Laptop and interface for recording

[RAGER]

I need to buy a new laptop and I want to use it for recording.  Looking into a refurbished Macbook.  Generally speaking, what requirements does it need to have?  I don't need the absolute best but I need a point of reference.

As far as DAW, I'm thinking some form of Protools or Audacity, Cubase maybe?  I just need to be pointed in the right direction.  I know there's a whole thread on this in here and I will use that for more specific concerns.

Any help? I'm tired of having all my jams just going into the void especially when I hit something cool.

[Lumpy]

Logic is made by Apple and runs native on the Mac (or whatever the kids call it). Audacity? Uh, hmm. Audacity can be used in the same sentence as Pro Tools? I've heard the days of Pro Tools crashing on Mac are long gone, so don't worry about that. Logic has some music creation ability that Pro Tools lacks. Pro Tools is the recording industry standard, so if you want to do pro or semi-pro recording some day, then it wouldn't hurt to start using Pro Tools now. Logic is a lot cheaper than Pro Tools, if I'm not mistaken.

As far as laptops, any current laptop will be fine and will smoke what people were using successfully a few years ago. You probably want a lot of storage space (or outboard storage eventually) for all your filez.

/just making this up

[RAGER]

Sweet.  That's a start.  how about some specific numbers regarding, gb,tb, ram and such.

[Lumpy]

Just get the fastest laptop you can afford. If it's a Mac, they already trick that shit out for you, for the most part. Max out your RAM (third party sellers like Macsales.com have better prices than upgrading through Apple though)  I dunno about installing RAM in a laptop but in a tower it's pretty easy. If you call in your order you can ask. Macsales would be a good place to look for refurbished laptops, too. Tech support there is good.

[eyeprod]

Any new laptop should be fine. Get as much ram as possible. I like reaper. It'sfr ee sort of. And it has all the bells and whistles. USB interface with as many inputs as you can afford

[RAGER]

Good to know.  Thanks guys.  I really am a tech tard.  Worse than you probably think.

[Dave J]

Great thread!!  I've been wanting to ask similar questions.  I have a MacBook Pro, and I use Audacity.  It is good for what I do, which is just putting stuff down as a hobby. However, I would like to know the best way to interface with the computer for recording.  In other words, how do I get a cranked marshall half stack mic'ed into the computer.  I've had shitty gone straight in through effects into the input and that doesn't get my real "live" sound. 

[RAGER]

So what does Audacity not do for you.  Is it the pre-amps or plugins?  I don't actually know what these are, I'm just saying words that I've heard.

[agent of change]

A friend of mine swears by the Yamaha Audiogram 6 interface. I struggled with some others in another thread and would not recommend them.

[RAGER]

Shit that thing's cheap too.

[jibberish]

I have to post to help my pals out, scumm0 be damned.

the quality of your sound is in the preamp and a/d converters. you get a nice focusrite or other hi quality interface(Avalon channel strip would be an awesome start ie if you really want to blow 2 grand on something vs the loaded MacBook for 2 g's).   if you want to capture reality, you need a good front end to give you good quality digital data. [mic->pre->A/D converter]
once you are 1's and 0's, the sound cant be degraded during handling, only in the analog path.

any pc of today has enough horsepower to process many channels of audio. especially since the soundcard really does the work. don't choke on those pc spec numbers. my best music pc was a 2002-3 vintage XP emachine with an awesome soundblaster and wtf 1gig of ram. I used reaper. now my 16gig machine still works the same. I have 16gigs and a wicked gaming video card, for games. DAW's don't need that shit. same as before on the old pc.

IMO the full protools and vst's and latency is overkill which DOES need some serious beef in the pc.  the deal is that you can process-in the effects in non realtime so pure horsepower isn't that important.

also, the lots of storage thing is bullshit reserved for video editing. you will never fill a terabyte drive up with audio projects, never. I would use an ext drive as a backup tho. really suck to lose some crucial music ideas or project you have 50 hours into heh.

bottom line: for best quality music, invest in the front end analog part of the chain and get a decent but average computer.

lumpy, what do you need 8-16gigs of RAM for doing audio recording?

for archiving ideas:
I open reaper and create junk projects. [add track to end of tracklist->arm for record->record n go -> keep or scrap your take->rinse, repeat] and fill those with idea tracks. the reaper project file is really small as it is just a framework to hold media files, so you just end up with a million numbered wav files, each referenced within the reaper project. keep muting last track, adding new track....

rager, glad you see the rack effect advantage. mega effects for your dollar spent vs pedals.

