Laptop - is it adequate?

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Zoot

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Hi All

Firstly, thank you to the owners and moderators of this site!. I am new to home recording and have been battling to find good info.......until now!

I have a 3 year old Sony Vaio PIII 650 with 128 MB Ram. It has some fairly crappy Yamaha sound card built in (only has mic and headphone jacks). I want to set up a simple home studio using cubase or sonar, a mic or two (primarily for recording my sax, but maybe whole bands later). Is this laptop gonna suffice or should i bite the bullet and get something better? Any suggestions?

Secondly, if i use the laptop, i understand that i can upgrade the sound card with an external device (USB?) Is this a good idea, which are good, well-priced devices?

Do I need to get a mixer straight off or can i plug the mic straight into the external sound card? Some of these cards seem to have multiple ports - if i get one of these, what additional benefit would a mixer provide?

Sorry if these are dumb questions :(
 
Bite the bullet and get something better. I wouldn't go and build something around that laptop. You are going to need a mic pre before you can record anything and phantom power if you use a condensor mic. Most mixers have both but you may want to look into a tube pre for vocals. You're going to need a compressor and limiter too. Let us know your budget and you'll get plenty of help here on how, why and where to spend it. Welcome to the board.
 
thanks :)

I don't really have a budget? Don't have tons of cash - live in South Africa, so currency is weak too :( But I can probably afford $2000 to get started (including the PC)

My intention initally is to compose stuff, arrange it, lay some tracks (primarily sax) over it and maybe produce a nice demo.

I also do a lot of playing in smallish jazz/funk/rock bands, so would love to record this too (typically drums, bass, keyboard/guitar, sometimes vocals) - but this is not my immediate goal, although i would like to get into this - and possibly even make some cash out of it one day. I have a nice space in my house that could become a studio.

I think your suggestion on new hardware is right - this old laptop is a bit of a dog. I'm primarily a windows user, but could get a Mac if that's better?

So...I get a nice PC P4 512 MB Ram, lots of hd space (do i need to go scsi?), a decent sound card (like a M Audio Audiophile 2496?), a Shure SM57 for the sax. Can the mic go straight into the sound card? or is this what the mixer is for? What a good, basic mixer (4 track, 8 track maybe?).

Then i suppose i need an amp and some monitor speakers? I have a nice Klipsch 5 speaker PC system - is that ok to start?

For software, I'm debating whether to go all out and get cubase or whether cakewalk sonar might be easier - or even perhaps cakewalk homestudio (which is cheaper).. or maybe even another?

Lots of questions I know, your patience and help is most appreciated.

peace,
Paul :)
 
I have been playing with the Sonar demo and I like it enough to buy it. Should be getting it mid april.


Dont count your laptop out. Really. The ability to just pick it up and record anyware is awesome. check this out...

M-Audio Mobile Pre USB ($149):
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/srs7...6130082588/search/g=rec/detail/base_id/103189

This is a USB powered preamp / soundcard. With this you can plug a copule of mics and record anyware. It is limited since it is only 16 bit and does not provide phantom power (so no LD condensors)... But since the lap top powers it, With 2 sm 57's you can make some awesome recordings without even pluging anything into a power outlet. Recording unplugged... how cool is that?


The usb card, sonar, 2 sm57's and cable will run you under $500.
That leaves you 1500 to buy a main PC with it's own sound card (a 24bit one) and some studio monitors... so you can import the tracks you recorded on your laptop into the big rig :)


Just my thoughts... I think portable high quality recording is cool. You could probably make some money with it too by just making decent stereo recordings for bands on gigs or whatever.
 
thank you Gunther

I didn't know u could get a demo of Sonar - busy downloading it now :)

That USB option to the laptop is pretty sweet! Maybe I should try that and see how the laptop handles? I've been having a look on the zzounds website - seems there's quite a lot of USB options - some are 24 bit ... like this one http://www.musiciansfriend.com/srs7...30082588/g=rec/search/detail/base_pid/701375/

so with this, i won't neccesarily need the mixer right? and i could plug a midi keyboard in?

this is so cool :)
 
Here is the problem, as you probably know, a microphone needs a pre amp and the quality of the preamp seriously affects the sound (that’s why you can’t get good results by using the SoundBlaster 'mic in', the pre sucks ass).

Some soundcards have pre's (of varying quality)

Most cards meant for recording don’t. They expect that you already have one.

Mixing boards usually have several mic pres. you can also buy dedicated mic pres that usually are better than anything you can get in a mixing board or sound card.


So if you do not have a sound card with mic pre’s then you can do one of 3 things:

* Mic => dedicated pre => sound card (cheap, clean, great sound quality… not as flexible)

* Mic => Mixer => sound card (Mixers with good pres are not cheap, flexible setup)

* Mic => Dedicated pre => mixer line in => sound card (this is what they do in pro studios, best yet most expensive, not needed if your only working with 4 or so tracks)


---------------------------------------

For a small setup where you only need to record 4 or so tracks at one time I think a mixer is not the best way to use money. A good mic pre can be had for $200 - $600 (like the m-audio DMP3 or the SP-VTB1.) One or 2 pre's will give you the signal boost without f**king up the sound, or even actually helping the sound. All other adjustments can be done in sonar (level adjustments, compression effects...)


