Upgrading my laptop for recording?

[easye1097]

I use my laptop for home recording and it isn't cutting the mustard at this point. Since I don't have the money to buy a new one, I am hoping to make a few updgrades to my existing notebook. Can someone recommend a couple of hardware upgrades that will give me the biggest jump in recording capability (RAM, storage, etc)? I am also having latency issues at the moment. Like I said, I am on a budget so any advice is appreciated.

I will be multi-track recording with the TASCAM FW-1082 Audio/MIDI Interface and Control Surface. I currently use N-Track Studio but will probably transition to Cubase. At most I will be recording 3 tracks simultaneously (approx 20 tracks per song) -VST plugin will be used for drums (N-Track Drums / DK). Any effects on the tracks will done within the software program.

Here is my laptop setup:

1.4 Ghz Centrino Pentium M
512MB RAM
40GB Hard Drive (4200 rpm) ; buffer 8MB
XP Professional SP2

I also need to put firewire in it to run the Tascam.

Thanks,
R

 

[scrouch]

I'd think RAM might be your best bet. And check to make sure your system is clean and running at it's full potential. Possibly wipe the OS and re-install. I find Windows slows down a ton after a while. Also make sure that your settings in the recording program are set to have minimum latency while recording. Typically settings that let you have more tracks playing at a time have more latency. So you can put it into a low-latency setting while you're recording the tracks (as long as you don't require playback from all existing tracks while you're doing it), then change the settings once the tracks are recorded to let you playback everything smoothly.

 

[TimOBrien]

Definitely up the RAM.

I started off with 512, but things got much smoother with 1.5gb.

You definitely need an outboard harddrive. The internal drive on laptops is SLOW to lengthen battery life for spreadsheet/email (business) users.

I use a Glyph firewire drive daisy-chained to my 828mkII interface. I also use a Seagate USB2 drive for editing video and for sample libraries.

 

[danny.guitar]

How many MIDI tracks? What kind of virtual instruments on them?

How many audio tracks in the song? How many effects plugins on each track?

It's hard to say what to upgrade first without knowing this. It'd suck to waste money on something that didn't make any improvements. RAM might be the answer but a better CPU might also, depends.

Oh, and get a new hard drive. At LEAST 7200 RPM. 5200 might work for you but it's best to go with 7200.