Ivory or NI Piano on a MacBook Pro?

[1m1]

I'm considering getting one of these virtual pianos to run with PT LE 7.3 on my MacBook Pro with 2GB RAM and a 5400RPM drive. I'm not sure if this machine is powerful enough to give a satisfactory playing experience, and would appreciate hearing opinions from others who have use this or similar configurations. Thanks.

[spkguitar]

I use Ivory on my MacBook (the little brother of the Pro) and it works great. One thing, though; I have the samples installed on a separate external firewire drive. That, I'm afraid, is a MUST (just like having a separate drive for sessions).

[1m1]

A few questions; Is the external drive 7200rpm? Also, how much RAM do you have installed? Are you running it from within Pro Tools or as a standalone application? Thanks.

[spkguitar]

A few questions; Is the external drive 7200rpm?

Yes.

Also, how much RAM do you have installed?

I have 2.5GB installed (this is against Apple recommendations of using matched pairs). 2GB is (IMHO) a necessity if you are going to use any sample based VI.

Are you running it from within Pro Tools or as a standalone application?

Within Pro Tools.

[1m1]

Thanks so much for taking the time to help me out!

[sunburst79]

So your using 2 drives then? 1 for Samples and one for Audio? I'm interested in Ivory but thats a little less portable than I would like!

[spkguitar]

Yeah, I actually have 3 external drives for my "portable" rig; one for Audio, one for Samples, and one for Loops and backup.

With Pro Tools, there really is no true "portable" solution, where you just grab the laptop and go. The separate audio drive requirement leaves you pretty much tethered. Since I'm tethered to one, the other two really aren't that much extra hassle, especially if they are mounted in one easy to carry enclosure (like mine are).

With Ivory and many of the other large intensive sampled packages (BFD, etc), you need the samples on the separate drive to get the highest quality. It's a trade-off really; portability for audio quality. Hmmm... tough choice.

[sunburst79]

Yeah, I actually have 3 external drives for my "portable" rig; one for Audio, one for Samples, and one for Loops and backup.

With Pro Tools, there really is no true "portable" solution, where you just grab the laptop and go. The separate audio drive requirement leaves you pretty much tethered. Since I'm tethered to one, the other two really aren't that much extra hassle, especially if they are mounted in one easy to carry enclosure (like mine are).

With Ivory and many of the other large intensive sampled packages (BFD, etc), you need the samples on the separate drive to get the highest quality. It's a trade-off really; portability for audio quality. Hmmm... tough choice.

Can I ask what enclosure you using that holds 3 HDDs? Most of the time I don't take take my external drive with my laptop as I'm mostly editing MIDI and (at least at the moment) BFD is running fine of my system drive. I've been actually thing about mounting all this stuff, Keyboard, FW drive, A USB hub, My Mbox Mini on a Ozite coverd board to make it more "Portable" Ivory is definitly on the Horizon so I'm looking for solutions. You have any problems running BFD and Ivory from the Same drive?

[1m1]

In listening to some of the demo MP3s of Ivory, sometimes the piano is a little bright for my taste. Does the software allow you to tweak it tonally very much from within the plug-in?

[EGS]

In listening to some of the demo MP3s of Ivory, sometimes the piano is a little bright for my taste. Does the software allow you to tweak it tonally very much from within the plug-in?

Yes there are some basic EQ and timbre tweaks in Ivory, but you'd be better off simply EQing in PT.