Perezvon Posted January 29, 2016 Share Posted January 29, 2016 What have you guys done to have your laptop run the most efficiently possible in live performance conditions ? My main computer is a desktop now so I don't really need anything on the laptop anymore. I've flushed all the documents, almost all the programs, etc... Unfortunately it's also running Win8 so maybe I should downgrade it to 7 since 8 is such a piece of shit. I've read some "guides" before making this thread but they offered only obvious advice like "Make sure it's properly powered", duh, or pointed to some "Bullshit optimization tool v2.03" which is the opposite of what I want : not having unnecessary stuff on the computer. Computers tend to act unstable when I get my hands on them and I really don't want shit to happen on d-day, if possible. How did you prepare your computer ? By formatting ? By doing nothing at all ? Anything particular I might want to do ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcbpete Posted January 29, 2016 Share Posted January 29, 2016 Maybe update to Win10 - Noticed quite the performance increase since the upgrade. But I'd just say to save effort: If it works OK at the moment and you're not getting any dropouts and stuttering and that just leave things as they are :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Perezvon Posted January 29, 2016 Author Share Posted January 29, 2016 Maybe update to Win10 - Noticed quite the performance increase since the upgrade. But I'd just say to save effort: If it works OK at the moment and you're not getting any dropouts and stuttering and that just leave things as they are :) Yes I could give 10 a shot ! I do have stuttering issues sometimes but that has to come from some heavy plugins that I just shouldn't use at all when performing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oscillik Posted January 29, 2016 Share Posted January 29, 2016 replace your spinning hard disk with an SSD Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcbpete Posted January 29, 2016 Share Posted January 29, 2016 Note - If you *do* update to Win10, don't be freaked out by the somewhat sluggish booting for the first few days. It seems to want to download heaps of updates and patches and that in the background but seems to take its time to eventually download all of them ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Perezvon Posted January 29, 2016 Author Share Posted January 29, 2016 replace your spinning hard disk with an SSD Good idea, thanks ! Note - If you *do* update to Win10, don't be freaked out by the somewhat sluggish booting for the first few days. It seems to want to download heaps of updates and patches and that in the background but seems to take its time to eventually download all of them ! Thanks for the warning, that would have bugged me for sure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 30, 2016 Share Posted January 30, 2016 dunno Windows specific stuff, but generally you'll want to get rid of as many unnecessary background tasks as possible. Basically, Windows thinks it is sitting on a desk, so it wants to look for printers, wifi, other peripherals, it does its own cleanup now and then etc... all separate processes and you need none of them for your music stuff. So open Task Manager, look at all the processes. Google each one. Research whether you can run your system without it. Find out how to prevent Windows from running launching it, etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
b born droid Posted January 31, 2016 Share Posted January 31, 2016 What have you guys done to have your laptop run the most efficiently possible in live performance conditions ? I bought a mac Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 1, 2016 Share Posted February 1, 2016 Only use native effects as these tend to run most reliable (at least in Renoise), don't use vst(i) or only use the ones you've tested extensively. Pretty much stick to a working set-up, system and practice the shit out of it, know how far you can push it depending on how you play live. Don't install any last minute programs, drivers whatever that can possibly influence the stability. Disabling any anti virus/firewall/malware suite's is a no brainer maybe, you don't want auto-update to kick in during a double drop . Same for any windows auto update scheduling, not sure, but isn't this impossible to configure in windows 10? Live on the edge and don't care too much . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
juiceciuj Posted February 1, 2016 Share Posted February 1, 2016 replace your spinning hard disk with an SSD yeah. i did this with a handmedown laptop i was given. only installed music software on it so far. it's a 5 yr old macbook pro but it's running live 9.5 better than my desktop. i did a completely clean os install (which was a bit of a fucking headache because they're really not designed to work that way and i didn't have an itunes account but whatev). ssd>clean os install>only music software>disable internet should be good to go Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Perezvon Posted February 1, 2016 Author Share Posted February 1, 2016 Awesome tips guys, thank you! Yes CCleaner is great, I've flushed everything with this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcbpete Posted February 1, 2016 Share Posted February 1, 2016 grab it from piriforms website, they're a great software company who strike me as relatively honest and low on bullshit https://www.piriform.com/ccleaner/download Both reasons why I ended up 'buying' their suite of tools despite the fact the free versions do everything anyway ! Plus they've saved my balls several times with the registry cleaner/fixer part of CCleaner, and have properly saved my sanity with the Recuva tool when I've accidentally shift-deleted an entire folder rather than a subfolder and Windows happily just deleted 1000s of needed files ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Perezvon Posted February 1, 2016 Author Share Posted February 1, 2016 I'm using foobar2000 with the Discogs plugin : https://www.foobar2000.org/components/view/foo_discogs It's perfect but I don't know if it changes file names as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
