Laptop-based studio - is there an FAQ?

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nigeleccleston

New member
I am a singer-songwriter and I travel a lot (in a car) for my day job. I'd like to put together a portable studio as small and light as possible for up to $3,000 (not including the laptop itself). I figure there must be a FAQ for this question already - could someone please point me towards it?
Right now I am using a Roland/Boss BR8 to record one or two tracks at a time from an AT3035 (vocal condenser) or Shure SM58 (blues harp dynamic) and my guitar pickup(s) (Fishman for acoustic or Fender electric) on line-in, and I often use an Alesis drum machine. So, for my future system, I'd need phantom power for the AT mic (I currently use an Event pre-amp). I generally record at least 6, and often 12+ tracks before I mix and process. The BR8 allows me to overdub, punch-in/out, add effects, use a click track...
After I record a bunch of tracks I convert them all to .wav files and download them to my laptop and mess around with them in Cakewalk Home Studio.
I'd like to have a system that would eliminate the BR8 step(s) but still allow the condenser mic (therefore phantom power).
I'm looking for a recommended setup FAQ that details the hardware I need - the sound card, whatever hardware I need to get the mic and guitar signals into the laptop, and all the things I don't even know I need. Let's assume I have a P4 laptop that is plenty fast and has lots of disk space.
If there is no FAQ - any tips on other boards or sites to look?
Thanks!
 
I can tell you what you need in just a few sentences. First, this is a popular interface which goes into the USB port of your laptop and has phantom power for your AT mic. It comes with a driver CD for PC and Mac. You already have decent software, and you are already conversant with using it.

There are literally thousands of computer apps which deal with various aspects of processing and sequencing and sampling and mangling audio, but it's premature to get you started on any of those. Just start where you are by substituting your laptop for the Boss recorder and see where it takes you.

It's not a big deal anymore to use laptops for music - it's getting more common every day!
 
Way cheaper than I expected!

Thanks for the info and link (and welcome). I am amazed I could be set up for $150 with the MobilePre.
 
One thing to keep in mind is that if you plan on expanding to more powerful hardware in the future (for recording 8 or more simultaneous tracks for example), then make sure the notebook you get (or already have) has Firewire capability. The MobilePre is a good little box that runs on USB2.0, but almost everything more powerful than that doesn't use USB...they use Firewire.
 
And if you already have a laptop without firewire, you can get PCM/CIA firewire cards for it. Usually pretty cheap on ebay (I bought one for about $10 with shipping - works just fine).
 
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