The tour with Bobby Flynn is hotting up now. Over the weekend we had two shows: In Brisbane and the Gold Coast, which meant that I spent about 8 hours of my weekend setting up and tearing down my rig, aligning projectors and screens, running cables, and running around. The tour map currently displays 16 gigs down Australia’s east coast, and we will have another 35 or so joining them over the next week or so as dates are finalized. The cardboard box protecting my V4 during transport has already torn, and I’m sick of plugging and unplugging cables. So I need to get this stuff cased up, for the protection of my hardware and my sainity.

The current list (left to right, top to bottom):

• Wii - for pre-show warmups and after hours fun. Need to organize a wireless sensor bar.
• Behringer BCD2000 - Ghetto, but functional.
• Behringer BCR2000 - less ghetto than the BCD2000, and more functional.
• Numark AVM02 - Reviewed here.
• Samsung 940n 19″ LCD Monitor
• Lacie 200GB External Drive - Several years old, so should probably be replaced
• Macbook - Main Laptop. Running VDMX, Max/MSP/Jitter, Ableton Live etc.
• Thinkpad - Backup laptop. Running Ableton Live, Max/MSP/Jitter, Processing etc.
• Korg Kaoss Pad Entrancer - Video/Audio effects unit.
• Edirol V4
• Small Form Factor PC
• Voxson portable DVD player/monitor

Laptops and Mac minis are wonderful, but they don’t let you upgrade your CPU or fill two PCI slots with hyper-powerful video cards. I’ve been loving lugging my Shuttle XPC to gigs, in a custom Shuttle case that I can carry on the subway or in cabs. But if it hadn’t tempted you yet, this might:

Shuttle XPC Barebone SD37P2

The new barebones kit lets you add your own Intel Core 2 Duo CPU and, with two x16 slots, ATI CrossFire-compatible video. The Core 2 Duo is not to be confused with the Core Duo in Mac laptops; this is the souped-up desktop-class Core 2 Duo (up to Duo Extreme) that’s the fastest consumer CPU on the planet. Gizmodo has the story, and readers there are confused by the cost. Let me explain: unlike, say, a new Mac Pro, the barebones system lets you customize the machine for your individual needs, and unlike almost every other solution out there, you have an upgradeable machine that you can actually lift to gigs. VJs and live visualists, I’m sure, don’t need an explanation here. Much as I love Apple, the ability to fully customize and transport your machine has a lot of appeal.

The US$537 cost isn’t cheap, but it’s not just a case — as with the Shuttle I covered here, “barebones” includes the motherboard, fans, cables, and little extras like a card reader. The case is definitely first-rate, too.

I’m still happy with my AMD-compatible Shuttle, which has now been through four gigs. This case design is similar, though I don’t like the fact that Shuttle moved the drive eject button so you could accidentally hit power. Full post-gig review of my SN26P coming soon.

Related:

Building a Portable SFF PC for Live Visuals, Music Gigs: Part 1, Assembly in Comic Book Form

Building a Gigging PC, Pt. II: RAID Setup, Installing Windows XP Without Bloat

In our last episode, I was assembling my fantastic new portable Shuttle PC in glorious comic book form. I got as far as booting Ubuntu Linux off a CD, but obviously I wouldn’t want to stop there. Next steps: getting the onboard NVIDIA RAID working, and making a lean, livable Windows XP install I won’t hate (always a great reason for building your own machine). Happily, both problems have a single solution: nLite. (Shown below, with its awe-inspiring tweakability.)

Sorry, no comics this time. But if we can save time installing and tweaking Windows, we’ll have more reason to read real comics.

Laptops are wonderful things. But they’re not always the best tool for the job, particularly when it comes to visuals. Notebook computers with even basic video cards command a huge price premium, and they’re not upgradeable. Desktop computers offer cheap, fast, upgradeable components, from the processor to storage to the video card. I didn’t want to sacrifice either: I wanted a powerful machine that I could take with me on a subway. Think fragbox for live visualists. In this series, I’ll set up, configure, and then gig with a Small Form Factor (SFF) PC running live visuals and audio.

First up: assembling the custom PC. For a little twist, you get to watch me do it comic book form, courtesy the fun Mac app Comic Life from plasq. If you’ve never built a PC before, or never an SFF machine, this will show you what it’s about. (Hey, I was a mostly-Mac person from 96 through ‘04 before returning to a cross-platform setup!) If you’re an old pro at custom machine building, you can laugh heartily at my mistakes.

Before we get into the how-to comic, though, a word about the Shuttle SN26P and why I’m so excited to be using it as a portable visual powerhouse.