Best mobile recording rig for laptop

[Guitfiddle]

I tried to jump on the DAW bandwagon a long time ago when digi 001/motu first came out. I gave up because CPU's were not powerful enough and I got sick of the DAE run errors and total lock-up, and most important bad sounding a/d conversion.. I talked to a guy today who said he has used everything, and he said for a good sounding overall, cheap native rig would be a motu interface/Sonar 5 Producer/cubase sx3/dp. I wanted to get a quick opinion on what DAW would be good for a mobile recording rig, opinions please as I am trying to decide. I have had a motu 24 i/o long ago(after Digi001) and from what I remember back in 1993(using ADATS)there was excellent transfer of sound but I hated the mix interface software. Here I am again wondering if I will ever find a DAW I like. I use 2 Alesis HD 24/ADATS in my studio. Thinking Cubase/Sonar w/Motu rig again. Ditching the digi002... Opinions please...Thanks I will probably go with the MOTU, however is there something out there I haven't heard of. I've had a lot of on location work lately and I can't take half my studio with me. Too much work, need a powerful, great sounding, accurate mobile rig... the next job I have lined up is recording church bells in an old church...Thanks for the help...

[brian_delizza]

Check out the MOTU traveler....

[Guitfiddle]

Thanks...That is the one I was checking out

[jcschild]

HI,
RME Fireface 400 or 800 (total mix is better than Cuemix)
your main concern should be what laptop. not all laptops are created equal!

1 will work and the other wont for audio

Scott
ADK

[manning1]

fiddle...
ive posted a number of laptop tips in the past year.
(just search under my name.)
one tip...the key with laptops is to make sure your chosen sound device eg traveller...whatever... works with the laptop before you plonk down lots of money on the laptop. ....and the drivers work A one.
you might want to look at core duo laptops and amd turion duals for example.
i tried a turion this afternoon...pretty darn fast as is the duo.
but make sure you can upgrade the internal slow hard drive to a faster 7200 rpm. and maybe add a second external hd 7200 rpm.
and load up on memory cos xp likes memory as does multitracking.

in addition .....a number of laptop users are useing powertracks that i use . (pgmusic.com for demo).
it has several advantages.
1. low cost/upgrade costs.
2. a feature is built in to back up in case of a crash.
3. no dongle hassles. (doesnt use one).
there are just hundreds of audio/midi features...so just try the demo.
cos the feature list is large....including a slew of effects built in including guitar fx/vocal fx etc......all of which use less pc resources than the traditional plug in approach.
also try reaper that i use. (audio side is mature...midi side still being worked on.
reaperaudio.com for demo. be open minded and try both suggestions. youll be surprised.)

[henryrobinett]

I didn't see whether you have a preference for PC or Mac. If you're on a Mac I'd suggest Metric Halo 2882 or for two channels at a time the ULN-2 can't be beat.

For live remote work MHlabs have their own record panel, a very sleek, easy on cpu, failsafe way of recording. It's live though. No over dubs. Then you can use whaever is your DAW of choice is for further overdubs or production.

I use this set up to get 18 tracks of live remote recording: 2882, ULN-2 and Motu 2408mkII using lightpipe into 2882.

I love this setup personally.

[Henchman]

As far a sLaptops go, I'm looking at the HP DV8000 series for my next laptop.
Acoupel fo things it has that I really wanted:
Dualcore
2 internal Harddrives. (one for the system, one for Audio)
and both PCI-ex and regular PCMCIA slots.
17" monitor.

[Silver Sonya]

MacBook Pro, Apogee Ensemble

[manning1]

i tried a macbook pro yesterday again.
i could nearly fry eggs on the underneath.
anything that puts out THAT MUCH heat i have to question the design of
from an engineering standpoint.
sorry but i question the engineering.
lets see what the failure rate is in the next year.
on the other hand the cheaper mac book doesnt seem to be as hot underneath.

[Power Supply]

I'm digging the Gateway 7525 2.6gig 1gig RAM with Pro Tools.
It's pretty hardy.

[stag]

Traveler.
TC Konnekt i haven´t tried it yet, i have great expectations about this one.
Its specs seems deluxe to me, however TC doesn´t report anything about its dynamic range or S\N ratio on their site which lives me a bit worried.

Also if you don´t care much for bus power, the best sounding interface is the Onyx 400f, however rather limited on the digital I\0 connections side.

[Guitfiddle]

Thanks for the replies, I haven't been able to get back on this site, really slow, and I have fast broadband connection. I have a rackmounted PC dual core 4800+ w/ 2 gigs of ram, two cd/dvd/dvd-r/cd-r drives, four hard drives with over a terabyte of space. I built this thing, and you can't even hear it when you turn it on. I have an HP Pavilion zv 5000 laptop. I believe it has an Athlon 3000+ processor. I haven't checked the specs, I wanted to use Cubase with a Motu interface. I have heard the new MOTU stuff sounds just as open and close enough to the Apogee to do good work on. I am going to check them out, and if I'm not happy then I will just keep looking...

[stag]

Oi.
Nice to know that.
I just ordered a MOTU Traveler.
It was kind of gambling, first i never tried one, on the web i listened to mixed comments about it, from dope to wonderful... but since everybody raves about the fireface 800 and i must be the only one who doesn´t like it much, i guess it´s okay going with the MOTU.
Anyway on FUTURE MAG there was runned a comparative review of 6 FW devices. Both, Traveler and FF800, achieved the highest score but the traveler got on the side two prizes: "Editor´s choice" and "Platinum award".

Bye.