Music Production on the M11x r2 (i7 and others)

So far we have a thread about video editing, but I thought it would be relevant to start a thread regarding the use of pro music applications on the m11x.

I have been making music on a computer for around 10 years, firstly with Steinberg Nuendo for audio sequencing and Fruityloops for vsti synth/beat making, and most recently have been using Reason 4 and Record 1.0.

With the above applications in mind, I want a portable computer to complement my desktop (Q6600 2.4ghz, 4gb ram), which is my primary production system. For this laptop to be satisfactory, it had to be able to open and playback projects made on the desktop pc, so they can be edited on the road. Full blown real time playback means the system is capable of anything in between, including virtual synth editing.

The R2 i7 for me has delivered for me so far, and I want to share my experiences with sound and music production apps in this thread, and others to do the same.

I have no experience with the R1, have never used an R1 and have never tested an R1's music capability. Feel free to give results regarding your experiences with either version of the m11x here regarding portable music production.

To start off very basically, I have been interested in how capable this lappy is in comparison to my desktop. To do some benchmarking, I have decided to install Reason 4 and Record 1.0 on the m11x, and to provide a constant for this test, I have used the 3 demo songs that come with Record as a basis of testing. The test is to watch how under stain the pc gets and if it can successfully play back a song, in full, without audio dropouts and stutter.

Because Reason and Record are non-destructive audio applications, meaning that everything is done in real time, this should be a great test to see if the system is capable of music editing and sound production.

Test 1
System: M11x r2 i7, 4gb ram, 7200rpm hdd
Song: The Baguettes - We Get It On [Demo song included with Record]
Max DSP load in Record: 5 bars (2 isolated spikes to 6/7 at beginning of chorus) [vs 5 max of Q6600 desktop]
Average load: 4 bars [vs same on Q6600 desktop]
Minimum: 3 bars (occasionally 2) [vs same on Q6600 desktop]
Complete playback with no stutter: Yes
Max CPU load reported in task manager: 35%
Notes: Considering this song is full of virtual amp modules, there is a lot of DSP involved. The fact that the m11x can handle this without stuttering and consider the results are virtually the same on the comparison system (a Q6600 desktop) except under highest load, means makes this machine is good enough to take on the road and edit a song which is heavy on effects and guitar ampage.

More to come...

 

I've used Reason and Ableton on much worse laptops than the M11X r1/r2. Both will work fine.

 

jivemaster, thanks so much for your information. I've been lurking here for a few days but have registered to reply to your post.

I am looking for a laptop for use in post-production (mixing) and live situations (soft synths) and am thinking the M11x is the way to go.

Can I ask what audio interface you are using (if any), what ASIO drivers you are using, and what sort of latency you are getting?

Have you run the DPC Latency checker and if so, what was the result?

Thanks again

 

I primarily use an Edirol UA-25EX at the desktop and for portability a Cakewalk UA-1G. I will report back on latency from these shortly. Unfortunately, I have no latency checker hardware, but I'll run through some tracks to see if there's any stutter/dropouts, and I'll see how it fares with midi controller real-time input.

Indeed, as an all-in-one lappy for gaming, long-batt-life web surfing with enough grunt for music production, this computer has been impressive so far.

 

Cheers for that. Your ASIO control panel may report the latency or possibly Reason will report it somewhere.

For DPC latency, the tool use to use is
DPC Latency Checker
and in the review on this site ( Notebookcheck: Review Alienware M11x Subnotebook) it looked a little high.

I have a Focusrite Saffire Pro 24 connected to my desktop and will use this if performance is OK through firewire. If not, I'll probably go for a USB interface.

 

Thankyou for letting me know about this DPC application, the first I've heard of anything like this.

Just ran an electronic track I've been working on for a few weeks now, which features a lot of softsynths, real time 32 band vocoder, and a massive amount of effects, including realtime compressors for each channel (both direct and as a send), and a high quality reverb over everything, among other things. Running on battery power, using my UA-1G usb audio interface.

Record reports latency as follows:

Buffer size: 576 samples (made this slightly higher than default because of hearing some minute pricks in sound occassionally)
Input latency: 18ms
Output latency: 20ms
External sync offset: 20ms

And attached is the DPC log of the most intense part of the track. These were the highest spikes observed.

As you can see, the test is very acceptable.

I will test again with playback while performing on a usb midi keyboard, and will return results again.

 

Nice. Just what I was after.

It seems it will handle my processing needs. I would have preferred a little less latency for live use but it should be barely noticeable.

I'll be ordering one of these shortly and will report back on performance using my config.

Hopefully other pro-audio users will find this thread and update it with their experiences.

Thanks.

 

I am using adobe audition on my R1 for editing tracks and some synth and keyboard stuff with no problems at all.

 

Hows the sound quality out of those speakers? No chance they have an S/PDIF port available on the motherboard I suppose.

 

The sound quality out of the speakers is surprisingly good, and is one of the things that impressed me on first boot of the computer. The stereo spread probably isn't as wide as it could be, but I've owned several laptops and this by far has the best speakers of those (better than macbook pro speakers imo). They output very good volume and while leaning towards being heavy on the mid frequency, I found the sound to have a good level of bass, for laptop speakers anyway. I can hear the synth basslines I create which sit around the 80hz range.

