What to do...

[gratefool1]

Okay, This is newbdom at its finest. I have been trolling these boards on and off for a while now and really just do not know how to get started. I started off recording through the line in of my desktop using cakewalk software several years ago. I thought it was pretty easy so I purchased a STAudio C-port 2000 with 8/8 i/o s and preamps (PCI input card). I never got this thing to work on my desktop for whatever reason. Last christmas we got a new laptop and I agonized over what kind of input device / soundcard to buy. In fact I never bought anyting because I was sure that I would just be my same newbish self and get something incompatible or something that was not at all what I needed. Well now I am tired of not recording. I am just ready to find something that will work, will be easy enough for my less-than-technical self to setup.
I want to record for two reasons. First I want to record rhythm tracks and work on my soloing, and next I want to record some of my songs. I have a band that plays for kicks. Not professional but pretty talented and we have written several songs that I would love to record. I could probably do this one track at a time, but it might be nice to record the whole band once or twice. We have a crate system including an eight channel mixer / pa, floor monitors and mains. I have a Dell Inspiron 2.5GHz pentium laptop that is less than a year old. It is great and should be powerful enough to do what I want (1gig RAM, do not know speed of the HD).
My question is what sound card? I assume firewire and I assume I would want 8 inputs, at least 4 preamped. I just really do not want to spend money on something that I am not going to be able to use correctly. Thanks in advance for any and all help.
Ab

[gratefool1]

If I were to get the presonus firepod, would I also need to update my Laptop's sound card or does the device act as the soundcard? I believe it has a SB card in it.

[tedluk]

Hi! And Welcome!

Just to throw out another option- and one that can be a real help to someone who isn't technically inclined- have you considered an all-in-one hard disk recorder? The prices of these have fallen considerably over the last few years and an 8 track unit can be purchased for a few hundred dollars. There are units from Korg, Roland, Zoom, Fostex and Yamaha. These units have all the basics- mic pres, mixers, hard drives, CD-R (on some of them), effects, etc. The nice thing is that they are dedicated boxes with an OS optimized for only one thing which makes using them a lot simpler.

I'm not trying to turn you away from computer based recording. I think both methods are valid and useful and I use both myself. But getting a computer based system to work can be difficult when you're just beginning. Once you learn your way around the recording process, then you can tackle wetting up a DAW.

Just a thought.

Ted