Do you need an expensive laptop to record?

[capnkid]

Isn't it just basically used for a hub? Isn't all the power in an external hard drive? As you can tell I know nill about computers, I'm glad this forum is here.

I have a little dilemma.

I might be allowed to use $5000 for starting a D.J./One man band outfit. I would record all of my backing tracks for the one man band thing.

with the alotted $5000 I would nee to buy:

1. A firepod-type unit
2. A laptop to play the recorded songs at gig.
3. A P.A. system
4. Microphones for recording drums, vocals, amps
5 A bass
6. A bass amp or modular.
7. New cymbals/heads for drum set
8. All the wires and cables
9. Mixer? I don't know?
10. monitors

Whew! That's a lot. But I could use a $300 bass, get a $400 cymbal set, get by with a bass modular I guess. So that's $1000 right there.

How do you hook a computer up to a P.A.? But I think I can get by with a $400 P.A.

I don't know, some feedback please.

 

[capnkid]

Oh, and an acoustic guitar .

I have to make a presentation of what I'm doing and what I need to do it. I could record on my P.C. It's an 03 with tons of storage, and then use either a C.D. player or Laptop with songs on storage, I really don't know about this, which would be better.

But I have Emu 0404 right now and I haven't figured it out yet, I hate it. I need something EASY TO USE. EASY TO LEARN.

 

[TerraMortim]

All the plugins will be running using the computer's power. Just audio playback will be used from the hard drive. Especially with a laptop, I'd go with the fastest one I could afford for recording. Max out the ram as well. =) Get an audio interface with XLR outputs, and then just run it out to inputs in the PA rather than speakers. For all that stuff, it'll be hard to limit yourself to $5,000. I spent probably about 8 or 9 grand on my setup and that's mostly the computer, software audio interface and speakers. Of course with maxed out ram and the biggest hard drives I could afford at the time. If you're on a tight budget, might want to look at desktops. I know laptops can be really pricey. I spent about $2,500 on my Macbook Pro. Works really nicely, but I need to max the ram out.