mobile recording studio

[SalJustSal]

Hello,

I'm doing some serious consideration in running a portable laptop setup, using either a Layla 24 or a Mona (I could eliminate lugging my mixer around then).

Firstly, I think I've read that Layla's ASIO drivers weren't very good. Is this true and what kind of problems could I run into with this? Any other Layla/Mona pitfalls?

Secondly, I'm also aware with some of the problems with laptops:

-only 256 L2 cache
-slower RAM
-slow hard drives
-heat problems

Despite these drawbacks would it be feasible to record 8 tracks with a simultaneous 4 track playback on a laptop (with a pretty good cpu and RAM)?

Thirdly, the thing I'm worried about most with the laptop is the hard drive speed. If I had a 7200rpm external firewire hard drive (and compatible laptop) would this operate as fast as say a 7200rpm desktop drive? In other words, is firewire fast enough?

Any help would be greatly appreciated,

-Sal

 

[TexRoadkill]

Firewire should be fast enough but what are you trying to do here? What types of recordings are you doing?

If you want a dependable road system you should probably go with ADAT or an HDD system.

 

[SalJustSal]

that would be good but...

I'm looking for a bit more flexibility. I would like to use my laptop for other things, such as using a midi controller with it to play keyboards (for instance, the synth program in reason), along with "normal" computer operations (i.e. email, internet, web design, etc.). I would also like the efficiency of having effects on the laptop instead of having to buy all of the rack mounted stuff. It would be nice to have a small setup to go record with headphones, then bring it home and hook it up to my monitor for mixdown. Thank you for the input though.

Are laptops just too slow for this sort of thing? Would one be able to record 8 tracks with a few tracks playing back at the same time? From what I've read in other threads, people tend to frown on them.