Keyscape as a live instrument

I've now got Keyscape set up to augment my stage rig, and it's frickin' awesome.
 
This was really just going to be an experiment, since I've never been enthusiastic about using a laptop on stage. I've never had any audio application on this laptop. I had no intention of buying an audio interface, just bringing in MIDI via USB and getting audio from the onboard RealTek out the headphone jack. 
 
I didn't have high expectations. I didn't know if the latency would be low enough, if the 8GB of RAM was going to be sufficient (it's what Spectrasonics says is the absolute minimum for Keyscape), if the headphone out was going to be loud enough, or if the RealTek was going to clip horribly. But it was just an experiment, so what the heck.
 
So I hooked a USB cable from my Kronos and a stereo cable from the headphone jack to my keyboard amplifier. And it worked! Sort of.
 
First thing I had to do was install ASIO4All. MME just wasn't going to cut it, latency-wise. Interestingly, when I first tested the setup with VB3 and then OBxD, MME worked just fine. But not for Keyscape. It went into convulsions until I switched to ASIO4All.
 
Although Spectrasonics says it's coming soon, Keyscape doesn't yet have a standalone executable so I used SAVIHost to host the DLL. It worked great, as always. Because I'm running nothing else on the laptop, it has no problem handling the minimum 80-sample buffer size. Close enough to real-time for rock 'n roll.
 
The acid test will come this Saturday when I set it up onstage, but I'm stoked to try it out. 
 
 

Looking forward to hearing how this works out for you.
 
Next Step: Omni 2 Live mode...  

This is a generic Acer laptop with 8GB RAM, 1TB 5400RPM drive and an i5 CPU.
 
I bought it in a hurry because my old laptop had bit the dust and I needed something for a business trip. (That was actually good luck, because I had just transferred all my day-job stuff to it right before my main computer got stolen.)
 
So no, it's not a high-spec machine. It's certainly not the computer I'd have chosen for audio applications. I think it was about $600 or $700, bought direct from Acer. Could have been cheaper but I had to have a 17" display. 
 
So it was a surprise that it's working as well as it is. The pianos sound fantastic through my Roland keyboard amps, better than the piano libraries on my gigging synth, a Korg Kronos 2. And pianos are what the Kronos does best. That little RealTek does a fine job, no distortion. Latency is mostly undetectable, although now and again I experience some brief hesitation. That might be some background process that needs to be shut down. I think I may have the wireless NIC enabled. Before I trust this for live performance I'll do some optimization.
 
There does not seem to be any noise from the headphone output or cable. It's actually a 1/8" to RCA with RCA-to-quarter-inch adapters, a real kludge. I've just ordered a proper cable for the job, because I'll need 20' on some larger stages. I've got the input gain on the amp channel at 12 o'clock, same as for the Kronos, and there's no significant noise.

I do indeed have a pair of KC-150s [correction: KC-350s], linked for stereo. If I was buying amps today, though, I'd look further. The Rolands have all the features I need but the tone is a bit scooped. For about the same price I could have gotten a powered PA. I've used JBL powered PAs for keyboards in the past and they sounded pretty good. But the Rolands have a 4-channel mixer built in, so that's one less piece of gear to haul around.
 
I play in two bands. One is a 5-piece classic rock and blues band. Not much call for a Dolceola when doing Doors covers, but Keyscape's upright pianos are going to fit right in for the Janis Joplin material we do. (We do a lot of Joplin, as it's our singer's specialty). And the Pianet is exactly the edgy EP sound I've been struggling to get out of my Kronos.
 
My other band is a 2-piece duo, where my partner plays acoustic 12-string. The material is eclectic, improvisational and wide-ranging, from Frank Sinatra to Pink Floyd, as well as many originals. We don't play loud, so there's plenty of room for nuanced sound.

how quickly can you change patches when the band wings it

Yup...I'm interested in knowing if the instrument load times are a hitch in your live get along as well??

bit, what are the specs of your laptop? is that slow load time from an SSD or a 7200 rpm?
 
cheers,
-Tom

bitflipper
It's an off-the-shelf generic laptop (Acer) with an i5 processor, 8 GB RAM and a 1TB conventional drive. I bought it to do my day job on the road, not with the intention of using it for audio purposes. An SSD-equipped computer would be much faster. Having more RAM would probably help, too.

Last year I also picked up a generic Acer with a Core i5, and a 5400rpm HDD, to use for a portable office, not music.  The price was right.
 
I finally decided to give it a go with Sonar, just to be able to play with it when away from home.  So I loaded ASIO4ALL, Sonar Platinum, and a few soft synths.  Then plugged in some Sennheiser headphones, and my Xkey 25.  CPU usage was low, and was pleasantly surprised by how well the Realtek sounded  And with low latency as well, the soft synths were very responsive!!!
 
Like you said, it would be nice to have more RAM, and an SSD.  My desktop PC has me spoiled.  So I found a YouTube video on performing the upgrade.  Here's a tip:  if you think you may ever want to swap drives, or RAM, get a laptop with access from the bottom panel, LOL!
 
Hope your model doesn't have that issue!  On mine the solution is to pull the keyboard, then unscrew and disconnect the motherboard, then pull the MB.  The RAM and disk is located UNDER the motherboard, with no access from the bottom side.  So this basically needs to be completely disassembled to perform an upgrade.  Yikes! I've not yet been that motivated to risk tearing it apart.  Runs fine once it boots up, and things that I need are loaded from HDD 
 
Good luck with that new stage rig!!!

Some free patches from Ilio for Omnisphere2 and Keyscape, downloadable normally until Dec. 1, but apparently still available:
http://www.ilio.com/dlpro...m_source=customer-list

bitflipper
Switching patches isn't something you'd want to do mid-song. Depending on settings and the patch, it can take (up to) a couple minutes, so I have to plan ahead. Depending on the gig, I may only use one patch. I use only a handful of patches anyway, which I've gathered in the User folder so at least I'm not wasting time scrolling through them. 

One of the big advantages to using Omni2 is the LIVE mode. You can preload up to 8 instruments and switch between them with a mouse click (or touchscreen).
 
https://support.spectrasonics.net/manual/Omnisphere/live_mode/index.html
 
Regards,
Dan