I am trying to get a portable live setup and I am considering using a 2U racked PC but it will require that I use a riser card for my soundcard. This sounds like a bad idea. Can someone explain what a riser card does and whether or not it effects performance?

I understand that a laptop w/ a PCMCIA interface would be the best idea, but I'd like to be able to bring the whole DAW onstage as a soft-sampler and also for backing tracks.

-mokiskali