Using a laptop...good or bad idea?

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Cedar Fever

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Thanks for reading this...and giving me a heads up. I do have a low end but new Dell laptop. I realized the other day that if I am going to have a computer-based studio...my home/office computer ain't going to be it. Wife would freak out. Oh...but I do have the laptop. Since space is a big concern...a laptop would certainly be no problem. I saw some external sound cards that hook up to a labtop. The software I can install....the screen is OK I think....but I also think I want to ask you all...since there may be reasons not to use a laptop that I just don't know about. Please let me know. I'll check back later....cF
 
Using a laptop

My mentor in recording and I have been using our Powerbooks (with Digital performer) for quite some time. There are some things to consider when using a laptop.

1. Make sure you have good means for external interfaces. Perhaps a PCMCIA firewire card.
2. You'll end up wanting to get an external hard drive, either pcmcia or firewire.
3. Make sure you have enough ram. I know, you can never have enough ram, but make sure your laptop can go up to at least 512. Otherwise you'll end up using 1 mic for the drums because your computer can't take 12 simul tracks.

Hope this helps..
 
I've been recording on a laptop for years. I love it.

Senorklein's remarks are right on the money. You'll need an external drive eventually because laptop drives are notiriously slow. Make sure its a 7200rpm drive.

Audio interfaces for laptops are typically more expensive and with less features than PCi cards, but that is also changing. Most of the firewire interfaces, for example, are really sweet and offer equal performance to both laptops and desktops. The USB interfaces, which I see as aimed primarily at laptop users, typically don't have as many features as PCI cards, but do the job for not a whole lot of money.

Enjoy!
Chris
 
Hitachi/IBM just came out with a 7200rpm, 8MB cache 60gig HD for notebooks, and Echo is coming out with a recording version of the Indigo, basically a Mia for notebooks.

It's beginning to look more and more promising to do notebook recording.
 
Soon I'll be getting a P IV 2 ghz with 512 mg ddr ram a 40 gb hdd and a burner. All in a laptop. Then one day I want to buy a motu 828mkII (someday...how I long for it)
 
Thanks for all the feedback. I wonder why a big company like Dell computer doesn't come out with a dynamic, turn-key home recording set up....the whole enchilada....computer, softward, sound cards, etc....all integrated to work smoothly with each other. Not that I am necessarily a huge Dell fan...but I think their stuff is OK. For the extreame novice that I am, such a package deal would be real attractive.
 
I use a laptop and it's just cool as hell to do something in the lab then just take it all home and wok on it.... I don't do much mutiltracking yet with my computer but when it comes to editing I can just bag and do it later.Anywhere, anytime... I was making music while waiting at a hospital... Can't beat that which is why I plan to buy a second one with a 828 or something like that whenever I get ready to udgrade my daw to a computer. The old one will be for graphics and websites...

IBM T22/ 900mhz/ 384mb/ 32GB, Edirol UA-5, Midiman 2X2, firewire and usb 2.0 cards by the way....
 
Cedar Fever said:
Thanks for all the feedback. I wonder why a big company like Dell computer doesn't come out with a dynamic, turn-key home recording set up....the whole enchilada....computer, softward, sound cards, etc....all integrated to work smoothly with each other. Not that I am necessarily a huge Dell fan...but I think their stuff is OK. For the extreame novice that I am, such a package deal would be real attractive.
Click to expand...

Dell will never do it, because as many people there are doing what we do, it's still a very small niche market that Dell wouldn't want to put the R&D into, because they probably feel they wouldn't make their money back.

Companies like Dell, Gateway, Sony are all about the money, and that's about it. Though Gateway and Guitar Center are now offering a pre-configured desktop with the Digi 001 installed. That's pretty cool of them.

Apple, on the other hand, owns eMagic now, so I wouldn't be surprised if they did something along those lines.
 
Just reading thru all the replies here (good ones too). I have a Fujitsu P-III 1.1 ghz Lifebook+40gb+cdrw+512mb+120 firewire external hd. I was thinking of getting the Motu 828+analog mixer with at least 4 to 8 buss lines. Obviously will be using Sonar or any PC based wares. Will this be enough to get me atleast 4 simultaneous audio recording without any dropouts?
 
A dirty little secret among laptop manufacturers is that they tweak them for long battery life. That means:

They will rachet down the processor speed, sometimes while you are in the middle of doing something.

They have limited bandwidth busses.

They put in slow (4500 or 5400rpm) hard drives.

Remember that the main customer for laptops is businessmen who primarily run word processors and spreadsheets (ick), not high-bandwidth sucking digital audio programs.
 
Laptop Layout

I can personally attest to the 828 for laptops. We do weekly jams at my place,
where we have an all digital setup.
Roland VDrums
2 mics going into the 828 preamps
2 guitars going into pods
1 bass going into a modeler

This is all going into the 828
then into my 12" powerbook in firewire.

I can then go to starbucks and sit with Digital Performer and work it out into mp3.

Is anyone else doing anything similar to this?
btw: you can see some of my stuff on
http://www.audiotrap.com/dl/covers
 
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