I found schematics for midi splitters, 1 in -> several thru(outs) I will build a couple.  let me know if you want one. this is to reduce midi chain latency. midi is 1985 old skool protocol and slow as fuck, so clocks fuck up real fast. parallel at least keeps all those feeds the same delay time.

I love audacity. it is super quick for slicing and dicing. AND it can record stereo just fine like protools.  

I do like working with 24bit files in reaper especially with a lot of tracks. the detail stays better than 16bit. audacity now can handle reaper's output 24bit waves. I like trimming boosting gain etc in audacity like prepping for soundcloud. so ez and quick and clean. the only hassle with audacity is you need the razor lame mp3 converter for it to generate mp3's by linking the lame engine for the actual conversion.

anything else you 2 guys need. pm me please. it is scumm0 proof that way. thx.

[fallen]

MacBook Pro. 8 Gb of ram is fine but more is always better. Or a Mini will work. A wide screen makes things easier.

Save your cash on the big hard drive and make sure to get a second drive. Keep your music in two places ALWAYS.

Interface like Personus or whatever. Before you pull the trigger go to the interface website support page and check for driver updates. If there are new updates often then buy.

GarageBand to learn then move your songs to Logic Pro. EZDrummer plugin will work with both.

For riffs get a Tascam DA20 or similar recorder and put it on a camera tripod. Never lose a good idea again.

[Lumpy]

also, the lots of storage thing is bullshit reserved for video editing. you will never fill a terabyte drive up with audio projects, never. I would use an ext drive as a backup tho. really suck to lose some crucial music ideas or project you have 50 hours into heh.


lumpy, what do you need 8-16gigs of RAM for doing audio recording?

I bought an additional 2 terrabyte internal drive maybe 3 years ago -- it has 500 gigabytes of music recordings on there. There's some video stuff on there... live show clips. Storage is so cheap now and the price difference between a 500 gigabyte and 1 terrabyte drive is what... 75 dollars more? (wild guess). Get as much storage as reasonably possible, IMO.

More RAM is good if you want to run multiple applications at the same time. That's also pretty cheap now. So why not.

Rager I would use the Googles to read up on this stuff, then call macsales and get somebody to make suggestions and walk you through a sale. Everybody's got different needs (I will never need 10 inputs on anything, but if you are recording a full band with drums, everybody at the same time, then maybe you do. Etc.) Figure out what all your various situations will be, and work from there.

[Jake]

I've used ProTools, Logic, and Cubase in home recording settings. In doing so, I find that most of that DAW software is pretty ubiquitous and it mainly seems to come down to familiarity and personal preference. Personally, I like Cubase, since I never really seem to dive into all the extensive features of the others anyways.

As far as interface goes, I've been using a simple M-Audio 2-channel USB for a decade or so now. It suits my needs, since I don't often try multitracking whole bands or anything. I started in '02 with a (then, highest end) Mac PowerBook G4 laptop. In '07, I got an iMac and that became the primary hardware. Laptops are good for doing portable and/or offsite recording, but desktop machines are noticeably better suited for recording, in my experience.

Insofar as computer advice, the posts about RAM are correct. Load it up. My only other advice would be to fetch as many (vst, au, etc.) plugins as you can get from torrent sites. There are also tons of useable freeware-type ones available. But if you plan on commercially releasing music, then you might have an ethical responsibility to purchase/license the ones that you end up relying on the most. If it's just a hobby thing, do whatever you're comfortable doing.

Note: If you're going to do a lot of keyboard stuff, you might want to research some MIDI capable interfaces. That's a world of stuff I have very little experience with, but enough to know how incredibly flexible and useable a MIDI signal can be into your DAW.

[VOLVO)))]

Focusrite or Presonus interface. The scarlet is realllly nice.

I don't dabble in macworld, mostly because of my DIY spirit, and Macs tend to disallow/discourage such behavior.

I use a POD X3 direct USB in to Cubase. Works, sounds good for scratching in tracks, and gets even really passable results if you futz enough. Bass preamp options too. Monitor controls on the POD.

Torrent everything. Everything.

edit: shut up jibberish, let it go

[RAGER]

Lots of great information so far.  Albeit some contradictory; you need terrabytes, you don't need no stinking terrabytes. high end Mac, cheap PC will work, etc....

I sure as shit ain't goin pro so a simple daw will work fine for me.  My problem with this like I have said a million times.  I...am...a....player.  i have never really been interested in the engineering aspect.  I've always had others taking care of that but I want to do shit on my own now.

Yes midi.  Oh the world of midi is another hurdle I need to get over.  All I use it for is to connect a controller to a module.  derp.

I think i can get a decent refurb. Mac for between 500-800.  If anybody has a link to a specific laptop that would work, I could look at the specs for reference.

