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Gear / Technical Help => Ask The Tapers => Topic started by: sunjan on April 02, 2008, 04:40:20 AM
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Hi all,
Just curious, what are the absolute minimum specs for a laptop, for someone getting started in lappy taping.
I'm not considering this myself, but a friend here asked me. He's on zero budget, but has a few laptops lying around.
Is AC power essential, or can you get by with the lappy battery for the length of a normal show?
What's your take on the other specs: RAM, HD size, OS?
Is there line of laptops with usable audio-in jack, or is PC-card/USB external sound card the way to go?
/J
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Of course the faster the processor and the more memory the better but I'm running a fairly old laptop to record. 1GHz & 512 of RAM running Windows 2000. I could load XP but 2K is less resource intensive. I'd avoid Vista since it is a resource hog. I've considered running LINUX but have held off because of some of the apps I have on the laptop. I have two batteries in my laptop but I have always hooked up AC when recording so I don't know how long it would run off the batteries. As far as the HDD goes, as long as you have space for the files and some headroom, just about anything would work.
I use a UA-5 connected via USB. I'd be a little leery of using the on board line-in. The quality of that connection will vary from laptop to laptop but I doubt you'll find a great sound card in most laptops. If you use an PC card sound card it will cut down your battery life.
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have never done any laptop taping myself but thought that this was pretty cool...
www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/Transit-main.html (http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/Transit-main.html)
it looks tiny and goes for $99... still pretty cheap...
just an idea though...
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I use a UA-5 connected via USB. I'd be a little leery of using the on board line-in. The quality of that connection will vary from laptop to laptop but I doubt you'll find a great sound card in most laptops. If you use an PC card sound card it will cut down your battery life.
Question on this ...(I forget)...I did the digi-mod on my UA-5, does that render the USB port unusable?
I thought about using my laptop instead of my iriver.
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I don't really know, my UA-5 is unmodded. I do know there is a variation of the digimod that makes it possible to switch back to normal mode.
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have never done any laptop taping myself but thought that this was pretty cool...
www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/Transit-main.html (http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/Transit-main.html)
it looks tiny and goes for $99... still pretty cheap...
just an idea though...
Interesting and most likely better than using the built in sound card but you would still need a pre-amp and/or battery box to go with your mics. It would work with something like the Church-Audio CA-11/CA-9000 set though. I see that they are going for around $60 on eBay. It appears to be USB powered so it would cut into the laptop battery life, by how much I couldn't say.
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www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/Transit-main.html (http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/Transit-main.html)
it looks tiny and goes for $99.
Nice one! Cybergaloot is right though, you still need mic power and gain. Maybe if you pair it up with Audio Buddy?!
http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/AudioBuddy-main.html
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Question on this ...(I forget)...I did the digi-mod on my UA-5, does that render the USB port unusable?
I thought about using my laptop instead of my iriver
Renders the output from a laptop unusable... I use mine with a laptop all the time. Audcity.
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Question on this ...(I forget)...I did the digi-mod on my UA-5, does that render the USB port unusable?
I thought about using my laptop instead of my iriver
Renders the output from a laptop unusable... I use mine with a laptop all the time. Audcity.
Let's go back to the FAQ:
The first mod [so-called digi-mod] enables the digital coax and optical outputs for stand alone operation without a computer. It can also be used with a computer to output data simultaneously to a both coax and optical digital connectors, in addition to your computer ! The mod disables the digital output from a computer to the UA5 via the USB port, so you cannot send data from the computer to the UA5 on the USB buss. This does not affect your ability to record with it, only your ability to send data from your hard drive to the UA5 via USB.
From http://taperssection.com/index.php/topic,14389.0.html
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It looks like the VX Pocket v2 might do the trick, others could tell you more.
http://taperssection.com/index.php/topic,100581.0.html seems to be a great deal. That could get me into 24 bit for cheap, but I really hate laptops at a show..... ::)
Joe
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but I really hate laptops at a show..... ::)
Joe
I don't know what you hate about them but the glow from the screen when I use mine can be annoying so I carry a dark blue hand towel and cover most of the screen once I get things running. I only leave the "meters" showing. That also keeps the movement on the screen from catching people's eyes.
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but I really hate laptops at a show..... ::)
Joe
I don't know what you hate about them but the glow from the screen when I use mine can be annoying so I carry a dark blue hand towel and cover most of the screen once I get things running. I only leave the "meters" showing. That also keeps the movement on the screen from catching people's eyes.
So not everyone is as considerate....
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I am useing a laptop. After two conventional ones, I am now useing a Motion M1400 Tablet PC. At all times with a Digigram VX Pocket V2 soundcard. The built-in mic preamps are noisy but are perhaps good enough for stealthing. I advice the use of an external preamp for recording acoustic music. The maximum signal to noise via the built-in preamp is about 70 dB. With a Nakamichi MX-100 preamp it increases to 85dB or so! The noise floor are about 43 and 28 dB. The VX Pocket will be working with older laptops, a Pentium II will do... At least if you are running the suitable software.
