[PD] PD on a laptop??

Dan Neveu neveu at acsu.buffalo.edu
Thu Oct 25 02:16:48 CEST 2001


a few other things to try:
1) if you haven't already, be sure that at least your laptop, mixer, and amp
are on the same electrical circuit.

2) there may be a voltage potential between either your laptop and mixer, or
the mixer and amp. this occassionally happens, especially if one or all the
devices use non-grounded power cords. You can try equalizing this potential
by taking a length of audio rack wire (or any wire with bare ends) and
making contact with a metal part of the chassis on each of the audio
devices, preferrably a fastening screw. Try it both between the laptop and
mixer, then mixer and amp and see if the buzz is reduced. If it helps, it'll
then just be a matter of finding a more elegant way to keep this wire in
place.

-dan

On Tue, 23 Oct 2001, Ivica Bukvic wrote:

> This is an issue that has been plaguing most of the laptops on the market
> and comes in two flavors:
> 
> 1) "a ground loop" -- solution: get a hum eliminator from Radio Shack (in
> the US it would be 60Hz, in Europe 50Hz), but otherwise very hard to root
> out
> 2) Too much circuitry crammed in small space = interference (esp. when your
> battery is being recharged by external power supply). On my Inspiron 8000,
> there are two solutions to this:
> a) Use battery-only while doing sensitive audio stuff
> b) Use external power WITHOUT battery
> 
> Since you have Inspiron, you can always buy an additional battery and plug
> it into the media bay, so that should give you 5+ hours of work which should
> be sufficient for just about anything :-)
> 
> Hope this helps!
> 
> Ico Bukvic, composer & audio designer
> http://ping.ccm.uc.edu/~ico/
> ico at fuse.net
> ============================
> "To be is to do" - Socrates
> "To do is to be" - Sartre
> "Do be do be do" - Sinatra
> "I am"           - God
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: eliselaptop [mailto:e.chohan at uea.ac.uk]
> Sent: Tuesday, October 23, 2001 7:57 PM
> To: pd-list at iem.kug.ac.at
> Subject: Re: [PD] PD on a laptop??
> 
> 
> I'm also running PD on a laptop, but does anyone ever get any interference
> when the power supply is connected?
> 
> It doesn't occur if I plug straight from phones socket to an amplifier, but
> I've recently started using a little mixer.  When I'm plugged into this, and
> my power supply is connected, I get pretty bad interference noise, which
> only stops when I unplug the power to my laptop.  I've tried plugging it
> into different wall sockets, even on different fuses, and also making sure
> none of the wires cross over, but to no avail.  The drawback to this is that
> I can only work closely on sound for as long as the battery lasts!
> 
> I have a Dell Inspiron 2500.
> 
> Also, does anyone run a duel boot Linux / Windows on a laptop for PD - I am
> considering it simply to have access to the different externals available (I
> have only very basic Linux knowledge, with a friend offering to set this up
> if I decide it's worth it!)
> 
> 
> Many thanks,
> Elise.
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Jim Ruxton" <cinetron at passport.ca>
> To: "nullpointer" <nullpointer at odessadesign.co.uk>; <pd-list at iem.kug.ac.at>
> Sent: Wednesday, October 24, 2001 12:21 AM
> Subject: Re: [PD] PD on a laptop??
> 
> 
> > Hi Tom,
> > Thanks a lot. This info. is a big help. Had to lug my desktop around again
> > today and tomorrow so getting this info. is inspiring me to go shopping.
> > ciao,
> > Jim
> > > Hi Jim,
> > >
> > > I use WinMe on a toshiba satellite 2800-400
> > > PD runs fine except for the strange edit lock that seems to happen on
> > > windows machines..
> > > (just close the patch and reopen it to allow editing again...)
> > > I use a midiman usb 2x2 midisport box for midi, although the timing
> isn't
> > > great (more windows than the usb I think) it's useable with a bit of
> > > tweaking...
> > > As for soundcards.. my advice is just to use your onboard card fo the
> time
> > > being cos it will pretty much gurantee compatibility with pd and wont
> hog
> > > any extra cpu time..
> > > Externals.... theres the wami box, the digigram pocket and the almost
> > > mythical (here in UK anyway) hammerfall laptopcard... I've heard bad
> stuff
> > > about all of them so I'd suggest getting a trial run (return offer on
> the
> > > hardware e.t.c.) before you commit..There a new motu firewire unit thats
> > > sposed to be god,but i haven't got firewire so...
> > > anyway.. i hope this helps..I've done quite a few performances, just
> using
> > > the phones socket, and to be honest on an average PA in an average room
> > you
> > > don't notice the quality level at all.
> > >
> > > oh and as far as video cards go .. most newish laptops come with savage
> > > video cards (OK) ATI cards (OK again) or NVIDIA geforce (brilliant),
> they
> > > all have decent opengl drivers i think although the nvidia card is kinda
> > > geared towards T&L systems like DX..
> > >
> > > Tom
> > >
> > > http://www.nullpointer.co.uk
> > > http://www.dividebyzero.org
> > > http://www.orphanrecords.co.uk
> > > ________________________________________________________
> >
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 




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