PT lenovo 16trks simple rig

[Mats H]

I can do 20 tracks of 2496 on my 5400 rpm laptop (HP NX9420). The most important issue is the Firewire chipset. Get a laptop with Texas Instruments' Firewire chipset.

[letsdance]

thanks mat,

i just say a guy with a t61p, it seems to have Chipset : Intel GM965

DUC: lenovo T61P 6088

i wasnt sure that the 4 pin firewire connection was enough for audio interfaces, but perhaps if they have there own power supply they might be ok..

i already have the ibm t61p as i got a very good deal on it..
LENOVO THINKPAD T61P, 15.4", T9300, 2.5GHZ, 4GB

running xp pro

it look like one has to disable the gigabit network for it to run soothly,

[dcharrison]

Doesn't the t61p have E-SATA? That would be a better answer for your hard drive.

If the on-board 1394 conflicts with your converter interface, you can always run a TI interface in a pc card slot. That would free up the on-board port for a hard drive if there is no E-SATA.

I recommend reading the support forum at RME. There is some fascinating (for the nerdish) info about how Microsoft broke firewire in SP2, how many card vendors misread TI's specs and screwed lots of cards, and how to get around some of these problems.

They are real proud of their own firewire interface, but the OS and mfg goofs are an issue for everyone.
RME: Support TechInfo

[letsdance]

DC..thanks for the comments...

yep im thinking about this card to sort out the firewire issues and has TI chipset
Product

[dcharrison]

I think FW800 is where lots of the problems are. It was working in XP till SP2, then Microsoft arbitrarily set the bit for slow speed as the default. Now it is slower than 400. There is a fix at Microsoft.

[Gerax]

I think you are on the right track with the Lightbridge. I have a mobile setup based around the Lightbridge, my Dell XPS laptop (killer) and adat equipped pres. I have 1 Focusrite Octopre with AD option and an ISA 428 with AD option which allows me to record 16 channels at once (I can go as fare as 32 with additional pres and a secondary backup recorder). Plus the AD option on both pres are S/MUX ready, meaning that there's 2 ADAT ports that output the same signal when used as 48KHz max (which is the max sample rate I record at). So I use one to feed the Lightbridge and the other to feed my parallel backup recorder (a Mackie SDR2496). If you need to record 16 tracks maximum you can easily use Pro Tools MP which has this stupid limit of 18 simultaneous I/O at once, but that in your case is enough. I use it too and it works great provided your laptop is compatible and well configured. Get yourself a SATA drive and an USB 2.0 external box for your audio. You can also set up the routing in Pro Tools so that you can multitrack the recording but also submix to a stereo track and record it as well. That will be the rough mix you can give to your client at the end of the gig as a reference. I do it, clients love it. You just export the stereo track and burn it to CD.
Pay attention to the clocking of everything as it's really important to a smooth running rig. I also MIDI'ed everything up ad everything starts to record in sync (PT and SDR) when I press F12 on my laptop's keyboard, really cool.
You can see some pics of my rig right here: Pipe organ recording, any ideas?

Any questions, let me know. Hope this helps

L.G.