help with laptop recording

[BillLatsh]

hello everyone.

i am just getting into recording and for now i am using my laptop and a zoom mrs-8 mixer for my recording. the mixer can only record 1 track at a time and i want to take it to the next level. For now i have about $1000 to spend on whatever i need.

my goal is to record demos of my band.

Here are the specs of my laptop

Amd Sempron Processor 3000+ 1.80 Ghz
448 MB ram.

and the soundcard has the basic line in, line out, microphone jacks.

 

[MCreel]

how many tracks you gonna need done at once?

 

[BillLatsh]

i guess how ever many i would need for drum mics, bass, guitar and vocs.

 

[MCreel]

If all at once then I recommend you buy THIS

You can do it with others too, but that will make it easiest on you.

 

[BillLatsh]

as for connecting that to my computer what wold i need?

i do not have a firewire port in my laptop. i just have usb and my soundcard.
but i could always pick up a firewire cardbus.

and a stupid question, would i also need a mixer?

also what wold i use if i didnt record all of them at once.

 

[MCreel]

If not recording them all at once then you could use something like THIS

Although theres probably about 30 different ways to accomplish this.

USB would work, but not real well. The firepod comes with a firewire cable so you'd need to buy USB adaptors to fit that in which case you might as well just buy a PCIMCIA card with firewire plugs on it and put that in your computer.

You wouldn't "need" a mixer, but you could use one....in a variety of different ways. You could plug mics into a mixer and route it into one input on the firepod or firebox and this would expand the number of channels you had to work with.

If you didn't use an outboard mixer you could just the one in the software. I think the firepod still comes bundled with Cubase LE. Good program.

 

[BillLatsh]

thanks you have been a ton of help