New Laptop with Latency, HELP!!

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BW138

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Hi,

I recently bought a laptop computer with the desire to use it for music production. Up until recently I've used Audacity on my desktop with no external sound card or interface device. I was accustomed to simply plugging into the input and recording straight into the computer. I had no detectable latency and no complaints. With my new laptop this is not the case. It has severe latency that I have been struggling to fix. Here's what I have:


Toshiba Satellite A505
Windows 7, Home Premimum 64-bit
Interl Duo Core T6600 @ 2.20GHz (2CPUs)
4GB RAM
500BG Hard Drive

Here's what I've done so far:

I bought an external sound card , Sound Blaster X-fi 5.0 Souround. It didn't help.

I've tried the ASIO4ALL drivers found online as freeware. That didn't work.

I walked around Best Buy tonight plugging my mic into every laptop that I could. I found that they all have the same problem.



I am considering a couple of different routes.

1. Back clocking my operating system to Windows XP and ditching Windows 7.0. I've been told that this may work by the local computer builder, however I'm concerned that this might disable some of the computers capabilities.

2. Trading out this laptop for another one with a firewire jack. The local music store seems to think this might work, if I coupled this with an input interface box, like the presonus that I keep seeing an ad for at the top of the screen.

3. Using my current computer/Windows 7 and buying a interface box that connects via USB2. The music store guy told me that this would probably still have latency.

4.Burning down the building

I'd like to eventually upgrade to more complex software so this may factor in as well. Audacity is great but limited.

One other question. If I trade out my current laptop for something with firewire capibity it would still come with Windows 7, they all do now. Is there anybody out there that has this configuration and can tell me whether it works or not ? any latency?

Any suggestions or advice would be appreciated. THX
 
Either option 2 or 3 would be the way to go.

Both the the stock soundcard in you laptop and the Soundblaster your purchased are really not designed for, intended for, nor work very well for recording. Even if you had found a laptop with a low-latency internal soundcard, this still wouldn't be the basis on which to buy it as anyone thinking seriously about recording would ditch the internal soundcard straight away! You need a dedicated soundcard or interface that is built for this purpose.

Vista was terrible for recording which is why XP was always recommended, but Windows 7 seems to be fine so just make sure you pick an interface with Windows 7 drivers that are reported to work well and you should be fine. Sonar 8.5 is known to run well in Windows 7 if you're looking for a DAW.
 
Using a built-in soundcard is bad. Thus my standard post:

Still using a built-in soundcard?? Unfortunately, those are made with less than $1 worth of chips for beeps, boops and light gaming (not to mention cheapness for the manufacturer) and NOT quality music production.
#1 Rule of Recording: You MUST replace the built-in soundcard.
Here's a good guide and tested suggestions that WORK: http://www.tweakheadz.com/soundcards_for_the_home_studio.htm
(you'll want to bookmark and read through all of Tweak's Guide while you're there...)


Your big mistake was buying a Creative GAMER external soundcard.
There is a reason we tell folk to stay AWAY from Creative products for music production.

Go read the Tweak's soundcard guide link above for tested and proven solutions.....
 
Status

Thanks for the replies. I decided to go with number two, even though it smells bad, with one addendum. Instead of using the USB2 I went out today and purchased an express card that adds two different sized firewire jacks to my laptop (Dynex, Firewire 800 ExpressCard Adapter). I traded the failed Sound Blaster external sound card almost even for it at Best Buy. I now have to decide on a audio input box. I'm looking real hard at the M-Audio Firewire Solo. Tweakheads seemed to emphasis drivers, so I went on the M-Audio website and made sure that they had a windows 7 driver for this one. It checked out ok. Anyways, the only thing that it lacks is a midi interface. If you have any recomendations please let me know. Keep in mind that I'd like to stay around $200. MUCH THX:)
 
M-Audio's FireWire gear has always been a little cranky for me, and if you get something with only one preamplified input, I think you'll be sorry. I wouldn't buy an interface with fewer than two. There are just too many places where stereo recording or dual mono recording is useful---recording piano, guitar, etc.

I'd probably steer you towards an Edirol/Roland FA-66. That's a solid interface to start with. It's a little over your budget, but IMHO, it's very much worth spending the extra few bucks over the Solo. Besides, if you had to add MIDI to the Solo, you'd be more than halfway to the price of an FA-66. :)
 
I'm in the same boat

I have a HP dv-7 laptop, AMD Turon X2 processor (2.00MGH dual core), 4 gigs ram, two 320 gig (7200rpm) hard drives and the Tascam us-1641 audio interface.

I have been using this system for about 6 months with Vista 64 bit & Sonar 8.3 and have had very limited results (lots of drop outs and latency problems).

I have just updated to Windows 7 64bit, Sonar 8.5.2 (64) and updated the us-1641 with Tascams latest drivers. I will say this system works best with this setup but it still has problems. I can only record and playback multiple tracks without using plugins. In order to do a mix with plugins I have to disable the us-1641 and use the laptops sound card (IDT Hi-def audio codec).
Yes that right the laptops sound card works better than the Tascam!

I have tried Vista (32 and 64) and Sonar 8.3 in both 32 and 64 bit installs and the Windows 7 setup I'm now using is the best so far. I would have tried Windows XP but I can't get XP to install on this computer even with the SATA drivers slipstreamed onto the setup disk.

I think Tascam still needs better drivers or I need a better computer.

I guess an Intel I7 quad core processor and 6-8 gig of ram would do it.

Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.
 
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