Laptop recording

  • Thread starter Thread starter Roel
  • Start date Start date
Roel

Roel

That SMART guy.
Seems that there's alot of new stuff for laptop recording...

The RME is -as far as I know- the only one that already earned it's fame. The others are either new, or USB-interfaces with a small number of inputs/outputs.

All the brands seem to jump on the bandwagon these days. Edirol has just launched the first USB2.0 interface (10 ins and outs); anyone seen it working? Any freaks know how USB2.0 performs on the common laptop? When compared to firewire? How does Windows like these interfaces?

Then there's the new Tascam interface (FW1884). Complete with controller, motorized faders, 4 midi ports, 8 mic pres, and an 8 channel expansion comming up end 2003. And it didn't seem that expensive. Now THAT's something I might even sell my old (t)rusty VS1880 for. :cool: But anyone seen it working yet? Is firewire a protocol that some laptops seem to have problems with, or is it something that always performs?

The US122 also seemed pretty nice.

Actually, I'm still doubting which way to go. Either get a BIG interface and get rid of the VS1880, or keep the VS and just buy a small interface for playing around and transferring stuff... Me no like these decisions. Bah!. ;)
 
Wow, I guess there is a lot of new stuff out there these days.

This is the first I've heard of most of the things you are talking about.

I'm currently using Digidesign's 002- firewire, moving faders, 4 pres, 4 line, 8 analog out, 8 ADAT i/0, 2 S/PDIF i/o. Total of 18 channels in and out. Using it in conjunction with my laptop kicks arse. Even the slow internal drive on the lappy, coupled with a fast bus, can handle 22 tracks with plugins and automation. I have yet to max out the external 7200rpm drive.

IMHO, laptop recording is the best way to have a mobile rig. I'll be very curious to see how these new devices work out.

Take care,
Chris
 
I picked up a MOTU 896, a Digimax LT and an 80GB Firewire drive to use with my PC laptop, and although I have yet to do a full field test, my initial at home testing shows it to be working great! I have been able take an exisiting project of 30+ tracks, and record 16 additional tracks without any problems so far. The only bummer with the 896 is the inablility to do direct monitoring of the lightpipe inputs (Which is what the Digimax LT is using), so I have to do software monitoring for those channels (with some latency - not a big issue though).

MOTU is coming out with the 828 MKII in the next few weeks, which looks like it's going to be a great box. It will offer the ability to do direct monitoring (Zero latency) of all inputs, is only one rackspace, and offers 20 total inputs (2 built in preamps, 8 additional analog inputs, plus 8 channels of lightpipe and 2 channels of S/PDIF. Even though I'm not unhappy with the 896, I may consider making the move to the 828 MKII just for the ability to do direct monitoring of all inputs.

IMO, I would avoid devices that use USB, because USB tends to be much more processor intensive than Firewire. Even though USB2 claims to have more throughput than Firewire, the reality is that Firewire outperforms USB2 by a good margin due to a lighter load on your system.
 
I hate making these decisions... :( I'm thinking for now I'll just buy a small interface (like the audiophile USB) to bounce tracks digitally, while I can continue working with my VS1880. And then, if most of my recording is done on my PC, I might invest in a bigger system.

I don't do alot of multitrackwork anyway... Mostly I'm sequencing with a friend, and doing overdubs on that. Or doing overdubs on previously recorded material, which I will probably bounce to my PC if I start getting the drill...
And in the end, having a small stereo input/output box will be usefull anyways to drag around when I start doing livegigs with electronics. (Got BIG plans... And friends... I'm about to start a project with a saxplayer that has done work with David Shea, if anyone knows that guy...)

But keep these things coming. I didn't know USB was harder on the processor. Good info! I love to learn about these things. That's why I'm so smart... :cool:
 
Cost of the RME unit

Hey, I'm running into all kinds of latency problems trying to lay down even 4 tracks (sequentially recorded, sound on sound via N-track studio) on my Dell Inspiron 8100 PIII laptop with ESS Maestro III sound "card". Even though setup (BIOS) says this thing is "full duplex" I suspect it is faking it with the hard drive (buffering i/o). Anyway, I just looked at some USB full duplex stuff (like the Edirol UA-3D at $179.00 US), but is there anything cheaper? How much is this RME unit you refer to and what is its capability?
 
The RME costs about $800-900 in the US, but then again it's a 26 channel interface. I'm running mine with a Dell Inspiron 4100 and an external firewire HD. Works fine! Using the internal HD I get dropouts with only a few tracks; to be on the safe side I always bring the external HD if I'm gonna record more than two tracks.

By the way firewire kicks USB butt in every test I've seen, but that dosn't mean that USB isn't good enough.
 
I've heard nothing but good things about both the old MOTU 828 as well as the new MkII version. Here's my laptop plan (as soon as I raise the money): Apple 17 inch power book, MkII 828, a pair of monitors, a phantom power box, and a 120 gig firewire drive.
 
