512 sample rate. Today, I installed Komplete in my old Mid 2002 Macbook Pro. Very impressive! No pops at 128 sample rate. It performed much better than I expected. Still, I am an avid Windows user. All other libraries and VST plug-ins run just fine in GP on all my Windows machines. I am just thankful that GP is also written for Windows. GP is the most important music app emphasized text_ I have a number of music apps that run only on Windows. I wonder what percentage of GP users are Windows or Mac users.

I have been a major fan of RME for years — sound quality and low latency is superb and a UFX is part of my touring rig (which is Mac based).

Having said that, I’m currently experimenting with a Tascam US 20x20 interface. It doesn’t have quite as much functionality as the RME (although it has 10 analog outputs instead of the RME’s 8 - and yes, I currently use 8 analog outputs and our FOH would love me to use 10)

So far, I have to say I’m very impressed with it. The sound quality seems to be really excellent and at the end of the day, that’s what really counts as far as I’m concerned.

I’m running an i7 dual thinkpad , Gp in predictive mode, no issues so far,( my I/O is scope exite at 13 ms latency ) : but running 6 songs all using omnisphere with average of 4 patches per multi gives no problems if u turn off all the keyscape / / omnisphere extras like realism pedal sounds , over 20 note polyphony , proverbs off ( use 1 on Fx master bus), idiots who program omnisphere load up effects irrationally ; add thinning

Yes, I wish I went Mac , but my card runs hdmi like cable from I/o and the computer needs a card slot

The thinkpad was around 700 with 2 ssd drives, 16 g ram , overall reasonable

@Wired
What kind of music/band are you playing?
I am interested because it seems, Omnisphere is your main sound creator.

@Wired
For me a latency under 5ms is OK, 13ms would be too much as I use in ear monitoring
and I play with a click

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5 ms wow, I can do 7 ms also, mostly piano and pads , also jazz, ( which isn’t demanding , ), I have nexus, k11, spire, sylenth, etc, but find everything in O sphere, except brass, if i can keep it simple , that’s best, I have outboard gear to

I know this is old but they developed rme’s on windows based system. This info come from an rme distributor in Australia