Newbie needs advice on laptop recording setup!

[bigo1223]

I am very new to home recording, and I'm hoping to put together a budget-laptop to get me started in the right direction for recording basic band demos and to basically get my feet wet in the realm of home recording.

I have a general idea of some items I need to purchase to get me started, and I was wondering if anyone with experience with these products could chime in and let me know if this is a good combo to use:

IBM T-43
2.0 ghz Intel Pentium M
1 gb memory
60 gb hard drive
Windows XP Pro

Digidesign Mbox 1
(the vertical-designed one with four knobs on the front and numerous inputs in the back)

Pro Tools HD 7.4 authentic version

I would run all the mics, instruments and drums through a Yamaha 16-channel board with built-in effects, then run out into the MBox and into the laptop running Pro Tools. I would also add a portable USB hard drive to the setup to record the data so the laptop is only going to be running Windows XP and Pro Tools.

Let me hear what you guys think of this setup! THANKS!!!

 

[rnelson]

Hey man,


I was, until very recently, running a setup close to this. I have now upgraded to a dedicated and more powerful desktop for recording. While, I cant comment on pro tools or the mbox, as far as your PC goes, when I ran with this setup (exactly the same as your pc but with a 100 Gb hard drive) I could not record more than 8-10 inputs without the audio crackling or cranking up the latency, so keep this in mind if you are recording a full band or a drum set with a lot of mics.

Whenever I tried going over ten mics, it was impossible to record cause the PC couldnt handle it.

If you are going to record everything separately and never going to record too many tracks at the same time, you should be good.

EDIT: I forgot, I use cubase

 

[Chibi Nappa]

I have a general idea of some items I need to purchase to get me started, and I was wondering if anyone with experience with these products could chime in and let me know if this is a good combo to use:

IBM T-43
2.0 ghz Intel Pentium M
1 gb memory
60 gb hard drive
Windows XP Pro

Digidesign Mbox 1
(the vertical-designed one with four knobs on the front and numerous inputs in the back)

Pro Tools HD 7.4 authentic version

As I say every time this topic comes up (3 times in the last 2 days and counting), you need to spend most of your money on monitors. And I don't see any on that list. I typed the whole thing earlier. Several posts on this page starting with post #20:

https://homerecording.com/bbs/showthread.php?t=301250


And I do see $10,000 worth of Pro Tools on that list. Can you even run Pro Tools HD on a laptop? The Mbox doesn't make any sense with Pro Tools HD either. You might want to rethink a $10,000 purchase at this point...

I would run all the mics, instruments and drums through a Yamaha 16-channel board with built-in effects, then run out into the MBox and into the laptop running Pro Tools.

I would do that in reverse. There is no benefit from hitting the mixer before the MBox. So just record right into the MBox. Now if you are a fan of analog summing, you can certainly mix by sending the already recorded tracks out of the MBox and in to the Yamaha mixer.

 

[Supercreep]

That laptop is some serious weaksauce.


Protip: You can't run protools on a windoze box.

 

[TimOBrien]

Dont think you can use HD on an MBox; I think you have to use ProTools M-Powered!

And that laptop would be fine for business purposes, but a bit weak on ram and cpu for recording.


Before you plunk down any cash, you need to do some research....

 

[bigo1223]

Thanks for the advice, fellas! I really appreciate it. Money is obviously an issue and I don't have a ton of it lying around to invest in a decent studio, that's why I was looking at the option of running an older version of Pro Tools on an older laptop dedicated only to recording and using an older Mbox. I have zero experience with recording and I'd like to get started, so that's why I posted to a newbie forum on a home recording website!

The laptop I found with those specs is on Ebay for $155; the Mbox 1 is going for $149 and the Pro Tools software is $99, also on Ebay. So I figured the whole she-band will run me a little over $400. My bro-in-law runs a similar setup and has had decent results recording band demos with it for years. I agree the specs are pretty weak on the laptop, but I want to keep the price tag low for now. I don't want to get into it and discover I should have left it up to the professionals in the first place!

My intentions with running through the board was really only to run multiple mics on the drumset to the Mbox for recording purposes only. Basically, I wanted a portable studio to record a drum track at the drummer's house, lay over a bass track at the bassist's house, put my guitar tracks on it at my leisure, then have the singer put his vocals on it, then mix it and mess around in Pro Tools or another recommended recording software. All that and keep it in the $400 - $500 range, which is why I was combing Ebay for older equipment that would play nice together and allow me to record a decent band demo.

Having said all that, will this setup play nicely and allow me to record separate tracks of individual band members and mix them and tweak them at a later time, or do I have no idea what I'm talking about?

Thanks again guys!

 

[rnelson]

After reading what youre after, I think it'll work fine.


As I said I used a laptop very very similar to the one youre considering for my first year while I learned basic recording and it served me well. With my setup I was able to even run about 8 inputs at one time and there were no real problems.

Only thing is, know what to expect, if you are barely starting out, with this setup and what I assume is very limited knowledge, it will be a while before you get anything other that a listenable amateur recording.

That said, I hope you prove me wrong and produce something amazing-sounding.

best of luck.