Laptop + Recording

a computer-related recording forum with user woes, how-to's and hints
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Hooliator
audio school
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Laptop + Recording

Post by Hooliator » Wed Jun 25, 2003 10:35 pm

What are the advantages and disadvantages of laptops for recording? :rockin:

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A.L.
buyin' a studio
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Location: Oakland, CA

Re: Laptop + Recording

Post by A.L. » Wed Jun 25, 2003 11:05 pm

+ obviously, portability... good for sessions at friend's places, live recording, dragging your setup to a cabin in the hills, etc., etc, etc. Just slap your I/O box and a few choice pieces in a portable rack and voila.
- depending on the laptop, limited to no card expandability, limits your interface choices. Slow-ass internal harddrive speeds, will need to get an external drive. Limited expandability in general, RAM, etc. Usually more expensive than comparable desktop models.
Nothing revelatory there, I guess. My 2cents.

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ottokbre
deaf.
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Re: Laptop + Recording

Post by ottokbre » Thu Jun 26, 2003 8:57 am

For mobile recording, I'm looking at building a rack-mount PC in a small case on casters with a small rack-mount drawer to shove the inputdevices into and a flat screen monitor. Should be the size of a small combo amp.

But back to laptops, you can do a lot with 'em for sure. You could definatley cut a record on one if your end product is'nt complicated and you don't need a bunch of inputs.

Tacket
audio school
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Re: Laptop + Recording

Post by Tacket » Sun Jun 29, 2003 11:05 am

I run a 10 track mobile studio (which is also the gear for our Studio B) from a PowerBook G4/400 + Layla24. Alot of my work is doing remote recordings for classical as well as music for DVD production, so the remote setup for me is a must. But in terms of the flexiblity I've had in choosing venues to record bands, that has also been nice.

One of the best recordings I've engineered to date took place in the artists apartment in Chicago, IL (I'm based near Detroit, MI). I can honestly say about 99% of the success of that project came from the fact that the artists got to record in the place that they feel most comfortable. We were able to track an entire albums worth of material in two days.

... tacket
madpeeps productions
www.madpeeps.com

stillafool
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Re: Laptop + Recording

Post by stillafool » Wed Jul 02, 2003 5:02 am

disadvantage --- expensive, though not so bad on a p.c., and getting cheaper. Advantages --- laptops are very quiet (my desktop is too, but that's another story), so you can literally be right next to them and not notice the sound. Advantage, you can go from room to room, instead of having to haul around a desktop, monitor, interface, mics etc. You can even go on location get a usb interface w/ phantom power, and you're good to go. a laptop is incredibly cool, but doesn't replace my desktop --- and here the big advantage I see; I have chopped, swwapped, and dropped my p.c.s a zillion times, and if you're a hardware tweaker, it's alot of fun. With my laptop, it's hermetically sealed, and you can't monkey aroudn with it. I probably wouldn't recommend a laptop for a primary recorder -- I would definetly get one as a backup/portable studio.

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