recording using a laptop / external sound systems

[Marcello]

I own a compaq laptop with a crappy 16bit soundcard and i'm not satisfied with the quality of my recordings. I'm thinking of buying a USB external soundcard.

But i'm all confused with all the different products on the market today. There are 24bit Audio solutions like M-Audio audiophile stuff, Omnistudio, etc and there are soundcards like soundblaster stuff.

is the M-Audio a soundcard or what?

if i use this equipment with my laptop is it gonna bypass my shitty 16 bit soundcard ? Can't figure out what i need really ...soundcard or something else

Thanks

[Unburst]

You need a USB audio interface like the M-Audio.
All your audio will get routed through this and will bypass the internal soundcard.

[Marcello]

Thanks for your answer

[jzucker]

Originally posted by Marcello
Thanks for your answer

I had problems with latency on the USB interfaces. I'd recommend firewire. M-Audio seems to be a bit on the flakey side. I'm considering selling my firewire 410 and getting the moto 828

[Marcello]

Originally posted by jzucker
I had problems with latency on the USB interfaces. I'd recommend firewire. M-Audio seems to be a bit on the flakey side. I'm considering selling my firewire 410 and getting the moto 828

yeah, i'm looking for a firewire device.

you mean there's a latency when hearing what you play in real time ? hope not on the recording itself.

i don't care for mic preamps and stuff, so im thinking of getting a simple soundcard like http://www.bit-tech.net/review/320/ or http://www.m-audio.com/index.php?do=...745b38a55cdfcband plug my mixer into it.

[jzucker]

Originally posted by Marcello
yeah, i'm looking for a firewire device.

you mean there's a latency when hearing what you play in real time ? hope not on the recording itself.

i don't care for mic preamps and stuff, so im thinking of getting a simple soundcard like http://www.bit-tech.net/review/320/ and plug my mixer into it.

Well, forgive the spam but I'm selling a 2 week old Maudio FW410 interface. Email me offline if you're interested. The only reason I'm getting rid of it is that I want balanced outputs so I upgraded to the Motu 828.

My experience is that you will get about a 10ms latency when trying to hear yourself in realtime with any of the USB interfaces. That's enough to really be annoying. You can get 2.5ms with the FW410.

And yes, it's on the recording itself if you are playing along with a recorded track. What happens is that if you are adjusting your playing in real time along with a previously recorded track, your playing will then be off by 10ms. Of course, you can shift the track forward in most recording apps but it's very annoying. With firewire, the delay is imperceptable.

Jaz

[Unburst]

Firewire is better than USB, didn't know if you had it or not.

Jack-The MOTU interfaces are v. good.

[Hard2Hear]

I do all my songwriting now on a laptop. It's important to get a good external hard drive, because the slow internal drives on them just won't cut it for much when recording audio or video. I am extremely happy with my current setup. I use a Toshiba P25-S25 with a WD 80g external usb2 7200rpm drive and a MOTU 828MKII. I use Sonar3 Producer for multitrack and midi, and have the Waves Platinum plugins. I use Wavelab for editing and rough draft finalizing.

I have been doing songs between 24 and 30 tracks and have very little load on the computer.

-Mike

[jzucker]

Originally posted by Hard2Hear
I do all my songwriting now on a laptop. It's important to get a good external hard drive, because the slow internal drives on them just won't cut it for much when recording audio or video. I am extremely happy with my current setup. I use a Toshiba P25-S25 with a WD 80g external usb2 7200rpm drive and a MOTU 828MKII. I use Sonar3 Producer for multitrack and midi, and have the Waves Platinum plugins. I use Wavelab for editing and rough draft finalizing.

I have been doing songs between 24 and 30 tracks and have very little load on the computer.

-Mike

You have any problem with picking up your external drive motor through the audio channel? My external drive whines through the audio output of my FW410 interface. One reason I am switching to the Motu 828 is the hope that the balanced outputs may cure that issue...

[Hard2Hear]

By the way, the MOTU 828 MKII has zero latency hardware monitoring, as several other units out there. You just have to look at the specs and see if it's there.

-Mike

[Hard2Hear]

There is zero external sound in my recordings from the HD or anything else. The 828 is VERY clean and quiet and I highly recommend it. If you get one and need help settingn it up, just let me know!

Mike

[jzucker]

Originally posted by Hard2Hear
By the way, the MOTU 828 MKII has zero latency hardware monitoring, as several other units out there. You just have to look at the specs and see if it's there.

-Mike

How does that work? You monitor off the headphone jack of the motu instead of the output of the unit?

With the FW410, I could get the latancy down to 2.9ms monitoring off the outputs but it required setting the buffersize to 128k which caused occasional glitching. 256k worked better but yielded 5.8ms latency.

[jzucker]

Originally posted by Hard2Hear
There is zero external sound in my recordings from the HD or anything else. The 828 is VERY clean and quiet and I highly recommend it. If you get one and need help settingn it up, just let me know!

Mike

Thanks Mike. I sold the FW410 on ebay yesterday and am receiving the 828 friday!

[Hard2Hear]

Originally posted by jzucker
How does that work? You monitor off the headphone jack of the motu instead of the output of the unit?

No no.

There is internal routing in the 828 MKII. Imagine it as a 16 channel digital mixer, just without the faders and knobs. You can control all of it through the Cue-Mix console on your computer or from the little LCD panel on the front. You can hear the output in realtime through the headphones, main outs, or any other output you choose to use. As soon as you hook up something to any of the inputs, you hear it through the outs...even if the unit is not connected to a computer. It can actually function as a standalone mixer.

This was a big point in me choosing that unit, and when I started using it all of my choices were validated!

-Mike

[jzucker]

Originally posted by Hard2Hear
No no.

There is internal routing in the 828 MKII. Imagine it as a 16 channel digital mixer, just without the faders and knobs. You can control all of it through the Cue-Mix console on your computer or from the little LCD panel on the front. You can hear the output in realtime through the headphones, main outs, or any other output you choose to use. As soon as you hook up something to any of the inputs, you hear it through the outs...even if the unit is not connected to a computer. It can actually function as a standalone mixer.

This was a big point in me choosing that unit, and when I started using it all of my choices were validated!

-Mike

I'll probably be using it with a mackie mixer because I want to be able to "wet-monitor" my guitar without feeding that sub-mix back to the inputs to be recorded (or can the 828 handle that too?)

Regarding zero-latency monitoring - Are you telling me I can enable echo in Sonar and apply real-time effects with 0 latency when recording? If so, that's fabulous. I can get 0 latency monitoring off the headphone jack of the FW410 but I believe it's the line input signal off the mic preamps prior to the audio going over the firewire and back to the outputs of the audio interface.

The way my setup works is that I'm doing all direct recording. I plug into a mesa boogie studio preamp. I run the record outs to my mackie for monitoring and the line out goes to an input of my FW410. The main outs of the FW410 go into a stereo channel of my mixer.

I'm sure there are much better ways to do all of this...