Laptop recording - $500 card reccomendation?

R

Roaf

Dumbass
I need to buy a laptop and was planning on tricking it out for recording. I was wondering if it was possible to find a decent sound card/breakout box for under/around $500 that fit the following specs...

-Windows XP
-4 track simultaneous recording
-at least four 1/4" or four XLR-1/4" combo inputs

Basically I am looking to do a lot of live recording, i.e., rehearsals and shows, with an option to do track by track studio recording being secondary.

TIA

Regards,
Roaf

p.s. I have been hearing lots of good stuff about M-Audio and widely mixed opinions on Aardvark
 
follow up

Acutally been doing some research on my own rather than just riding all of your coattails!

The laptop will only have one available PCI slot so it looks like that leaves out stuff like the EMU 1820-M and 1212...
 
M-Audio 410

Thanks bro.
Unforrunately I can not get into the M-Audio site:(
I looked at the specs on musiciansfriend.com and I am not sure about the inputs. It says there are only two analog inputs.

I will probably be in a situation where I would have four SM58s around the room and maybe a line from the PA for "clean vocals". In this case would I need an external mixer to use with the 410? Or would I need a mixer no matter what card I go with?

Thanks again.

Regards,
Roaf
 
...

i have't been to their website lately but have you checked out echo products yet? i was thinking about the GINA or LAYLA but i cannot remember the specs on them.
 
recording set up

This is how I pictured the live set up being. Can I record in this fashion w/o having to get a seperate mixer?

4+ track simultaneous recording:

Drum mic1 -------------->Breakout box***>notebook
Drum mic2 ------------->Breakout box***>notebook
Bass DI ----------------->Breakout box***>notebook
Guitar mic--------------->Breakout box***>notebook

Vox mic ------->PA===>Breakout box***>notebook

---- XLR-1/4"

==== RCA

**** PCI connection
 
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