From ynottnaro@yahoo.com Thu Oct 24 04:25:41 2002
Subject:Re: B4 and Quattro - a winning combination

So....maybe I shouldn't buy an Electro, and should buy
a laptop, B4....and some piano/electric piano software
instead?

You guys are going to drag me kicking and
screaming....and crying into the 21st century, arent
you.

Looking forward to the rig of ... Future Days:
A70, laptop, B5, Epianobytes, Mellotronix,
Boxendorfer, Really Minimoog, trCS80. and a little
in-ear system.

tony
--- Deke The Geek wrote:
> Let me lay a little groundwork here for those of you
> who don't know what
> I've been trying lately. I have been using a small
> PC (AMD K6-400, 128 MB
> RAM, WinXP, SBLive! with bootleg ASIO drivers) for
> running the B4 software.
> I heard other list members talking about USB audio
> devices such as the
> M-Audio Quattro, but I figured I was doing just as
> well with my rig. The
> only problem that I had was getting stuck notes
> sometimes, and the fact that
> since this was a PC, and I carried no monitor or
> keyboard/mouse, if
> something happened my only recourse was to reboot
> the machine. BTW, B4 was
> in the startup group. Also, I was getting quite a
> bit of noise out of one
> side of the Soundblaster Live! Card, so I could only
> run in mono.
>
> Now my ideal solution to this problem was to use a
> laptop and a USB audio
> device, but I just knew I had to have a faster
> laptop. My Dell Latitude Cpi
> 266 was going to be too slow for sure! Just for
> testing purposes, I loaded
> Win98 on the laptop and installed B4. As expected,
> it was unplayable with a
> minimum latency of 200 ms before the signal started
> breaking up. So I tried
> loading WinXP, thinking that the USB implementation
> would be better... no
> dice. B4 was unplayable at even 400 ms! I was
> beginning to think I would
> have to carry a full sized PC just to make this
> thing work right, as I
> didn't have the $1500 or so to spend on the latest
> laptop.
>
> Well, knowing the nice guys at Guitar Center like I
> do, and knowing their
> 30-day no questions asked return policy, I decided
> on one final test. I
> would buy the $269 Quattro and see how it worked on
> the PC... of course I
> might try it on the laptop, but I didn't expect
> much. I ended up trying the
> Quattro on the laptop first... remember folks that
> this is a 266 MHz Pentium
> II laptop... running Windows XP Professional. I
> installed the drivers, and
> lickety split... there it was. I knew that this was
> going too smoothly, so I
> tried the Quattro at medium latency... with
> excellent results. I was amazed!
> Could my dinky little 266 laptop be worth something
> after all? I went for
> broke and set the Quattro to "Very Low" latency...
> the lowest available.
> Drum roll please... it worked PERFECTLY!!!
>
> To recap... I am using a Dell 266 MHz laptop running
> Windows XP Professional
> and I am getting latency of less than 7 ms! I am not
> sure what the exact
> number is, since there is no numbering scheme in the
> driver, but I have
> played at very low latencies on my other rig, and I
> know that this must be
> around 5 ms or so.
>
> BOTTOM LINE: if you own a decrepit laptop, you can
> probably use it to run
> B4... as long as you have a Quattro with it! Thanks
> for the advice M T! It
> rocks!
>
> BTW, did I mention that I got the $269 M-Audio
> Quattro for $199? It was
> late, the guys were ready to leave, and it was the
> last one in the store...
> my treat!
>
> Deke The Geek
>
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