Laptops for music are nothing new. But better versions of Linux make no-hassle music production easier and more powerful – and new netbooks make it cheap and ultra-portable, too, for times when even that 15” laptop feels clunky. Netbooks aren’t for everyone, and I imagine some people will miss Windows and Mac OS, even with better compatibility and powerful features on Linux. But if you are looking for an additional, more mobile machine, the combination is definitely worth a look.

A significant revision to the one netbook customized for Linux music has just become available today – you read about it here first.

What if all the technology you loved, everything that ran on electricity, came to life and played one epic musical performance?

That’s about as best as I can sum up the “Emergence” event happening in Ontario and in an online stream. It’s a workshop. It’s a performance. It’s Commodore 64s and surplus parts. It’s cybernetic theory. There’s a robotic singer. It’s at a computer museum. Nerdtastic.

Rod Adlers describes his own setup: “3 Commodore 64’s running Cynthcart and MSSIAH, iPod Touch using Brian Eno’s ‘Bloom’ program, Korg MS2000 and M50, and Fruity Loops.” Nice – it’s like the radio station phrase, “the greatest hits of yesterday and today.”

Valentine’s Day, indeed — if you’re dating a robot / computer / nerd (or robotic computer nerd), you know how to celebrate. There’s an online stream, happily, for all of us too unlucky to be in Ontario this weekend. If you are there, “video, photography and interviews” are all “encouraged.” Please do share with us on planet CDM. Syd Bolton writes:

You can see some newspaper coverage from today at:
http://pcmuseum.ca/media/ExposFeb2009EmergWeb.jpg

The show will be broadcast live the day of at:
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/emergent-behaviour

Our page for it is at
http://www.pcmuseum.ca/emergence.asp

Full details:

Rain Recording make audio-ready notebooks – that is, they’re pre-tested to function well with audio software, with Windows tweaks, driver selection, and configuration all chosen and tested for music and visual production, and no crapware installed. They’re one of a handful of music-friendly vendors that does that (see also: PCAudioLabs, etc.). Given that the PC music making experience can range from awesome to awful depending on which hardware and (particularly) drivers you’re on, that’s no small matter.

Rain has always styled themselves a premium brand. But the latest Diablo really does go to extremes spec-wise. It’ll cost you – base price starts at US$4000, though that’s not as high-end as these sort of desktop specs commanded more recently. Intel and AMD/ATI really are economizing, even at the high end. But cost aside, this machine really maxes out components. You have to admire the results:

• Quad CPUs: up to 2.53GHz Intel Core 2 Quad 12MB/1066 MHz “Montevina” Centrino 2 — the most powerful brain you can put in a laptop right now
• Up to 8 GB DDR3 RAM (and if you boot a 64-bit operating system like Vista x64 or – cough – Linux, you can use all of it)
• ATI Radeon MR HD3870/512M DDR3 RAM — just about the most powerful GPU (and some people do prefer ATI to NVIDIA), giving you up to two discrete GPUs
• 17″ display at 1920×1200
• Optional dual 320GB 7200RPM SATA drives with 16MB cache
• 1x eSATA, 3X USB2, 3xFireWire (yeah, you read that right – one onboard FireWire, plus two more using a bundled, TI chipset PCI ExpressCard that pops into that slot, also standard on the lower-cost LiveBook)
• 1 x HDMI, 1 x VGA, card reader, headphone out, mic in, gigabit RJ45 Ethernet, fingerprint scanner

The key specs, of course, are the quad CPU, that ATI GPU, and the maxed-out-res 17″ display. Given those specs, the weight actually isn’t all that bad – 8 lbs. with the 12-cell battery (which you’re going to want, as this machine is likely to suck up electricity in a hurry).

Apple has updated the US$999, white MacBook to some of the specs of the new “unibody” models – but retaining the one thing we like about it, namely, an actual FireWire port. (The only other option has been upgrading to the Pro for significantly more cash.)

Now for US$999:

• NVIDIA 9400M graphics (meaning this is mainly a story for visualists, so see our take on Create Digital Motion – but the rest of you can more easily enjoy World of Warcraft, if so inclined)
• Newer Core 2 Duo, still 2.0 GHz but now with a faster 1066 MHz frontside bus for a marginal performance improvement
• 2 GB instead of the ridiculous 1 GB RAM, meaning you don’t necessarily have to buy a RAM upgrade to use it
• Bluetooth 2.1

More important is what didn’t change: it still has FireWire. And it’s still the cheapest new mobile Mac you can buy. It also still has the older-style Mini-DVI video connector, but it does not support the old adapters or TV out.

If you’re looking to run Windows or cross-platform software, of course, the PCs in the same price range remain competitive. But then, if you want Mac OS, Logic, and various Mac-only tools, that isn’t really an option, is it?

We routinely talk about how the interface paradigm of a computer — screen, QWERTY, trackpad – isn’t optimal for music. But how many of you have, in a pinch, done a live laptop set with just your computer, and found some way to make it work? The Stanford University Laptop Orchestra, set to play this year’s Macworld, natch, is making the most of what it has:

“We tilt the notebook and use its built-in accelerometer to expressively control sound. We use the trackpad as a kind of violin bow,” explains Ge Wang, SLOrk’s founder. ”You can make some wild, diverse music with the MacBook.”

And why not? Designing expressive interfaces can pay off in something that’s satisfying, absolutely. But however you decide to play, a lot of it comes down to how you approach an object compositionally and musically. So, there’s two ways to look at this: on one level, it’s a novelty, and while to most of us seeing people playing behind Apple logos is nothing new, I’m sure Apple enjoys seeing a swarm of their machines. But on another, the real point is that the Stanford orchestra is getting the most mileage out of the machine. Trackpad? Check. Accelerometer? Keyboard? (Why stop there – Apple Remote? Webcam?) You’ve got quite a lot on the laptop itself to use.

We’ve looked at laptop orchestras before, but here’s still more:

Stanford Laptop Orchestra (SLOrk): Musical Macs [Story for Apple Pro by Dustin Driver]

SLOrk

Via: Stanford’s MacBook orchestra exposed [distorted-loop.com] and Macworld maestro Paul Kent’s Twitter.

Previously:

Laptop Orchestras Proliferate, from Princeton to Moscow

How to Record Laptop Performances – And Make Them Sound Live (linking to a story on the topic I wrote for Keyboard Magazine)

And for the mother of modern laptop orchestras, recently winning a MacArthur Foundation grant, see PLOrk at Princeton