Mini-laptops like the Asus Eee PC lineup are great if you’re basically looking for a machine to use as a portable web browser for connecting to WiFi hotspots on the go. But they’ve also got more than enough processing power to handle some audio editing and mixing tasks. Indamixx markets a netbook based on the Sylvania G Meso that comes preloaded with Linux and a ton of applications for creating and editing music. But you can also slap your favorite Windows or Linux audio apps on any old netbook and turn it into a digital music machine.
Create Digital Music also has an article on a repurposed computer monitor stand that can be used as a stand for an Eee PC or other digital music hardware, making the tiny laptop feel a bit more like an actual musical instrument.
The DIY stand was created by Sasa Djuric, who also loaded up ReBirth for Windows and pairs the computer with some MIDI hardware. You can find more photos of the project in Djuric’s Flickr photostream.
I have been experimenting with using Ableton Live on my acer aspire one netbook and was surprised by how well it handles audio if teamed with an ASIO compatible sound card.
Here are a couple of posts I put together about the subject:
https://www.klunk.org/archives/182
https://www.klunk.org/archives/224
i have an asus eee 1000h running vista (and three others). i’ve successfully had 11 tracks of 24 bit/96khz loaded up in cubase playing off the stock 160 gig 5400 rpm hard drive with 2 gigs of ram.
it didn’t miss a beat.