Jib, I know you're a fan of rack gear but I'm telling you once you get your hands on some of these Moogerfoogers you will see the difference.  They really are something else.  They're basically Moog modules.  I missed the boat on a Moogerfooger Phaser the other day on cl.  Didn;t act fast enough.  Scooped.  Fuck.

[Corey Y]

I use Logic on an iMac. I like Logic because it uses native plug-ins. They cost less, have less latency, but they are a bit more taxing on the processing power. I only ever ran into issues when I already had something like 20+ tracks running plug-ins and then I was recording a screaming vocalist who wanted to hear a polished mix in their headphones. I just bought a new iMac and the new Logic, just because I've been doing more and more full band live tracking in the last year. I use Focusrite interfaces/preamps and like them a lot. Been thinking about getting a small one to keep at home for demo tracking and moving all my big stuff into a separate space.

EDIT: As far as computer specs, I've never needed more than 500G hard drive and 8G RAM is preferable. If you're not engineering albums, the requirements aren't very big for anything made in the last 10 years, honestly. If you're also using it as your home computer, then it's different. My old iMac had 500G hard drive and it was only half full when I backed it up and formatted it and I record A LOT and never delete anything. having the right connections for the interface can be important with laptops and more compact computers. Sometimes you have to buy adapter cables, because computer companies update USB/Firewire connections more than companies that make interfaces, but it doesn't really effect the functionality at all.

[Lumpy]

Logic has a lot of MIDI functionality. You can convert non MIDI tracks to MIDI, manipulate MIDI on your timeline, etc.

If you're performing electronic music, a lot of people like Ableton but I don't think there is a record function (??) But they use Ableton to mix their tracks live.

[Lumpy]

Ask your bro at Control what to buy!

[jibberish]

scumm0 be damned, I have to summarize. never address me again and I will let it go.
to summarize: if you are going to do 30track recordings all with realtime plugins working, then you need pc beef.  except if you aren't doing that, then all that big $ PC shit is a waste. are y'all addressing the real question? I thought rager wanted to save demo tracks not produce entire protools album projects.
I ask again. what do you need more than the stock 4gigs everything has for OTHER than a massive project with all that realtime stuff going?
easy to spend rager's money on massive overkill. sure 8 gigs of ram is $50. it also loads your power supply down and generates heat for no good reason.
i'll bet no one answers this question regarding why rager needs 16gigs to record a track.

the fastest easiest way to record tracks is in reaper. each take gets a wave file made with a name automatically. even audacity isn't as fast as that.

all you need is the stereo usb module to go from the mixer into the pc. ANY PC. just don't run a huge daw with 30 channels of plugins running and do you really need a ton of apps open at once to record a track?  I am trying to address rager's needs.  you only need one thing actually, the interface. reaper/audacity are free and powerful = more money for synths and things you really need.(plus the usb interface usually comes with a daw or daw lite)


the quality issue was dinger's question. how do I get my tube amp to sound like a tube amp and not ass, like going into the line ins of the soundcard. the pre-amp does it, and higher quality A/D for him to capture a more accurate signal. here again, it isn't in the pc.  the $2G Avalon front end will give you a better recording into a 10 year old e machine than you could get into the soundcard line-in of the most expensive PC there is. so upgrade to a usb stereo interface of decent lineage (focusrite, motu, presonus, etc) and see what that sounds like ($100-$500 investment)

[RAGER]

Links to any of this specific stuff I can look at?

[everdrone]

Im really broke with empty pockets, but...

for all my recordings I just use an old "quadcore" dell which has little memory and a chip worse than the i5.  it crashes, but I just "render" tracks to use less plugin processing power.

Id like to upgrade to a Dell with an i7 chip, an XPS multimedia is like $800 http://www.dell.com/us/p/desktops?cp=14&~ck=mn#xps-desktops 

I use Reaper as the DAW, you can download and use it free for 30 days: http://www.reaper.fm/

prolly better off with a tower and not a laptop...I use two large monitors...

I use Superior 2.0 (metal foundry) http://www.toontrack.com/product-category/superiorline/  for drums and want to get a Roland electronic drumkit 

[RAGER]

Ok I'm seriously eyeballing a Lenovo G510 4th Generation Intel Core™ i5-4200MQ Processor
6GB Memory
1TB Hard Drive
15.6" Screen Display
Windows 8.1

Desktop is out.  When I'm in the depths of February at work I wanna be able to work on music.  Gotta be mobile.

[everdrone]

both levono computers at work died so I can't second that notion... ymmv

[RAGER]

This particular Lenovo has between 4 and 5 stars online so....