I use ThinkPad notebooks. They are built like tanks, black, and have no lit up logo that screams "COMPUTER ON STAGE" to the audience. Not that there is anything wrong with a computer on stage, but it takes away from a bit of the magic.

Using the method described in the link to my earlier post on this thread, you can go from song to song instantly, you can decide what song you should play next a few seconds before the one you are currently playing is over (reading the audience) and still go to the next song with no "dead air" in between.

I bought my current on-stage ThinkPad in 2002 (it's so old it has a single-core Pentium III CPU). I do one-nighters, and play music for a living. That means my ThinkPad gets bounced around in the mini-van a few times per week (to and from), rolled on a cart as many times, changes temperatures from hot in the van to cold in the air conditioning, sits on a sometimes bouncing keyboard stand, has no "laptop cooling mat", and runs for 4 hours straight, constantly accessing the hard disk to play my backing tracks.

In all these years, it hasn't failed me once. The only problem I had was that on a gig, the hard drive started to make a noise. It sounded like the HD bearing was starting to go, so to be on the safe side, I replaced the HD myself (and I'm a technically challenged individual).

Before the ThinkPad I used small MIDI file players, similar to today's iPod/Archos devices, but for MIDI instead of audio. When one died (I always keep a spare - just in case) and I couldn't get a replacement (obsolete) I bought the laptop and converted everything to 192kbps mp3 files. What a difference! I should have done that much sooner. It made running the backing tracks on stage much quicker and much easier. It felt like a 50 pound weight had been taken off my back (slight exaggeration). I never want to go back to one of those little push-push-push-push-push-button devices ever again.

Insights and incites by Notes

Bob "Notes" Norton smile Norton Music
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