No current off-the-shelf PC laptop w/working DAW firewire?!?

[Studiodawg]

Beware: if you buy a new PC laptop that has Vista and you retro-load XP, you may not get all the drivers you need. I did this and don't have laptop sound, but use either Presonus Firebox -or- Firestudio/Digimax FS with my retro fitted Sony Vaio...it is rock solid, purrs like a kitten and is a total digital freak...never been on internet and only records audio and edits video...the point is, if you retrofit from Vista to XP, it might be a hassle, but in my case it worked out because I have a friend that is a real computer guru that hunted down drivers in all corners of the web...I seriously doubt there are no Windows laptops with Firewire that won't do what you need. What seems to be the real issue is money. ADK, Rainsong and others can hook you up if you have the $$$$. Good luck.

[Bro Shark]

Yeah it's all coming back to me now as well. When I bought my laptop, Vista had just come out but I intentionally went with XP Pro. I then wiped the hard drive and reinstalled XP clean, without Dell's array of "features". I then had to track down a bunch of drivers online. That was a pain in the butt. At the end of the day it was worth it though.

A 7200 RPM system drive is worth it. Mine is 60GB. It doesn't need to be huge, because all your data files will be on the audio drive. 7200 or 10K RPM firewire audio drive -- necessity. Max out your RAM and then look at some of the different "optimizing XP for DAW" articles out there.

Personally I'm not able to daisy chain my 002R and audio drive off the same FW bus. Need to run them off separate buses. That's what I got the cardbus adaptor for. It was pretty cheap and it works.

[kingmetal]

MOTU stuff and PCs are a bad combo, in my experience. I know it works for some people, but man I wasted a lot of time trying to get them to work with two different computers (custom built by me) and as soon as I switched to the Firepod I've had nothing but total stability.

YMMV and all that shit.

Max out the RAM, make sure your system drive is at least 5400rpm (7200rpm would be better), don't record audio to the system drive, clean install of Windows XP (getting rid of all that crap that most laptops are filled with these days) and you'll be good to go.

This has been my 8th computer that this same 828MKII has lived on and none of them have had so much as a hiccup, so my mileage is certainly varied. Certainly not calling you a liar, just citing a different experience - sounds like you've had enough bad experiences and I've had enough good experiences to cancel each other out.

My dad's Traveler has been a little wonky from time to time, but the man abuses his computer so I'm not totally willing to blame it on the hardware - and mostly I think his problems stem from him forgetting to turn the thing on and then launching an audio app, confusing the app and then confusing him. ESO (equipment smarter than operator) as we say in the biz.

[b3groover]

To be fair, I don't have any experience with MOTU's firewire interfaces, just the PCI-based ones.

[Aj]

Ctmsound, is this the white MacBook you speak of?

http://www.apple.com/macbook/white/

[kingmetal]

To be fair, I don't have any experience with MOTU's firewire interfaces, just the PCI-based ones.

Ahh, and I'm the opposite - I've never used a PCI-based MOTU. I wonder if MOTU got a bad rep from their PCI based products - I've heard plenty of people say that MOTU stuff is unreliable and I've always thought it was really strange.

[ctmsound]

Ctmsound, is this the white MacBook you speak of?

http://www.apple.com/macbook/white/

Yup. I have that exact laptop. Running Cubase 5 on OSX and windows xp pro via bootcamp. Works great. Haven't had any problems yet.


As for MOTU PCI stuff, my 24 I/O via PCI card on my windows XP box (custom built) runs fantastic! I've had one hiccup in the 5 years that I've owned it and this is a rig that I take out to venues and record bands. It sees a lot of bumps, car rides, and all kinds of hauling around that beats the piss out of my rack case that it sits in.

[Aj]

Thanks for the reply, ctmsound... I'm considering getting the MacBook and just running Cubase w/Bootcamp and XP.

However, I did a bit more research on these white Macbooks, and it appears there are TWO different flavors (at least two, I should say):

1) The original white Mac Book. This model has a TI firewire chipset, and 1 GB ram stock - this was in production roughly until last fall.

2) A newer white Mac Book. Looks pretty much identical, but uses a slightly faster (1066 mHz) frontside bus on the processor, a faster video chip and it ships with 2gb ram stock. It still has Firewire (400), but it *apparently* no longer has a TI firewire chipset - at least one user (over at the RME forum) has reported his new Mac Book has Lucent firewire. It seems this model was hastily introduced to help quiet the uproar when the new Aluminum series Mac portables were released without Firewire ports.

Do you happen to know which of these you have (and what brand firewire chip it has)? I'd also be curious to know if anyone is successfully using one of these to run Cubase 4 (or 5) on WinXP (via Bootcamp)....

Aj

(Oh, and in case anyone's keeping score ... lots of helpful advice has been offered, but so far every PC laptop recommended in this thread is *not* a currently-in-production model, so the original point of this thread still stands. Believe me, I wouldn't consider a Mac if there was an alternative! Nothing against Macs, just personal preference. I can't believe the marketplace doesn't have an option for me...)

[Aj]

1) The original white Mac Book. This model has a TI firewire chipset, and 1 GB ram stock - this was in production roughly until last fall.

