Using my laptop live?

[TheChopsyWanker]

I have a good desktop studio setup with Cakewalk Sonar 8.5 Producer, a handful of VSTs, a few midi controllers, etc. and now that I'm getting more into my solo work, I'd love to start playing my electronic project live. After having been a guitarist for several years, trying to pull this off live is new to me. My plan is to transfer just about everything over to my laptop and use my midi controllers to play certain parts live. I'm a little confused with hooking things up to play over the PA. Is it as simple as going from my laptop to my soundcard/interface (Cakewalk UA-101) direct to the board? Would I need a direct box or anything of the sort in between? It seems too easy but maybe that's how it is. I'd obviously fine tune everything to maximize performance, as well as use the UA-101 to monitor myself while using my USB midi controllers. I'm just a little confused with how I go from getting the audio on my laptop to play throughout the venue with as little hum and tone loss as possible.

[boseengineer]

Can be done, but needs some attention and care.

 

You need a stereo passive DI box with a ground lift switch such as this http://audiopile.net/products/DI_Boxes/DBRC-2A/DBRC-2A_cutsheet.shtml. One DI channel for every channel that goes into the board.

 

You will also want to use a dedicated laptop with as little software as possible on it. Ideally no virus scanner, no wireless network, no Adobe Acrobat, turn off all automatic updates, scrub the registry for any unwanted startup items, etc.

 

Another potential issue is the laptop power supply which can get noisy depending on the power in the venue. It's a good idea to have enough battery capacity (battery is often much cleaner) to get through the gig or at least a set, so you can recharge during breaks. Somtimes it the analog outputs can be cleaner than any USB interface (if power supply noise seeps into the USB supply), so this is another useful backup to have ready.

 

If you just need backing tracks (i.e. nothing interactive, constant arrangement), it's much simpler to mix your tracks down to a 2-channel master track and put these on an Ipod or CD.