toughbooks as music composing platforms

Here's a bit of left-field....

One thing I'd like to have a go at is creating music and figured a toughbook is good platform for that sort of application... Short of adding a MIDI port and connecting up samplers, drum machines, etc. does anyone here have recommendations on software packages that are well suited?

Ideally to run under Xp, though might be handy to look at Linux applications too.

Thanks, Craig.

 

Have a look at http://www.synthzone.com/softsyn.htm . And don't use the internal soundcard for play or recording. Too much noise. Midiports via USB will u find everywhere.

 

Depending on what softsynths, I'd say only a CF-30 mk2 would have enough power. I use Spectrasonics' Atmosphere with a TC Electronic Konnekt 8 on my Macbook Pro. And it takes a lot of processing power especially when you're gigging, once you layering stuff on tracks, that CPU usage shoots straight up. Playing live, I average around 30% (Cubase) on a MBP on OS X using Atmosphere just holding pads. Idle is around 0-5%. But of course, that depends on your sample size, too.

And FWIW, does 1024x768 really cut it anymore? Everything's bigger than that - I think you'll start running into serious screen real estate issues with a Toughbook. Not that I don't like them, but, I think there are better laptops suited for this type of stuff. That's why I run both Mac and PC.