And Just as I thought I was beginning to understand the basics--laptop interfaces

[guyless]

After many years away from music and recording, I find myself back-- if not exactly with a vengence, very certainly back and on a very steep learning curve that's had me pouring over the collectective wisdom of the gearsluz until dawn many nights since Christmas.

The short version of a long story is that a few months ago I became involved in a musically-- if not audio-ably-- ambitious project without any very clearly focused agenda. Project demo, small private release, something more, a set of coasters: really anybody's guess. One factor that rather limited the upper realm hopes was-- here's where you shudder-- no engineers. Mainly, musicians spread across the country with very different levels of self-taught engineering skills, working as often as not from their own living rooms. The project is in Sonar Producer. And a month or two back I began gearing up with that as the first non-negotiable, in preparation for a mix that will, at least in the first instance be ITB. Maybe later, as we continue our follow our nose improvision, we'll decide to go for what I am inclined to call a real mix and real mastering. But for now there are far too many variables to the calculus to know.

As to gear. I know, I know, I know-- but if I had to buy a pc (and break my sacred vows of several years standing), it was NOT going to be desktop. And being a sucker for beauty, I ended up with small Sony Vaio (Pentium M-780; 2gigs of RAM). To get up and running, I immediately installed an Echo Indigo IO. And began the hunt for real monitors.

The idea has been and remains-- as simple and as good as humanly possible (given Sonar and laptop as my starting point), money but not stupid amounts.

Accordingly, I've Focals very smallest near field monitors due in next week. And looking ahead to the task of making the WAV files that come from my living room as good as I can (voice, acoustic guitar both with and without a sunrise pickup), I will have a Brauner Phantom and a DAV BG-1 2-channel mic-pre.

Cables of course I begun to think about, but all distances will be short so I am confident that I can figure out this part of the chain without too much anguish.

Which has brought me to ADDA and the stumbling block of laptop ports-- usb, pcmcia,firewire in Sony's IEEE 1394 configuration (which they insist on calling iLink).
I'd very much like to go with an Apogee Rosetta 200 or Lavry Blue (or Black, perhaps), or conceivably Benchmark. But since every link in the chain matters, I am feeling more thana little clueless about that 10" of something that actually get me in and out of my computer. Apogee has its own card for firewire but will my 4-pin input and whatever is in my computer benefit from the new 800 card? At least playback and upcoming mixing, there seem to be some possibility of using my usb ports-- but looking further ahead, would I want to use that route for AD and recording? Pcmcia seems to be of interest to Echo and SME-- and at least I think what I am trying to do is get my Indigo out of the picture altogether except when I'm on the road (when it really is a minor miracle). As for using the Lavry line at all-- in passing, someone there mentioned good experience with the ESI Juli@ card-- but that's strictly desktop.

All of which is to say, I can make my peace with a purchase of $1500-$2500 IF it will make what I get for initial mixing some approximation of the uncolored truth AND give me a shot at recording WAVs that are better than prosumer demo grade.

Finally, for the record, my own ideal has always been a few great players in a wonderful sounding room playing songs from start to finish, recorded by an equally great engineer with a well maintained collection of class vintage mics. But then I also love late 15th Century Florentine frescoes, and my ideal for recording music has begun to seem not a whole less remote a practicable possibility for me to do myself right now.

I am sorry to rattle on at such great length in my first post. And thanks to anyone who's inclined to help.

[dominicperry]

I'm not an expert, but I have been trying to build a high quality laptop rig too, multipurpose - record and mix my 2 piece pop band and do some location recording for small classical concerts. So far I have a Mackie MDR which is out of date and not portable, but a good backup for location work, some rubbish desks, and a Broadhurst Gardens No1 which is a fantastic 2 channel pre-amp which will be suitable for classical but may be too neutral for pop. I have a pair of KM84s and a Pearlman TM1 (U47 clone). And some other mics. But I am a bit lost about how to get good A/D conversion into the laptop (which I haven't got yet either). So far, my best guess is some good external A/D like a Mytek or Lavry (I haven't heard either) and an RME Cardbus interface with a Multiface II or Digiface on the end. Both have digital i/o, the Multiface has less digital but adds analogue i/o at line level. Multiface has a headphone socket and I think the Digiface does too. I have made enquiries on forums and to Mytek and so far no one has suggested that the low jitter of the Mytek will be worsened by going through the RME, digital to digital. Hope this may be of some small help.
PS - I use SAWStudio which sounds fantastic.

Dominic