Computer Capabilities

[SK1985]

Hello All,

I'm a singer-songwriter in the process of setting up my own home studio as a more cost effective means of recording material rather than pay the exorbitant amounts of money most producers/recording engineers appear to be charging.

A friend of mine, who already has a home studio advised me I needed a computer with the following capabilities - 2GHz Dual Core Processor; 2 GB of Memory & a 160 - 200 GB Hard Drive. A laptop which I've been offered has the following capabilities - 1.46GHZ Dual Core Processor; 2 GB of Memory & a 160 GB Hard Drive. My friend displayed concerns that anything short of his recommendations would not be sufficient due to the large nature of audio files and the amount of memory the programme Cubase uses.

My question is thus would the laptop be able to cope with the demands of any home recording studio in the future given my friend's concerns?

Any thoughts would be much appreciated, and any recommendations in the selection of a suitable interface would also be welcome. My music is largely Celtic/Folk/Acoustic featuring vocals/guitars/violin/double bass/Bodhran with the occasional acordian.

Many thanks,

SK

[TimOBrien]

I've used a 2.8Ghz laptop (single-core, you can easily go 1.5-2Ghz dual-core and get better performance than mine now) hooked to a Motu828mkII and firewire external drive for a couple of years. Zero problems.

Here's my standard newbie links for you:

First off, immediately get a good beginner recording book (spend $20 before spending hundred$/thousand$) that shows you what you need to get started and how to hook everything up in your studio:
Home Recording for Musicians by Jeff Strong - $15
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/076...books&v=glance
(Wish I'd had that when I started; would have saved me lots of money and time and grief)

Good Newbie guides that also explains all the basics:
http://www.tweakheadz.com/guide.htm
http://www.computermusic.co.uk/page/..._beginner_pdfs

21 Ways To Assemble a Recording Rig:
http://www.tweakheadz.com/rigs.htm

Also Good Info:
http://www.theprojectstudiohandbook.com/directory.htm

Other recording books:
http://musicbooksplus.com/home-recording-c-31.html


Plenty of software around to record for FREE to start out on:

Audacity: http://audacity.sourceforge.net (multi-track with VST support)

Wavosaur: http://www.wavosaur.com/ (a stereo audio file editor with VST support)

Kristal: http://www.kreatives.org/kristal/

Other freebies and shareware: www.hitsquad.com

Another great option is REAPER at http://www.cockos.com/reaper/
(It's $40 but runs for free until you get guilty enough to pay for it...)

Music Notation and MIDI recording: Melody Assistant ($20) and Harmony Assistant ($80) have the power of $600 notation packages - http://myriad-online.com
Demo you can try on the website.

And you can go out to any Barnes&Noble or Borders and pick up "Computer Music" magazine - they have a full studio suite in every issue's DVD, including sequencers, plugins and tons of audio samples. (November 2006 they gave away a full copy of SamplitudeV8SE worth $150, November 2007-on the racks Dec in the US- they're giving away SamplitudeV9SE. It pays to watch 'em for giveaways...)

[dementedchord]

ok i see you're a newbie.... but in the future resist the temptation to double post your questions.....emkay??

[Squiksilvery]

but when the forum grinds to a complete stop just as you post a thread, ones natural response is to go back and try again, only to find you have now posted it twice... I'm a newbie at this kind of retaliation wit, so please appreciate it as it is meant.

[Squiksilvery]

....emkay???

[dementedchord]

well my comment wasn't directed to you... so not sure where you get off... i mentioned it here because he posted the same question in a couple of different forums... can't remember right now but IIRC i gave an actuall answer in the other forum...

[cusebassman]

How much of a difference is there between the new desktop and this laptop?

I'd think you'd be perfectly fine. I can record 8 simultaneous tracks on my laptop, which is a powerBook G4, single-core 1.5GHz processor, 80GB hard drive, 1GB of RAM. Now, I know the G4's had a PowerPC processor, so that clock speed (1.5GHz) doesn't correspond accurately with an Intel processor, but its still single core, and works fine.

So, just one guy's experience.

[fuzzrhythm]

the laptop is fine for recording. you may want to add a firewire hard drive to record on if you find yourself recording/playing back 8 or more tracks at a time.

[Soundmind??]

You have sufficient speed and memory in your laptop. I would definitely invest in and external hard drive with 7200 rpm speed. You need the internal drive to handle files for the applications (Cubase, VST instruments, plug-ins, etc.) I would record my audio files to the external drive. This shares the workload between 2 drives. Another thing to remember is that you need to back up all important work in case a drive fails. At the end of each session, I back up the entire project (audio and project) by saving them to two separate hard drives. In your case, after recording, you would save the project to the external drive, and then to the internal drive.