Thanks for the pricing on the RME. I'm trying to get by with no expense to speak of. Just wanna lay down a clean track then have enough sych to lay down subsequent tracks one at a time while monitoring the previous. I am close to that as long as I stick to mic in--MIDI won't sync )apparently the software synth is using too much resouce time. Mic is noisy (trying to get by with laptop mic!).

Anyway, surprised you use external HD firewire, firewire speed notwithstanding, it being a serial bus, so you gotta divide the speed by 10 bits say to get an equiv ATA 100/133 16 bit wide transfer equive. Are there SCSI equiv performance firewire drives, e.g., 3.4 ms access, 10k rpm, etc.? Or are you picking up performance just from separating OS activities from digital audio drive processing tasks?
 
Anthropod01 said:
Thanks for the pricing on the RME. I'm trying to get by with no expense to speak of. Just wanna lay down a clean track then have enough sych to lay down subsequent tracks one at a time while monitoring the previous. I am close to that as long as I stick to mic in--MIDI won't sync )apparently the software synth is using too much resouce time. Mic is noisy (trying to get by with laptop mic!).

Anyway, surprised you use external HD firewire, firewire speed notwithstanding, it being a serial bus, so you gotta divide the speed by 10 bits say to get an equiv ATA 100/133 16 bit wide transfer equive. Are there SCSI equiv performance firewire drives, e.g., 3.4 ms access, 10k rpm, etc.? Or are you picking up performance just from separating OS activities from digital audio drive processing tasks?
Click to expand...

Everything is going serial. the new serial ATA stuff is going to replace the parallel EIDE, because it is faster and easier to work with.
 
Serial ATA

Polaris20 said:
Everything is going serial. the new serial ATA stuff is going to replace the parallel EIDE, because it is faster and easier to work with.
Click to expand...

I hadn't heard of SATA, so went and read a couple of good articles just now:
http://www.dell.com/us/en/biz/topics/vectors_2000-sata.htm
http://www6.tomshardware.com/storage/20020812/index.html


The bottom line seems to be: serial ATA is not currently faster than ATA, both because the current drives are not any faster and because the PCI bus limits the speed to 100MB transfer anyway. Also, the cable length for SATA (serial ATA) is only 1 meter--there are currently a few SATA externals available at around $100.00 US. Addonics EXT Sata Combo
Part #: AEMED35SA
and a Seagate and Western Digital for around $160.00.
 
Well, speaking of interface speed, 26 channels of 24/48 audio is only 3.7 MBytes/s (or 30 Mbits/s) so firewire or USB is going to be quite fast enough even if you play back a hundred tracks while you are recording. And almost any modern non-laptop HD is going to manage fine, the problems are more in the area of making the OS keep its long nose out of your way.
 
SATA, HD interfaces continued

Thought I should correct my last post--only the Addonics drive listed there is external, the other two are internal.

I did just see an article that suggested the practical sequential read and write on SATA is faster than ATA, even given the current underlying PCI bus limiting factor:

http://www.addonics.com/products/interface_cable/sata_tutorial.asp

Of course, Addonics is trying to sell you their SATA solution, so the test results should be kept in that context.

It is good to note that it is only on large series of large scale reads and writes that the performance improvement seems to appear--and this is true for any interface, I suspect, since most of the latency is the result of seeking, i.e., moving the read/write heads around the disk, and that takes 9 ms generally--which is many orders of magnitude greater than the data transfer rate on any interface. I recall the old tale of the philosophers trying to decide on the number of teeth in a camel's mouth--they asked a peasant walking by, who simply pulled down the camel's lip and counted them--i.e., you can't beat real world application testing to be sure what you are getting.
 
Re: Serial ATA

Anthropod01 said:
I hadn't heard of SATA, so went and read a couple of good articles just now:
http://www.dell.com/us/en/biz/topics/vectors_2000-sata.htm
http://www6.tomshardware.com/storage/20020812/index.html


The bottom line seems to be: serial ATA is not currently faster than ATA, both because the current drives are not any faster and because the PCI bus limits the speed to 100MB transfer anyway. Also, the cable length for SATA (serial ATA) is only 1 meter--there are currently a few SATA externals available at around $100.00 US. Addonics EXT Sata Combo
Part #: AEMED35SA
and a Seagate and Western Digital for around $160.00.
Click to expand...

Those articles are way old; Tomshardware from 2002 and Dell's from 2000.....many new chipsets, like the KT400, nVidia nForce 2, and the new Intel Canterwood all have serial integrated, thus realizing the full potential (well, as much as it can with the inevitable overhead).

The Western Digital Raptors are indeed faster than EIDE drive, at 10,000rpm, which yield sub 6 millisecond seek times, closing in on SCSI for a lot less of the price.

I think you corrected it your last post, but the 1 meter length of serial is better than the 40 cm of EIDE, plus the cables are more flexible and far thinner. So it's more length, not less than what we're used to.

Try this article

http://www6.tomshardware.com/storage/20030501/index.html
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top