I take that back. I've read more about this, and apparently even Apple abandoned the TI firewire chipset a year+ ago. Now all Mac laptops are using the Lucent (Agere?) chips, best I can tell. There are a bunch of seriously worrying forum messages around the Net from users having issues with their sound interfaces on these Mac Books. Just google "Mac Book White Lucent Firewire", and there they are... right at the top of the search results.

Argh!!!

Aj

[b3groover]

To be fair, I don't have any experience with MOTU's firewire interfaces, just the PCI-based ones.

Ahh, and I'm the opposite - I've never used a PCI-based MOTU. I wonder if MOTU got a bad rep from their PCI based products - I've heard plenty of people say that MOTU stuff is unreliable and I've always thought it was really strange.

Could be...

I tried for literally 2 years to get my MOTU stuff stable, even going so far as building another computer. I sent my MOTU stuff back to the company, they refurbished it, I bought a new PCI-424 card from them... and I still had random crashes that made no sense. It could be working fine for days and then all of a sudden Cubase would just crash. Without warning. And sometimes the computer would just restart. Without warning.

The Firepods have been rock solid stable. No crashing, no rebooting, just solid.

It's weird.

[ctmsound]

I'm using this one:

http://support.apple.com/kb/SP5

The model before the one that is out currently.

[Aj]

I'm using this one:

http://support.apple.com/kb/SP5

The model before the one that is out currently.

Ah, I suspected that... that's an older model that has been replaced in their product line-up. The current model no longer has the TI firewire (and thus the reported incompatibilities with soundcards, it seems). And apparently, there are no other firewire laptops in Apple's product line anymore.

So, once again, I must report that I have found *no* user recommendations for current off-the-shelf laptops in this application (low-latency multitrack recording, softsynths, etc. with Firewire soundcard).

I have to wonder - are the soundcard makers going to be forced to switch over to some new interface standard (USB 2.0? something else?), given the sorry state of Firewire in laptops available today? I'd be happy just using a USB-based sound interface if there were manufacturers offering high quality, full-featured pro products (and not just the low-end stuff).

Aj

[b3groover]

Seriously, it's not as big of deal as it used to be. Stick with a major brand like Toshiba or HP that has decent specs and you should be fine. If the onboard firewire bus has issues you can always just get a good PCMCIA (aka cardbus) firewire adapter and be done with it.

Really.

People have given examples in this thread. No, they aren't "current off-the shelf models" but since you know they work you can compare their specs with current models from the same manufacturer and come to a pretty reliable conclusion as to whether the new model would work or not. My guess is that most modern PC laptops with enough RAM and a stripped-down install of XP would do the job nicely.

[antilog]

I've done a lot of wrestling with this, and came to the following points
- Vista works better than XP re: firewire drivers
- Don't rely on the crappy firewire implementation builtin to the PC, use an addon card with a Texas Instruments chipset
- Use the latest interface drivers

Simple.

[Aj]

Seriously, it's not as big of deal as it used to be. Stick with a major brand like Toshiba or HP that has decent specs and you should be fine. If the onboard firewire bus has issues you can always just get a good PCMCIA (aka cardbus) firewire adapter and be done with it.

Really.

People have given examples in this thread. No, they aren't "current off-the shelf models" but since you know they work you can compare their specs with current models from the same manufacturer and come to a pretty reliable conclusion as to whether the new model would work or not. <b>My guess is that most modern PC laptops with enough RAM and a stripped-down install of XP would do the job nicely.</b>

Well.... not to beat a dead horse with a firewire cable (is that even possible? ), but my research has shown just the opposite. The Firewire capability of the latest PC laptops seems to actually be worse than previous generations, with many stories of soundcard incompatibilities, latency spikes, and so forth to be found online if you look for them. Again, I'd imagine others are shopping for workable laptop solutions, and I'd point interested readers of this thread to the these discussions on Sound On Sound's forum...

DPC Latency Survey
http://www.soundonsound.com/forum/showf ... t=1#588140

Survey of Recommended Laptops
http://www.soundonsound.com/forum/showf ... t=1#414373

Perhaps what I'm looking for is too much to ask from today's mainstream laptop market. I want to be able to record multitrack audio at low latency. Specifically, I want to record 16+ tracks of audio in realtime, with low latency and no clicks/pops. I want to be able to use programs like Guitar Rig, Ableton, etc. with very low latency in a live environment - just like my desktop rig can. And I want to be portable. That's where the laptop comes in.

Regarding adding an aftermarket firewire card... I've read that sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. No guarantees, and your success seems to be tied in some way to the laptop's on-board chipset anyway (the root of the problem here, I believe). A quote in a relevant Cubase.net thread, from Scott at ADK (they build premium pro audio laptops): "Adding a Ti based Express card to an already bad chipset at best allows the interface to work but not at low latency." The rest of that thread is here:

http://www.cubase.net/phpbb2/viewtopic. ... 94a5ed739b

I started this thread to see if, perhaps, some user here with a new laptop could chime in with a working solution. So far, I'm still waiting . I'm patient though. Thanks to everyone who replied. In the meantime, I've stuck a loose change jar on top of my desktop PC... when I save enough sheckels, I'll buy me one of those fancy custom pro audio laptops.

Aj

P.S. Antilog, thanks for the reply... what laptop model/soundcard are you using?