Recording to Laptop

S

Starcat

New member
Hello, my first real post, so please be gentle. I'm new to recording and currently use a Zoom MR1266, which is a self-contained unit with a hard drive and CD burner (I know, I know, everyone thinks Zoom stuff is crap, but it works for my very amateur attempts and it was comparatively cheap for what it does). Now, however, I find that I would like to gain experience in computer-based recording, primarily to take advantage of the software.

I have Sonic Foundry and Acid Pro to start with, a cheapo Behringer mixer on the way, a pretty good mic (B-1), powered monitiors, headphones, and very good ears (oh, and guitars, basses and keyboards, duh). But, I am currently limited to a laptop platform. It's a 2ghz Dell 8200, plenty of hard drive space, cd burner, etc.

My questions:

1. Given that the laptop soundcard is a Cirrus Logic/Crystal board, 18-bit A/D and 20 bit D/A, and given that the only input is a single line in .5mm jack, is my sound quality really going to be terrible?

2. Is there such an animal as an outboard soundcard, perhaps usb or cardbus, which would provide better sound?

Any other options I should be considering?
Thanks for your help.
 
Does your laptop have FireWire? If so, check out the Delta 410 FireWire from M-Audio.

If not, then I guess USB would be your only option, which has slower transfer speeds, and you may experience latency problems.

How much RAM do you have? That may make up for the slow USB transfer speeds.

If I'm providing Starcat with misinformation, someone please correct me. :D
 
Thanks for the reply, Drummer, (hey, remind me to ask you about congas sometime). Yes, the laptop has a firewire port, so maybe that's the right route to take, although that M-audio unit looks pricey. I have found that they make a USB version of the 2496 as well, so we'll see. The laptop has 512mb of RAM.

So, you really think that using an outboard unit would be that much better than plugging directly into the laptop audio in port?
 
I think anything would be better than plugging directly into your laptop! ;)

As far as the 410 goes, yeah, it may be pricey, but it'll be worth it!
But, if you really can't afford it, I would reccomend anything on this page, by m-audio. That is, except for the Quattro USB, haven't heard many good things about that one.

Hey, feel free to PM me about congas or something. I'm not exremely knowledgeable in that area, but I may be able to help.

Good luck! :D
 
Thanks for the tips, man. You're probably right about plugging directly into the laptop, may have to go with one of the M-audio interfaces. I'll do some research and let ya know how it pans out (get it, "pans out"?) groan....

And, yeah, I'll PM you sometime about the congas. My 13-year old son is banging away on the set I got him for Christmas and in my opinion he has a lot of talent. Sure don't know where he got it from! Just looking for some little tips and advice, so I'll talk to him and get back atcha. Thanks again!
 
I dont record with a laptop (nor do i own one so take this with a grain) but i thought I read something about the slower hard drive speeds of typical laptops being an issue with recording. If your just doin a few tracks per song its probably no biggie. I think some people were using external firewire hard drives to solve that.

Just something to think about. Probably not a big concern yet until you really start taxin that laptop with tons of tracks.
 
Hmmmm...something to think about, and I hadn't heard that, so thanks for the info. Being the novice I am, I'm not doing oodles and oodles of tracks - no more than 8-9 on a single piece so far - and since I'm just me (good song title - "I'm Just Me"?) I'm recording only one track at a time. Given this sit, perhaps it won't be a problem. Experimentation will show. Appreciate the thought.

A little off topic, it has also occured to me that I could of course just lay down the tracks on the Zoom unit I have and port each individual track wave file to the laptop (via usb interface), and then work on the tracks from that point. And I may do that, but I still want to try the direct-to-computer recording just to have more options. Besides, since I already have the computer, software, instruments and other equip, the additional tools I need to do this are in comparison inexpensive. I like to have choices.

Thanks for sharing your information.
 
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