Author Topic: Laptop vs Rackmount PC for location work (Read 4623 times)

Evil Taper · « **on:** November 22, 2005, 04:36:21 AM »

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 · « **Reply #1 on:** November 22, 2005, 09:31:34 AM »

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

hzgone · « **Reply #2 on:** November 22, 2005, 10:51:14 AM »

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

kindms · « **Reply #3 on:** November 22, 2005, 12:12:54 PM »

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 · « **Reply #4 on:** November 23, 2005, 02:43:13 AM »

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 · « **Reply #5 on:** November 23, 2005, 12:57:29 PM »

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 · « **Reply #6 on:** November 23, 2005, 04:51:21 PM »

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 · « **Reply #7 on:** November 23, 2005, 05:41:41 PM »

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 · « **Reply #8 on:** November 23, 2005, 06:03:13 PM »

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 · « **Reply #9 on:** November 23, 2005, 10:47:07 PM »

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 · « **Reply #10 on:** November 24, 2005, 02:16:00 AM »

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 · « **Reply #11 on:** November 24, 2005, 02:41:48 AM »

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 · « **Reply #12 on:** November 24, 2005, 02:56:05 AM »

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 · « **Reply #13 on:** November 24, 2005, 03:07:05 AM »

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 · « **Reply #14 on:** November 24, 2005, 03:29:44 AM »

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.

nic · « **Reply #15 on:** November 24, 2005, 09:45:38 AM »

or you could just get a RADAR 24 and be done with it...

pc, monitor, removable raid, 24 inputs at 24/96, etc...all in 1 standalone box

of course, you'll spend much more going this route!

JasonR · « **Reply #16 on:** November 24, 2005, 10:42:13 AM »

Quote from: Evil Taper on November 24, 2005, 02:16:00 AM

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.

Sounds like fun, but don't say I didn't warn ya.

A 2U case is hardly the same size as a standard PC tower. Most standard cases are around 7.5" to 8" wide, over 4U wide. The main problem you'll encounter even with a 2U case is that the CPU won't have much airflow. If you go this route, I'd recommend underclocking the CPU to keep the heat down and reliability up. The last thing you want while you're recording is for the OS to hang. Liquid cooling is an interesting consideration, but I've never seen one that could fit inside a 2U case by a long shot. And how do they hold up to being moved around?

Before you order anything, take a careful look at the specs (size and weight). I assumed you'd be going 1U since there are very few 2U cases on the market that would fit in a manageable portable rack like an SKB. My shortest 2U cases are 22.5" deep which would just fit in the largest SKB, but that's a handfull in my opinion. If you must have a rack case, consider rack mounting a more traditional case which will be far shallower and lighter, provide better air flow, and probably save you a couple hundred bucks.

BTW - if you do go this route, check out a 1U LCD/KVM (or just LCD/Keyboard). They're a great space saver and it lets you tuck your monitor and keyboard out of sight and away from prying eyes or spilling beers when its not needed. Here's an example: http://www.tripplite.com/products/product.cfm?productID=2872

Good luck!

- Jason

Evil Taper · « **Reply #17 on:** November 24, 2005, 10:37:38 PM »

werd. the micro ATX stuff looks pretty swift so I might give it a shot. all this talk of airflow though is forgetting that laptops have no airflow and still work fine. who says you can't mount 8 case fans in a small case though? I'm just rounding up ideas right now cuz this is a couple of months off probably. I'm looking at:

Mackie Onyx 1640 + Firewire > PC

so i could even do a 4-6u pc if i needed since all that will be in the rack besides this is the power conditioner and an effects processor. i'll need to figure something else out for keeping the mixer totally portable. but the situations i'll be using this rig in should allow me enough room to set up waht i need as long as it's portable. all of the input has been great so far though so any other ideas would be appreciated. Theres still the matter of buying a nice assortment of other mics and cables and what not to go along with this stuff anyway so i've definately got a ways to go before i'm up and running here.

mmmatt · « **Reply #18 on:** November 25, 2005, 12:07:57 PM »

Quote from: Jason Reiser on November 24, 2005, 10:42:13 AM

Good luck!

- Jason

Well... this is almost the same size as a laptop and costs only a little bit more... very cool though.
Evil... I run an onyx 1220 and I love it. the 1620 is rack mountable but I don't think the 1640 is. The onyx mixers are not tiny little things... The rack mount kits are designed to mount in a rack vertically and I think the 1220 is 10Ru. You could possible rig up a top mixer mount on a rack case but that is something you would have to build yourself I think. I have thought of that and looked a few months ago to no avail. The onyx 1220 is about 6" tall when sitting on a table.I'll be interested to see if you come up with anything. One thing that may help though... with the onyx line the metering is really good on the mixer so you wouldn't have to really monitor the computer screen. You could leave it open just long enough to hit record and close it up. There is a single button on the face of the mixer that allows you to monitor back through the firewire on your main level meters and through the phones so in an instant you can tell if you are having a computer issue.
This is the type of screen I was looking at. I was thinking of mounting it on a gooseneck over the top mount mixer so I could position it where I wanted it for each gig.

http://cgi.ebay.com/S-1021-8-TFT-LCD-TOUCH-SCREEN-VGA-CAR-PC-MONITOR_W0QQitemZ5832254764QQcategoryZ32825QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

other than naming your files, and depending on your DAW software, for recording you could get by without a keyboard at all, and with a minimum size/quality screen. For mixing at home you can easily plug in a better keyboard and mouse. Although that is what I like about my external drive. Just a usb cable an power cord and I'm hooked into my desktop at home without busting out the whole recording rig.

Matt

Evil Taper · « **Reply #19 on:** November 25, 2005, 08:05:50 PM »

yeah that monitor thing defeats the entire purpose of building a pc vs a laptop for me because it costs so much. I can lug around a seperate road case for the mixer, that's not a problem either. Basically I have full freedom to bring in what I want at the kinda gigs where I'd be doing this stuff at, and the venues are at least large enough to have room for this kinda stuff SOMEWHERE in the room.