Portability at its Finest.....( I think.....)

So I was thinking the other day,
If I get a netbook,with reason, and one of those small midi controllers, with my mpc500.....I can create almost anything anywhere with whats in my jansport.
My friend said that it may be overkill for my netbook though
what do you guys think?

Mr Baskerville wrote:So I was thinking the other day,
If I get a netbook,with reason, and one of those small midi controllers, with my mpc500.....I can create almost anything anywhere with whats in my jansport.
My friend said that it may be overkill for my netbook though
what do you guys think?

Depends on your netbook processor. I thought the same thing... only problem is where I am they only have 1GB RAM units available... I see 3 and 4GB's in other places- makes me slightly jealous.

You'd have to be pretty quick using the netbook too... battery power would last less than the 500. Unless of course yur plugged in somewhere- which kinda defeats portability.

BLiTzZD wrote:

Mr Baskerville wrote:So I was thinking the other day,
If I get a netbook,with reason, and one of those small midi controllers, with my mpc500.....I can create almost anything anywhere with whats in my jansport.
My friend said that it may be overkill for my netbook though
what do you guys think?

Depends on your netbook processor. I thought the same thing... only problem is where I am they only have 1GB RAM units available... I see 3 and 4GB's in other places- makes me slightly jealous.

You'd have to be pretty quick using the netbook too... battery power would last less than the 500. Unless of course yur plugged in somewhere- which kinda defeats portability.

well, my friend has a netbook which he upgraded to 2 gigs and it runs great.
Also, I look at portable meaning away for the home or studio.
If im at work or school or anywhere im not usually working on music, and i can plug everything into a power strip then i consider that portability. It isnt the dictionary's definitiong but it works.

As far as battery life, if i can get at least 2 hours i will be good. I know if I am using a midi controller that means less time for my netbook.....but......i can get an extra battery ..... .....and just keep my hand close to the save button lol

i hate laptops, because im always looking at how much batery life is left and it makes me feel like im working against the clock. its not like i can just pop in some AA batteries and keep going like i can with the 500, thats why im working with a desktop and then use the 500 to work/finish beats on the go.

but make sure if your going with a laptop, that it has enough ram and battery life to run and support your programs.

I have a Samsung GO, arriving today (supposedly...GRRRR UPS). I'm not sure where you guys are getting your info on battery life from. This baby has an average of 8.5 hours battery time (I researched independant reviews on CNET and other sites, not going by the manufacturers info), can be upgraded to 2GB ram, and has a 1.6 Ghz processor. Now I know 1.6 isn't much these days, but it will be enough to do multiple tracks, effects, instruments until I can get home and dump them to my main desktop for finishing. I've recently moved to a lakehouse an hour north of NYC, so I want to utilize the hour trainride. As long as there's minimum latency (I have a nanokontrol, and want to tweak parameters in realtime) I should be fine. I'm gonna dump Komplete 5, my Audio Damage and Camel plugs and Live and Tracktion, and should be good to go!

Skip the netbook, Reason on it is acceptable, but Record is completely useless.

Ableton Live works okay for a few tracks maybe 6-8, but again why bother?

Get a DS with Korg DS-10, Electroplankton, Jam Session or whatever.

Get an iPhone/iTouch there are a *ton* of synths/romplers on there to sample off of, oh and net stations, music, etc....

There are much better options than a netbook... I know I dumped mine on eBay recently as it was just barely useful.

Well, I'm typing this on my new Netbook. Installed Live, Plogue, NI Komplete and some plugs. Ableton is pretty shakey on it. Its funny how some plugs are fine, others (PSP Nitro, take 40% cpu hit (and its just a simple filter). Reaktor works fine as a plug, but won't open as a standalone. Absynth seems ok, but takes a huge CPU hit. I'm fine with all this, I didn't expect this to be a serious production 'puter. I'll probably just use it to edit samples and tweak and mangle samples in Plogue. The latency is really low with the built-in sound codec, and my NanoKontrol works great, so all-in-all I'm happy. Just don't expect to finish any complete songs on it.

Just loaded Cubase on my Netbook
yet to try it out though ill keep u all posted

FTR my netbook has a battery life of 7 hours

i never gave this combination much thought but now i'm really interested to see how it goes for you guys - please keep us updated!!

I have yet to upgrade my Ram to 2 gigs. I can run cubase but after a while it messes up. I should be upgrading this weekend. Im hopin this fixes the issues im having . If not, I will just use my netbook to chop my samples for my 500.