juiceciuj Posted February 1, 2016 Share Posted February 1, 2016 I'm using foobar2000 with the Discogs plugin : https://www.foobar2000.org/components/view/foo_discogs It's perfect but I don't know if it changes file names as well. looking forward to trying this out when i get home Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AAAAh Posted February 1, 2016 Share Posted February 1, 2016 stickers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Macca Posted February 1, 2016 Share Posted February 1, 2016 replace your spinning hard disk with an SSD replace your spinning hard disk with an SSD yeah. i did this with a handmedown laptop i was given. only installed music software on it so far. it's a 5 yr old macbook pro but it's running live 9.5 better than my desktop. i did a completely clean os install (which was a bit of a fucking headache because they're really not designed to work that way and i didn't have an itunes account but whatev). ssd>clean os install>only music software>disable internet should be good to go ^^ I 3rd the SSD recommendation, save the pennies for it, worth the effort to get one! the bigger the better :)! removes a lot of old speed bottlenecks... just got an SSD for my main PC and have been in love with SSD ever since Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Entorwellian Posted February 2, 2016 Share Posted February 2, 2016 I installed linux mint xfce and have had no audio problems or latency issues for a live setup. I have found it to be very stable so far and quite a lot of windows products have worked fine in the Wine Emulator. Although I wouldn't hold my breath, AVLinux 8 will be released soon and is designed to run out of the box without having to update anything or even go online if you choose. It's stripped down to bare essentials to get the most out of the the CPU so will also run on shitty laptops and old computers. You can install it alongside windows with one of the install options for either. It's updated by the same people who develop Ardour so the release of one update is usually dependent on the other. Also n'thing SSD. Get on that shit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maitake Posted February 15, 2016 Share Posted February 15, 2016 I installed linux mint xfce and have had no audio problems or latency issues for a live setup. I have found it to be very stable so far and quite a lot of windows products have worked fine in the Wine Emulator. Although I wouldn't hold my breath, AVLinux 8 will be released soon and is designed to run out of the box without having to update anything or even go online if you choose. It's stripped down to bare essentials to get the most out of the the CPU so will also run on shitty laptops and old computers. You can install it alongside windows with one of the install options for either. It's updated by the same people who develop Ardour so the release of one update is usually dependent on the other. Also n'thing SSD. Get on that shit. You using airwave? https://github.com/phantom-code/airwave Once it's compiled and installed it works pretty good for bridging windows VSTs to native VST format. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Entorwellian Posted February 15, 2016 Share Posted February 15, 2016 I installed linux mint xfce and have had no audio problems or latency issues for a live setup. I have found it to be very stable so far and quite a lot of windows products have worked fine in the Wine Emulator. Although I wouldn't hold my breath, AVLinux 8 will be released soon and is designed to run out of the box without having to update anything or even go online if you choose. It's stripped down to bare essentials to get the most out of the the CPU so will also run on shitty laptops and old computers. You can install it alongside windows with one of the install options for either. It's updated by the same people who develop Ardour so the release of one update is usually dependent on the other. Also n'thing SSD. Get on that shit. You using airwave? https://github.com/phantom-code/airwave Once it's compiled and installed it works pretty good for bridging windows VSTs to native VST format. No I never knew about this! This is a great find. Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Model808 Posted February 16, 2016 Share Posted February 16, 2016 Never go on the internet with that laptop. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ganus Posted February 16, 2016 Share Posted February 16, 2016 Also worth mentioning: defrag and clean (like, with canned air) on the reg. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grain Bastard Posted February 17, 2016 Share Posted February 17, 2016 I guess it depends on where you live but in the uk at least, you need the charger PAT tested if you're using it in a club. While its rare ive been asked i have seen people refused being allowed to use their laptop unless it stayed on battery. Same applies to controllers if they need power. If you have to run on battery and your controllers are bus powered, will they still function? Also ground noise. This is much more common and can be partially fixed by running on battery power. I'd try and get it checked beforehand on a PA similar in power to what your gig is on. Mac's don't have this issue from my experience. I think its because of cheaper laptops tend to cut costs by putting less shielding around the power connections or something. SSD's are good and will help with heat too. A laptop stand helps with heat as venues get hot and if the fan is old or blocked you may find it chokes the cpu or worse shuts down. Loud clubs easy drown out the sound of the cpu fan raring it nuts-off so you don't always notice it getting hot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Test Fforet Posted February 19, 2016 Share Posted February 19, 2016 replace your spinning hard disk with an SSD CCleaner has a tool for deleting dupe files and a decent defragger. https://www.piriform.com/ccleaner/download But dont defrag the shit out of your SSD. Defragmentation of SSD is not recommended, as it reduces their lifespan being pretty useless: those drives don't rely on physical movements of mechanical parts anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maitake Posted February 19, 2016 Share Posted February 19, 2016 I'm pretty sure VT-d and IOMMU capable processors support VGA, PCI, and USB pass-through these days. Don't consider this the official word, but the days of bad audio latency on virtualized systems might be over. These technologies can bus the good bits rapidly and direct to bare metal hardware. This is interesting because now it in theory should be possible with the right CPU to create an instance of Windows on a good performing *nix install running Xen or KVM. Unfortunately, even though MS has came a long way I still find Windows rather clunky. That said, it isn't so bad i'd just prefer to contain that fucker so can clone it and be back online with in seconds. My point in all this is that in the future processing horsepower may be abundant enough that it makes total sense to encapsulate our operating systems into environments that offer extreme redundancy. Imagine your laptop fails you during the gig, but seconds before you cloned a snapshot of your current audio environment (routing, patching, etc). In less than 5 seconds you could be back online and exactly where you were. Every 1 and 0 in the block in it's proper place. I often wonder too why touring musicians spend thousands on music equipment, their career even, yet rarely spend the 1-2 grand to buy a portable UPS. You could keep not just computers live, but the entire PA itself in the event of power loss. LOL ROCK ON Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maitake Posted February 19, 2016 Share Posted February 19, 2016 Also this reminds me. I watched a guy have his Windows laptop completely fail during his set just the other week. It locked completely and spat out that ":( An error has occured" fullscreen message. He sat there frustrated as FUCK while Windows was validating some shit on the filesystem for 10 minutes. Then he gave up and left. Don't be that guy I guess. It was really sad to watch. some variation of that thing ^^ horrific Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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