Recording with Minimum Equipment

[47ronin]

Hello,

This is my first post. Here is my deal: I will be living in rural Japan for two years and then returning to America. I want to set up a Mac based recording setup to make demos and mp3s. I dont want to have tons of equipment to ship back when I leave.

How can I do this in the easiest way? For example, can I get away with using software compressors/samplers/preamps etc. and not any stand alone units.

Is it possible to use a laptop as a base for something like the MOTU sound cards? Do I absolutely need monitors or can I get away with headphones? Also, can I sample straight from Cds or do I need a seperate unit.



thanks for your help



47ronin

[James HE]

You will need monitors! There are some very small choices, Like the Event PS6 (?) thaey are powered too.

I suppose you can use a laptop, but that will limit your hard drive space in a way, I don't think you can get a 20 GB drive in a laptop. (who knows these days though) So external drives would be necessary, or at least a CD-R. Also with a laptop you'll need to go USB. Most soundcards use a PCI slot (the MOTU). But there are lots of USB options coming out now. (the TASCAM thingy and the Event E-Z Buss come to mind) How many tracks will you need to Record at once? A USB interface, the Laptop, a mic or two, whatever instruments, something for data archival, and some small powered monitors would be very trasportable.

-jhe