Nice little audio interface for on the go

Twampy

Twampy

New member
Hi all,
At home I use my windows 7 8gb memory pc with my trusty old emu 1616 audio interface for all my recording needs and Sonar x2 as my Daw.
I have recently bought a 4gb windows 8 laptop for various uses on the go and i would like to use it to do a bit of mixing on my projects. I tried out one sonar project that I loaded from Google drive so that I could sync it from my home pc but even with the latencey settings all the way up to the max the project just kept on dropping out.
I am assuming that the laptop's soundcard is just not up to the job.
So I'm thinking about getting a usb audio interface but I'm not sure if it will work so I'd appreciate some advice, I would be happy to use headphones and would be happy with just one xlr input.
 
Twampy said:
Hi all,
At home I use my windows 7 8gb memory pc with my trusty old emu 1616 audio interface for all my recording needs and Sonar x2 as my Daw.
I have recently bought a 4gb windows 8 laptop for various uses on the go and i would like to use it to do a bit of mixing on my projects. I tried out one sonar project that I loaded from Google drive so that I could sync it from my home pc but even with the latencey settings all the way up to the max the project just kept on dropping out.
I am assuming that the laptop's soundcard is just not up to the job.
So I'm thinking about getting a usb audio interface but I'm not sure if it will work so I'd appreciate some advice, I would be happy to use headphones and would be happy with just one xlr input.
Click to expand...

Are you downloading these files, working on the session, then uploading again, or is the session actually being opened from a remote location?

If the latter, that's likely to cause problems.
 
I'm opening it from the cloud but I am sure all the audio loaded into the session because it took quite a while to open. On the first attempt it failed to download some of the audio as it was a bad internet connection. I could try downloading the session into my drive to illuminate that problem. I'm keen to try and use the cloud for syncing. My projects are around 5gb, I could use an sd card to transfer between pc's but that means a lot of loading and re loading. I've got over 100gb in the cloud so I'm keen to put it to good use.
 
I'd download the sessions and open it locally to rule that out as the problem.
I'm betting it is the problem, though.
All the session audio isn't necessarily loaded into memory, so even though a session is open it may still have to read the audio files on the fly.
If that's happening over WAN it's almost certainly going to bottleneck.
 
Yea, even if it is loading into RAM, it still fetches information and then writes it back. You will have to cache it on your local drive (fancy word for download), put it in a special folder, do your work, then when finish, save it, upload the project (I am assuming you are changing something).
 
Do you think it would read off a memory stick or ad card fast enough then I would just keep the project on a stick until it's complete.
 
Unless it's a particularly good memory stick, I'd just go with internal hard drive every time.
That said, try it and see. :)

I used to keep an ssd in a USB caddy on me when I was studying.
80gb of space - seriously fast!
 
Twampy said:
Do you think it would read off a memory stick or ad card fast enough then I would just keep the project on a stick until it's complete.
Click to expand...

It is pretty simple and it forgoes any possible issues. Create a temp folder in your documents directory, move the files there, work with them cut and past back.
 
Twampy said:
I tried out one sonar project that I loaded from Google drive so that I could sync it from my home pc but even with the latencey settings all the way up to the max the project just kept on dropping out.
Click to expand...

Are you using ASIO4ALL ? got to be using ASIO if you have any hope of mixing a project with onboard sound.

As for USB sound card. Go for one of the cheapies with a reputation to uphold. Focusrite has clean pres.

USB Audio Interfaces | Focusrite

The Solo or the 2i2
 
I copied one of my sessions onto my laptop and it still would not play so i had a closer look at my playback settings inside Sonar, I changed the driver to MME as the laptop does not support ISO and hey presto it plays nicely. I then tried playing from the cloud but that didn't work which is to be expected now I understand what is going on. It's not big deal I guess so i will just get a good SD card to carry my sessions on. It's just a little laptop so i feel I've done quite well. So I will look at getting a interface for plugging in a mic. It will be just for occasional use so I will go for something cheap as long as it has phantom power.
 
100G in the cloud is a trifling amount to put on an external USB drive (USB 3.0 if you have it) . I would download the parts you need to a file on the laptop called say "Work In Progress XYZ" and when done with it cut and paste it to the USB drive. Then you have a backup of the backup. NOT forgetting to backup WIPXYZ mk 2!

Dave.
 
Twampy said:
Hi all,
At home I use my windows 7 8gb memory pc with my trusty old emu 1616 audio interface for all my recording needs and Sonar x2 as my Daw.
I have recently bought a 4gb windows 8 laptop for various uses on the go and i would like to use it to do a bit of mixing on my projects. I tried out one sonar project that I loaded from Google drive so that I could sync it from my home pc but even with the latencey settings all the way up to the max the project just kept on dropping out.
I am assuming that the laptop's soundcard is just not up to the job.
So I'm thinking about getting a usb audio interface but I'm not sure if it will work so I'd appreciate some advice, I would be happy to use headphones and would be happy with just one xlr input.
Click to expand...

RME babyface hands down.
 
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