Topic: Low end laptop taping?!

[sunjan]

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

[cybergaloot]

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.

[bhakti]

have never done any laptop taping myself but thought that this was pretty cool...

www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/Transit-main.html

it looks tiny and goes for $99... still pretty cheap...
just an idea though...

[mmadd29]

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.

[cybergaloot]

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.

[cybergaloot]

have never done any laptop taping myself but thought that this was pretty cool...

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.

[sunjan]

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

[bdasilva]

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.

[sunjan]

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

[bugg100]

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

[cybergaloot]

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.

[bugg100]

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....

[Roger Gustavsson]

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.

[kozakz]

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.

[BC]

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.