new laptop-did i waste my money?

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blueplastic

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I just picked up a new hp laptop. 1.66 dual core, 1.5 gigs of ram, 120 gig hard drive. Will I be able to turn this thing into a decent Daw? I was little surprised to find out that it has a half duplex sound card. I guess I'll have to get a pcmcia card. The reason I went with the laptop is because I want the portability. Also, I play keys in a band and want to be able to bring some samples/sequences into the mix, and it beats hauling a desktop around. If I had gone with an ibook would i have to change up the soundcard, or are mac laptops better suited for recording? For the same amount of money the specs aren't even close to what I got with a PC. I guess I'm just worried that I dropped all this cash on a new machine that won't live up to my expectations. Thanks in advance, Len.
 
blueplastic said:
I just picked up a new hp laptop. 1.66 dual core, 1.5 gigs of ram, 120 gig hard drive. Will I be able to turn this thing into a decent Daw? I was little surprised to find out that it has a half duplex sound card. I guess I'll have to get a pcmcia card. The reason I went with the laptop is because I want the portability. Also, I play keys in a band and want to be able to bring some samples/sequences into the mix, and it beats hauling a desktop around. If I had gone with an ibook would i have to change up the soundcard, or are mac laptops better suited for recording? For the same amount of money the specs aren't even close to what I got with a PC. I guess I'm just worried that I dropped all this cash on a new machine that won't live up to my expectations. Thanks in advance, Len.
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Well you already bought the machine why cry about it now?

I wouldn't worry about mac vs. pc. The new cpus will do the job of recording effortlessly. Get a soundcard get recording be happy about your purchase.

Will

BTW: Welcome to the board.
 
i wouldent go for pcmcia just because there arent many choices for soundcards in that area. i would try looking into firewire devices, they are turning into the mobile recording industry standard. im sure you will find something with the i/o choices your looking for.
 
I agree with the "non-pcmcia" route. If anything, get a PCMCIA Firewire card, there are a lot more options when it comes to audio interfaces in firewire
 
Thanks for responding guys. It does have a firewire port built into it. Does that mean I wouldn't need a pcmcia firewire card? Or would it be better to have more than one firewire input? I see that some of the cards have two and three. Sorry for the stupid questions, but I'm pretty new at this stuff. Appreciate the help.
 
Oh, and the reason I was kind of stressing about whether I made the right choice or not is because I still have a week to return it if I'm not totally satisfied. Thanx, Len
 
find out what firewire chipset it uses. If it is TI (Texas Instruments) your ok. If its NEC then you should consider getting a pcmcia card made by adaptec. You will be able to use the NEC one for harddrives and other stuff, but audio interfaces do not play nice with the NEC and some other ones. The TI ones are generally recommended by every manufacture of sound interfaces
 
it looks like my firewire chipset is made by IEEE. Is that good or bad?
 
IEEE is not a company, its another name for firewire (IEEE-1394), you will need to look up google or under your device manager, expand the IEEE-1394 host controller, it should tell you what it is

IEEE stands for Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers btw
 
found it. it says texas instruments OHCI compliant IEEE 1394 host controller. that's a good thing right?
 
thanks. so can you recommend a good basic recording setup? I don't need anything too elaborate, and i don't want to spend a million bucks. it would be nice to have something with analog i/o and midi i/o in one unit. I don't think i'll be doing anything more than 8 track stuff.
 
If you want to be mobile I would get:


Gator 19 Inch Delux Rack Case
4 Space for $100 or 6 space for $114 from Musicians Friend

Then get:

Furman M-8 Power Conditioner ($40)
If you only need one or two preamps go with:
Focusrite TrakMaster Pro Channel Strip ($200) or Focusrite Platinum TwinTrak Pro Channel Strip ($540) (Has built in compressor so you wouldn't need the DBX compressor or the RNC compressor I mention later.)
Or if you need more preamps and channels go with the
Mackie Onyx 400F FireWire Computer Recording Interface ($600-$700)
and lastly I'd get the dbx 266XL Compressor/Gate ($150) if your trying to save some money. Or else go with the Real Nice Compressor and rack mount tray but one of them is like $250 and the tray to rack mount it is like $50 and thats only one compressor so if you wanted another for that same rack space tray you'd have to spend another $250 so you would have something that looks similar to that DBX rack.

Now give me some rep points please! lol

Thats what I would do personally and I list that gear because its good gear for "on a budget". And that gator case will protect your stuff if your moving around recording a lot.
 
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On everyones post you can give them rep points if you so decide to. Its the little:
reputation.gif

that looks like a weighing device by the post number on the same line as your name is displayed with that post but you have to click that on the persons post. Thanks! If you have any other questions I'm sure lots of people will help ya here and I will as well. I'm not the most experienced but I don't think anyone will really disaggree with the gear I posted for being good semi pro gear. Also if you just need one or two preamps I'd go with the Focusrite cause it has a build in EQ, Compressor, Harmonic Vocal Enhancement feature and some other nice things. If you need to record a band or something I'd go with the onyx 400f cause you can plug in enough instruments and mics to record a normal sized band. (Guitar, drums, vocals, bass)
 
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