Unfortunately, no digital out on the machine, unless you count hdmi, which you don't. But most good usb soundcards will have a digital out.

 

most computers today will have no problem running DAW apps, I used to have M-audio external boxes, but now i just use the onboard soundcard with the low-latency driver that cubase 5 installs, it works like a charm for all apps i use (Cubase,Fruity,Soundforge and standalone synths) Latency is around 20 ms which is fine for me and i never experienced any dropouts.

DPC latency checker is all in green

nb: i dont have an m11x though but i love DAW threads

 

Agreed, but some do begin to have issues when many real time effects are being run, which is the case with Reason and Record on my xps m1330. I have always been one for non destructive editing, and my lap must be capable of bringing my desktop projects on the road without compromise.

I suppose we are mainly reporting to users or those potential buyers of the m11x that it is indeed more than capable as a portable music production workhorse.

 

I'm looking at getting the m11x R2 for doing my Audio Engineering course. But am thinking the small screen may be an annoyance? Would this be the case when in class/on the road?
And is it powerful enough to be compared to a macbook pro when running Pro Tools?

 

Do we know the firewire controller on the m11x?
I have an asus a8jp (core2duo 2gh, 2gb ddr2) with a ricoh firewire controller. It's is a load of crap with my presonus fp10.
JJ

 

JMicron firewire chipset.

I have trouble with it on my Korg Zero 4, but seem to get the custom 64bit drivers working in test mode.
Korg has stopped updating the Zero drivers years ago.
The custom drivers contain presonus FP10 dll's. And it looks stable at the moment.
My Zero 4 ran absolutely fine on Ricoh.

My Audiofire 2 works fine on the m11x.

Firewire sucks imo, they should have made the chipsets universal than they would have a chance of survival.
Your stuck to certain laptop brands/types or desktops for your audio interfaces.
Even new Macbooks have switched from texas Instruments to Agere, what a stupid decision was that!


On topic:
I run Ableton with Absynth and Massive VST and Reason 5 Rewired in ableton.
Haven't run into any problems yet. Then again, I haven't asked that much of the CPU yet.

BTW, I'm running on R1

 

Sound quality of the speakers is mediocre in my opinion.
(Offcourse) no bass, but lower frequencies can be heard, so you'll at least know there something there

The speakers are also totally misplaced (bottom front).

The stereo experience is suprisingly good, even better when you enhance it with the realtek app.

The soundcard itself performs good.
I run at 48KHz 10ms latency in Reason 5 when I'm on the road without glitches.

 

The biggest time that I noticed problems with my current laptop was with Kontakt and Alicia's Keys. Sometimes, the piano sounds were just glitchy. Sometimes it would be beautiful.
Generally, I use reaper for multitrack-type things. I use audition 1.5 for wave audio editing (might consider playing around with wavelabs or soundforge, as I really don't like audition 2/3).
Can't you use the normal 3.5mm male/rca male cable for spdif out, like a lot of other laptops?
JJ

 

Just the thread I was looking for!

I'm an avid FL Studio user (Atmospheric Drum & Bass and Deep House) so it's very good to see the R1 and the R2 working well with music software. It's actually one the main reasons I'm getting the M11X ...to have a "portable studio" with me at all times.

I'm in the process of getting an R1 myself.

R1 FL Studio users: Please post some details as well. Now that we have confirmation that the R2 has 0 issues in the music production department, what about the R1? Is the duo core enough, if coupled with 4GB ram?

I've only used FL Studio with the i-processor line before.

 

Offtopic:

Am listening to some myspace stuff of yours, Subliminal Influence, am I correct?! Great stuff! Serious!!!

I'm an avid Atmos lover.
Seen Bukem, Fabio, and Goldie 2 weeks ago in Amsterdam... back to memorylane!

 

Hah, yup, you found me Appreciate the kind words ^___^ Atmos is the only way to go!

---

*waits patiently for R1 user to confirm*

 

Are any of you guys using windows xp?
The only thing that is giving me crap is the firewire controller. I've downloaded multiple sets of drivers and the thing just won't get rid of ! in device manager.
I don't think the hardware is faulty as it seems to work in windows 7 (I just don't like 7).
JJ

 

I installed both 32 and 64bit XP, because the audio interface (Korg zero 8) that I'm using has windows 7 64bit issues on certain firewire chipsets, but it didn't matter.
No problem installing the drivers though, have you checked the Jmicron website for drivers?

I traded my Korg zero 4 in for a Korg zero 8, but I wish I didn't, as the Zero 8 simply doesn't work, but my Zero 4 did.
Very strange, while it works on my desktop, so it isn't the controller on the zero 8 that's causing it.

The Jmicron chipset works perfectly fine with my Echo Audiofire 2 interface, so perhaps daisy chaining the zero 8 with it might work, or a firewire hub with texas instruments chipset as a workaround that i'm going to try.