need laptop help

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SnoboarderX27

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I've been recording music as a serious hobby for a long time now, and my band has made some pretty successful demos in my home studio using my desktop PC. However, next year I'll be going away to the University of Washington to study Digital Arts and Experimental Media and I'm going to need a killer laptop setup. I'm going to seriously pursue audio production, so this is also an ideal time to re-vamp my recording setup. I have all the mics, mixers, and preamps I need; the only issue is my aging computer. Any particular tips you have for recording via laptop? (I've never had one, so I know nothing about them when it comes to recording.) I've never recorded with firewire before, is that a good way to go? Do they even make soundcards for laptops that can handle like 10 tracks? Whatever I choose needs to be compatible with ProTools or Nuendo. And just to clarify, I can work with 4 tracks for now, but I'm going to need at least 8-10 eventually. Thanks, I look forward to learning about this!
-Mike
 
I've been using an XP laptop setup for over a year now with a Motu828mkII, a Glyph firewire drive and ZERO problems.

You will need an external firewire drive to record to (internal laptop drivers are SLOW and you should ALWAYS record to a secondary (non-OS) drive on ANY computer.)

Get as much RAM as you can.

Good beginner soundcard guide here: http://www.tweakheadz.com/soundcards_for_the_home_studio.htm
(I have had great success with Motu. Their 8Pre is a great bargain right now at $550 and you can stack 3 together for 24 channels.)

If you MUST/NEED to go with ProTools, get out the checkbook and buy all Digidesign hardware.... ProTools is VERY picky about what it works with and you will need to use their approved lists on their website (and be prepared for frequent upgrade$)
 
The good thing about it all now, is that you don't need to get exactly digidesign hardware to run pro tools, since they bought M-Audio, M-Audio products are now compatible with Pro Tools (M-Powered). If your going to be running 6.7 LE or something, it won't work unless you buy M-Powered & use the drivers from there & copy them to the 6.7 installation folder..

Anyways for laptops, get dual core, preferably Core 2 Duo (1.8ghz or higher) and MINIMUM 1GB of ram. Hard drive space on laptops are usually smaller than PC's. Get one that has minimal 120GB.

I know in school, we use Pro Tools HD or TDM systems, so my laptop also needs to be able to run those 2 programs. I ended up getting a M-Audio 1810 or whatever, and M-Powered pro tools. The old mbox's would be ok for you too.
 
since they bought M-Audio
Click to expand...

Digidesign did not buy M-audio. Both companies are owned by Avid and are completely separate entities. You never going to be able to run HD protools on a laptop since you would need to have the HD hardware but Pro Tools LE with any of it's suitable interfaces will give you the pro tools software to learn on (without the hardware acceleration) and allow you to open any pt session
 
oh really, i must have my information crossed lol. Someone told me that a while ago. Anyways, HD hardware is expensive.
 
I'm getting a Dell Latitude D820 in a few weeks to serve as my recording computer. I'll let you know how it works!
 
It doesn't have to work with ProTools, I can also run Nuendo or N-Track. The most important things for me are 1) sound for the money and B) simultaneous tracks for the money. Thanks for all the input!
 
I use a Dell D820 (Core Duo) for my work with 2GB RAM and it's very nice. I'm a software developer for a living but occasionally I need to process audio files and it does a nice job with Audition (we develop voice applications). The processing is much quicker than my old single core Inspiron. The fans are generally quiet but put a condenser in the room and you'll still hear them, or the hard disk spinning. I still use my quiet PC for recording in my home studio though, but I have used the laptop a couple times for quick recordings. It does the job just fine.

That being said, if you're going into digital arts then I'd also recommend looking at the new MacBook Pros. Our CEO just got one recently and it's very nice. If I had to buy my own laptop, those would definitely make the list of options.
 
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