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My laptop rig was Dell D600 (256mb,w2000), Sound Blaster Audigy 2 (PCMCIA version) + battery box + At853. It worked quite good. I used cdwave for recording.
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I would think the UA5 should work well, FWIW I used to use a sound devices USBPre when I was laptop taping, it is a very solid and flexible little box.
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I would think the UA5 should work well, FWIW I used to use a sound devices USBPre when I was laptop taping, it is a very solid and flexible little box.
UA-5 needs extra battery, it can not be powered via usb.
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I use a PDAudio CF with my Toshiba. Seems to work well with what I do. You can use whatever PC based recording software (I use Soundforge 9). The UA5 has both spdif & optical outputs...so theres no problem there. I think the PDAudio CF is like $200, which is about half the price of the VX Pocket v2. Good luck with whatever you choose. http://www.core-sound.com/pdaudio-cf/1.php
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I use a PDAudio CF with my Toshiba. Seems to work well with what I do. You can use whatever PC based recording software (I use Soundforge 9). The UA5 has both spdif & optical outputs...so. theres no problem there. I think the PDAudio CF is like $200, which is about half the price of the VX Pocket v2. Good luck with whatever you choose. http://www.core-sound.com/pdaudio-cf/1.php
All good, except the above link in my post is for a vx pocket v2 in the yard sale for $100......
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www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/Transit-main.html (http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/Transit-main.html)
The system requirements for the M-audio card seems very moderate!
Minimum System Requirements (PC)
Windows 98SE / Me / 2000 (SP4) / XP (SP2)*
For 96kHz operation: Pentium III 500mHz w/ 128MB RAM
For 48kHz operation: Pentium II 400mHz w/ 128MB RAM
With Roger confirming that Pentium II might be enough, I'll encourage my pal to have a go at lappy taping on the cheap!
Anyone else with success stories using low CPU/RAM specs?
I also noticed the Creative Audigy cardbus card can be picked up on Ebay for $35-45, which sounds like a usable entry level rig...
Any external USB sound cards even cheaper than that?
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Hi Sunjan,
A problem with many of these PC-Card and USB solutions, is the weak connectors. I have two brooken Digigram breakout cables. The breakout cable itself is bulky and after a long search, I have found some connectors so that I can make my own break out cables. The original break out cable is expensive.
I have also made some more testing to find out the noise floor of the mic input. With 30dB gain it is about 74dB (wideband) below 0dBfs. Some USB solutions are worse, like the M-Audio MobilePre USB.
One also need a suitable recording software. If the laptop is older, look for one that it can handle with ease! Soundforge 5 seems to work with a 300Mhz cpu. Now I use Soundforge 9.
I would not use a laptop for stealth recording, it is too bulky. I am using it beacause I can do the editing with it too.
Roger
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A problem with many of these PC-Card and USB solutions, is the weak connectors. I have two broken Digigram breakout cables. The breakout cable itself is bulky and after a long search, I have found some connectors so that I can make my own break out cables. The original break out cable is expensive.
I have also made some more testing to find out the noise floor of the mic input. With 30dB gain it is about 74dB (wideband) below 0dBfs. Some USB solutions are worse, like the M-Audio MobilePre USB.
One also need a suitable recording software. If the laptop is older, look for one that it can handle with ease! Soundforge 5 seems to work with a 300Mhz cpu. Now I use Soundforge 9.
I would not use a laptop for stealth recording, it is too bulky. I am using it beacause I can do the editing with it too.
+T, thanks Roger, those are valid concerns that you point out. Surely, the lappy would be for open taping only!
So an external breakout box connected to the USB port should be less fragile than those PC-card type connectors, right?
I found a good primer on lappy taping here:
http://www.sonicsense.com/10myths.htm
Written by Marc at Sonicsense, it's heavily outdated, but the fundamentals are spot on...
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I recorded with a Vaio C1VN for 5 years and still use it periodically. The C1VN has a Crusoe 600 MHZ processer with (I think) 192 MB of RAM. These days this is obviously a very modest laptop, but (when things were working - ie - I had plenty of juice, cables plugged in and not shorting, vxpocket cable didn't break, etc) the lappy prooved to be flawless using MiniMe -> VxPocket or USB -> WaveLab @ 24/48.
Never tried 24/96 since USB out of the minime and VxPocket don't support it. I had this lappy pretty well tweaked (including a bare-bones Win2K installation used exclusively for recording), so YMMV, but it can be done.
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So an external breakout box connected to the USB port should be less fragile than those PC-card type connectors, right?1
Hi Sunjan,
Here are a couple of pictures of the Digigram soundcard and its breakout cable and connectors. The connector themselves seems to be almost impossible to get nowdays.
I will use some smaller connectors in place of the bulky XLRs. Using 5-pin connectors for stereo, one for input and one for output (the phono connectors are not needed either) would reduce the size and weight of the breakout cable.
Roger