Can I record with my older laptop?

J

jeff0633

Member
Hi Guys. I have an IBM thinkpad 600E laptop with a Pentium 2 400 cpu and 285 ram with a 40 gtig drive 5200 rpm. I have a firewire port pcmcia card too. If I were to get a Presxonus firebox, could this thing record say, 4 stereo tracks and 6 mono tracks two at a time and play them all back for editing and such, at 16 bit? What about 24 bit? Would I be able to use a few pluggs, like a send/return reverb for all the tracks and a compressor on each track? I remember recording on my desktop pentium 2 400 using cooledit 1.2 years ago, and didn't seem to have any trouble at 16 bit. I believe I can put up to 500 megs ram in the TP 600E. Just want to know before I invest in a firebox.

Thanks

Jeff
 
should work fine, although you will be limited as far as expanding to VST instruments, which often require a good amount of processing power.
 
It would be taking a chance given your CPU speed, if you plan on buyng the Presonus anyway to use witha newer computer; go ahead and try it out.
 
Well. I have the EMU 1820M for my desktop at home. I needed something to get 8 to 12 tracks for when I go to a friends place to record. Never more than two tracks at once, so are there any decent firewire or USB recording options that would work on this machine? Aren't there some Maudio usb two channel cards out there? Any other ideas would be great. I have Sonar 4 loaded on the laptop, and it seems to start up fine, but that measn nothing when the audio files get to playing. I could also get one of the PCMCIA cards that has firewire and USB 2.0 and then get a 7200 rpm drive and use a USB 2.0 recording card.

Jeff
 
i bought the tascam us-122 for the same reasons you have...works wonders.
I first bought the m-audio mobile pre which was 50 bucks cheaper....god was that the noisiest thing ive ever heard...returned that and bought the us-122.
And its usb and only requires a 266 mhz processor with 96mb's of ram!
Also it has 2 inserts so you can hook up some effects to it so ya wouldnt need to use as many cpu demanding plugs.

have a looksie here http://www.tascam.com/Products/US-122.html
 
more ram will cover a multitude of sins..........

jeff0633 said:
Well. I have the EMU 1820M for my desktop at home. I needed something to get 8 to 12 tracks for when I go to a friends place to record. Never more than two tracks at once, so are there any decent firewire or USB recording options that would work on this machine? Aren't there some Maudio usb two channel cards out there? Any other ideas would be great. I have Sonar 4 loaded on the laptop, and it seems to start up fine, but that measn nothing when the audio files get to playing. I could also get one of the PCMCIA cards that has firewire and USB 2.0 and then get a 7200 rpm drive and use a USB 2.0 recording card.

Jeff
Click to expand...

get the most ram you can, prob 512meg. whatever you buy, try to have everything else ready to go, when you get it. stress it as much as you can (musically, no whips or chains, no scratches). if it does not work, send or take it back, just check out the return policy first. most are 15 days on hardware, none on software, and sometimes up to 15% restocking fee.
 
I have successfully gotten 30tracks (16/44.1) to run on a PII/400mhz Gateway desktop back when I was starting out several years ago.

One thing to do is use older versions of software that was written without the modern bells and whistles. N-Track 3.3 build 1516 (still available) is particularly good on older PCs without the ooomph.

Freeze (or what tape-heads used to call "print to tape") your effects onto a new track rather than run plug-ins. Extra tracks are easier to run than plugs.

Keep everything as lean-and-mean as you can get it and don't try any fancy stuff - keep to basic recording and it'll work.
 
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