The sound card I suggested may be only 16 bit (cd quality) BUT it has its own pre amp (which probably does not suck, m-audio makes decent pres) and gets its power from the lap top. Most other sound cards will need to be plugged into the wall. You can get really good results with 16 bit, as long as your levels are set right (many posts on these forums about that!)

But it’s a trade off of portability vs. power.


I do not think the card you were looking at had mic pre's and I am pretty sure you need to plug it into the wall (not sure though.)
 
Gunther, that's great - i was most confused around the whole sound card, pre-amp, mixer, mic story. I get it now - thanks :)

Yes, you are correct, the card i was looking at has no pre-amp. It seems there are some USB cards that have a pre-amp, but are quite expensive and then you're stuck with USB when u upgrade to a PC :( Is this a problem? I would have thought USB was a bit suspect on throughput for top quality?

With regard to mixers, it seems you can get really inexpnsive 4 track mixers like these - http://www.zzounds.com/a--2676837/cat--Mixers--2846 . Specifically, the behringer mx1604a has 12 tracks and is only $179?? Am i missing something ........ (again ;) )

Have a great weekend...I'm off to go do something simple....... like an acoustic sax gig.... no tech to worry about ;)
 
Berhinger mixers are going to hurt the sound quality a bit... I have one, and I am getting away from using it. Also they do not have direct outs at that price range (outputs for each channel... instead you just have a main left and right output of all the signals mixed)

For $500 soundcraft makes an awesome 12 channel that is much better suited for recording than the behringer. Combine that with a good multi in / out (like the delta 10/10), sonar and a nice PC and you will be able to handle some pretty big projects.

Even still, a delta44 and DMP3 mic pre will cost you 600$ less and will sound a little better... but its 4 tracks vs 8 (or 12). So you have a lot of decisions to make.


As far as being stuck with a USB card... thats why I suggested the mobile pre sound card. Its cheap and you can dedicate it to your laptop. Then down the road when you want to do big stuff you can get a desktop PC and a better sound card, yet still use the laptop for recording tracks away from the studio (and then probably importing those tracks into your main PC.)

Like your live acoustic gig... you could have recorded it with your lap top without even pluging in :)


Good Luck!
 
Gunther said:
.......
As far as being stuck with a USB card... thats why I suggested the mobile pre sound card. Its cheap and you can dedicate it to your laptop. Then down the road when you want to do big stuff you can get a desktop PC and a better sound card, yet still use the laptop for recording tracks away from the studio (and then probably importing those tracks into your main PC.).....
Click to expand...

I agree with Gunther.
 
For the price of $2,000.00, you should be able to make additions to your Laptop AND still get you a new PC w/ a good aftermarket soundcard. ;)

Peace....

spin
 
That sounds like good advice...... think I'm gonna sort the laptop out with a USB/Mobile solution for max 4 tracks (which is prob all i need anyway for the foreseeable future. I'll buy some software (the sonar demo is nice- need to check a few others).

I have a nice Klipsch 5 speaker PC sound system - i know this is not monitor quality, but could it work short term?

If not, I guess I should buy a smallish amp and some speakers. If I do this, I think I'll try get big enough so that i could use for small gigs... (small bars, restaurants, etc). What's a good spec for that?

hmmm...if i get one of those mixing amps, could i use that as the mic pre-amp? Is the quality of the cheapish ones ok (the make them here in South Africa for like $300)

thanks for your help guys :)
 
No sweat...

Ahoy!

With $2k, you could pick yourself up an eMac G4, and an MBox. Though this isn't the best setup imaginable, it'll definitely do the trick. If you're recording your own stuff (i.e. you play all the instruments), this setup is perfect. But, if you're looking to get into recording other groups, you're going to run into a problem with inputs (the MBox only has two inputs). Feed through a mixer, as a temp solution.

If you can go about $3k, I'd suggest an eMac with a Digi-002. This will do beautifully.

I don't see much mention of Pro Tools setups on this board, but I really think it's the way to go for someone on a limited budget. The processing effects built into the software are adequate at worst, and you won't have to load up a rack to get the sound you want.
 
Yeah... or for well under $1600 he can get:
a dell PC with pent 4, 512 meg ram, cd writer, 17" monitor... and a delta 44 sound card... and Cakewalk Sonar... and a DMP3 pre amp... and 2 sm 57s... AND a lava lamp.

That leaves him enough money to get the sound card for his lap top, he can put sonar on both... and he will have a few hundred left over for reverb plugins, cables, stands and beer.


All he would need is monitors and cans...
 
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