Topic: Laptop vs Rackmount PC for location work

[Evil Taper]

I know there's folks who do location work with laptop rigs but has anyone tried a rack mount pc instead?  At $1000+ for a laptop I'm considering taking a different route and building a computer to mount in my power rack instead.  I've been looking at a few retailers and the cases are no more than $250 for a really high end style case, but for $100 even - they look fine.  My only concern is that with standard pc parts being as touchy as they are, getting moved around alot and riding in cars might result in a less than dependable result.  So has anyone tried this before or built a portable pc with the specialized flat case motherboards that can offer some input?  The ease of upgrading and using a PC instead of a lappy just looks so much more appealing to me since you can buy a gig of pc ram for CHEAP.  Worth a shot or just another dreamy idea of mine?

[heath]

i know a lot guys that do this.  personally, i haven't but i would like to.

[hzgone]

sounds like a great idea, your rig might become heave and always finding ac power might be hard

[kindms]

Like above it is certailny a better way to get more firepower and less expensive parts to do whatever you want. the drawback is foot print.

[Evil Taper]

the footprint isn't much larger that a laptop + external HD rig.  racks are around 20 x 20 with the flight case and everything.  AC power isn't an issue either, so this looks like a good idea.  once i get my shit together i'll do some work and let you guys know how well it works.  geek power!

[bagtagsell]

Check out shuttle.   They make motherboards and case that are small, and have pretty good specs.  The LAN party idea has really helped tiny, but powerful machines.

[kindms]

you could go micro ATX as well to get a small board with 1 or 2 full size PCI slots perhaps. You could then install the MB in just about any case or container. My buddy did something simialr and installed it in a VCR case

[Krispy D]

I don't know if this helps at all but I helped Chris F and Matt V do some feild multi tracking last year with a rack mount set up that I believe belonged to matt.  I've never bumped into either of them on this board but they are easily found at
http://www.thebreakfast.info/forum/

Matt ran the whole shebang  I just did mic set up and stage mngmnt.  we had a multitrack sbd/4 mic aud matrix in the end. I patched out to the jb3 and the end result was amazing. 

anyway they may have some insight for you and they are easily found on the breafast boards

[mmmatt]

I use a lappy and sometimes wish I built a rackmount system.  The reason I went with the lappy was the screen, keyboard, mouse, etc... makes for a much bigger footprint than a lappie.  Sure they make smaller keyborads and trackballs, but I have recorded in some tight spots where I could have never gotten all that stuff into the spot. I've worked in spots where I had to fold up the lappy and set in on it's edge next to my other gear.  I had to hold in one hand while making any adjustments.  Luckily you don't have to touch your computer when multitracking except to start and stop recording. Venue owners aren't typically fond of you taking up that much realestate.  One Idea I did have that I almost jumped on was a mac mini and a smaller touch screen.  I think thiw would work reasonably well and be small enough to transport and use in a tight spot.  There is als a big differance in throwing a lappie bag over your shoulder vs lugging around a big rack, keyboard, and monitor.

All in all, I would do the lappy again.  Just my .02

Matt

[JasonR]

Rack cases are far from ideal for location recording in my opinion.  They tend to be very heavy and offer limited air flow, particularly the 1U units which do not thrive outside heavily air conditioned rooms.  Also, most rack cases need a special blower for the CPU which works only moderately well and have a very high failure rate.

You might consider a micro ATX system like a Shuttle as mentioned by another poster, or build your own based on a case like this one (which happens to have an integrated handle as well):
http://www.mwave.com/mwave/viewspec.hmx?scriteria=BA22037

- Jason

[Evil Taper]

I'd be building a 2U rack PC, which is about the same size as a standard PC tower on the side.  I'd hand pick everything in the system and build it myself - possibly with a liquid cooling system even - to make sure it was done in the best possible way.  It would be mounted in a 4-6U rack with a 1U keyboard drawer and the flat monitor/mouse on top of the rack case.  I'd only be lugging this around to local venues and peoples practice areas/houses to do location recording and what not when the need would arrise.  I think I'm gonna give this a go in a little bit.

[bluegrass_brad]

Ive seen setup likes this before, at a few of the festivals I worked.  One of the coolest was one of these mounted in an Anvil road 16u flight case with wheels along with a couple of motu 896's and some outboard gear (preamps, etc).   He had this flat screen that stowed away into a space in one of the removable rack doors.  Very cool, I was drooling.

http://www.marathoncomputer.com/prgq.html

this company has some cool rack cases.  Some as small as 1U, all for PC builds.

http://www.gtweb.net/rackcase.html

[Evil Taper]

flat panel monitor mounted on a door?  why not!  what a good idea.  I'm gonna be using an outboard mixer instead of the MOTU units but maybe I'll get one of those also for extra input capability.   Right now I'm thinking that a 6U rack is all I need but we'll see what happens.  It's great being crazy sometimes.

[bluegrass_brad]

It wasnt really mounted in the door for use, just storage. there was  a padded area inside the door where the monitor would strap into place for storage when not in use.  When he was using it he just set it on top of the rack along with the keyboard and mouse.  Very cool cause it was all self contained for easy transit.

 

[Evil Taper]

ahhhh....but why not just mount it in a tray on the top rack space so it slides out and then rig it so it will stand up to.  you can get a 1U keyboard tray too so shit yeah.  I'm even reading about these mackie onyx mixers and they say you can mount those in a rack also.  I wasn't even considering that as an option but there are definately racks with open tops for mixer mounting too.  But with the mixer on top the monitor needs to be somewhere else then.  I'll figure it all out when I'm ready to blow my wad on this stuff.  It's easy to do this stuff when money has no real value to you.