| Home recording and general music post from the archived Yabb Recording Website Message Board. Some of the info here may be outdated but many of the audio recording and home studio tips are still good. Note: The only tags I made and attempt to convert are italics, bold, center and underline. So if you see some gibberish surrounded by brackets, just ignore it.
Recording Website Archived Yabb board Post
Febuary 2001 Yabb Message Board Archive
Subject: Music on a laptop?
by DanS | 05/10/01 at 12:40:57
I may be taking a work assignment overseas for a few months, and I want to be able to do some midi sequencing while I'm there. I doubt I'll do any hard disc recording, just midi. I plan to load up Cubase, a bunch of synth plugins, and rent a controller. Is there anything special I need to consider for a simple laptop setup? Do laptop soundcards come with the 15pin din connector for a midi y cable?
I don't plan on getting an expensive machine, very basic.
Any suggestions appreciated.
DanS :o
Subject: Re: Music on a laptop?
by jsmiggs | 05/10/01 at 15:15:02
I have used a laptop in the past for midi recording. If you are going to use a Mac you will need a small box that I believe is called a midi mac man. I allows you to plug in your midi device to the little box and has a cable that will connect to your laptop.
If you are going to use a PC there is a different box designed for the same thing. The one you will probably want has 2 midi ins and outs. It hooks up to a PC via the USB port. Almost any Laptop made within the last few years will have a USB port.
I have done alot of Midi recording using both a Mac laptop and a PC laptop. Both have worked fine. The cost of these are around 50-70 dollars
If you are considering any audio recording it gets alot more complicated. You simply cannot get a great soundcard with balanced inputs and outputs into a laptop (that I know of). You can however, purchase a external sound card (actually it is a box) that will hook up to the USB port of the laptop. These act as the soudcard for the laptop and come with balanced ins and outs. I have not tried one of these yet but wouldn't mind having one. It would be great to just take my laptop over and be able to record live audio tracks directly in from a mixer. I believe these are around $500.
Hope this was what you were asking and it helps.
Subject: Re: Music on a laptop?
by gribbly | 05/11/01 at 06:30:25
I use a laptop as my main recording computer (audio mainly, minimal midi).
Midi is a no-brainer on any reasonably recent laptop, although as jsmiggs pointed out you'll need an external MIDI interface. I've never seen a laptop with a 15pin connector on it (although you might check the Sony Vaio range...).
There's a lot of MIDI interfaces out there, so I won't bother listing them. They're cheap, they work. I recommend the USB ones.
Audio is also disctintly possible. I use an EgoSys WaveTerminal U2A USB audio interface, and it's truly excellent.
The real limiting factor for audio on a laptop is the laptop specs, and particularly HDD transfer rate.
Hope this helps.
gr1b.
Subject: Re: Music on a laptop?
by DanS | 05/11/01 at 07:37:02
Thanks guys. I'd forgotten about the USB port.
I will pretty much only be sequencing midi with the laptop. I may add a few VST Drum Session loops, but that's about it. The whole idea is just to keep busy with music while I'm over partying with the Swedes.
Dans ;)
Subject: Re: Music on a laptop?
by db | 05/11/01 at 11:23:10
::) Midiman has usb 1x1 or more, and single port serial, and parallel boxes available too, all parasidic (take power from the port). At less than $80, they can be found around as low as $50. I have not seen any PCMCIA cards around, though they certainly may exist. Some sequencing software comes with virtual piano, if you can't find a controller.
Have a good time,
--db