Advice on moving to laptop recording please

horse

Any advice from those in the know would be welcome please.

I've been using an old Korg D1600 to record at home, and recently tried mixing tracks exported from the D1600 in Reaper, which I liked, so thinking of trying to move over to just recording into laptop, taking advantage of midi etc.

I've got a macbook pro which is several years old - 2.4ghz core 2 duo, 4gb,  and am thinking of getting something like one of the focusrite usb interfaces. Is that setup likely to work ok for Reaper, recording audio and midi up to 16 track, maybe running the odd vsti?

Anything else I need to think about before spending any money?

Cheers

spark240

Main thing is monitor size for me, I use Presonus S1, so I ended up getting a separate 21" monitor.

Not too familiar with Macs, but the spec you have seems fine for general multi track stuff, most PC;s start to struggle with too many VST's.

ecc83

I am typing this on an HP I3 laptop which in in fact also a 2.4G 3 core CPU, originally with 4G ram but upped to 8G (cos I could, does not seem to have made a lot of diff!)

This will easily run the demo tracks in Reaper and Cubase LE6 so that MacBook should be ok.

You mention MIDI ? So don't get the bog S 2i2. Starter kit would be the 2i4 but the UR22 is cheaper, has MIDI and comes with Cubase which is top bollocks for MIDI work.

But for maximum flexibility, lowest latency and stone solid driver, checkout the Native Instruments Komplete Audio 6. Another 40-60 quid or so but I promise you won't regret it.

Dave.

digitalscream

That spec should be absolutely fine - I recorded our whole album on a laptop which was actually slightly lower-spec than that (albeit vastly cheaper ), using Reaper, EZDrummer (played in via MIDI kit) and up to 30-odd tracks on each song with plenty of VST assistance (compression, reverb, EQ etc).

The only thing I would say is that it might be an idea to upgrade the hard drive to an SSD if you can. It's worth putting up with less space (eg 120GB - 256GB at reasonable prices) for the speed bump. The hard drives in that generation of Macbooks tend to be cheap crap and very slow, so if there's going to be a performance bottleneck it'll be there.

ecc83

Didn't know you could swap bits out of macs?

How do you re-install the OS on a new drive?

Dave.

digitalscream

ecc83 said:

Didn't know you could swap bits out of macs?

How do you re-install the OS on a new drive?

Dave.

Of course you can - they're just PCs, with the same parts an' everything.

You can install the OS with a DVD, same as Windows. You can install it from another Mac, if you know the magic incantation...

horse

Great. Thanks guys

ecc83

digitalscream said:

ecc83 said:

Didn't know you could swap bits out of macs?

How do you re-install the OS on a new drive?

Dave.

Of course you can - they're just PCs, with the same parts an' everything.

You can install the OS with a DVD, same as Windows. You can install it from another Mac, if you know the magic incantation...

Ok, just that I heard tales of soldered in ram!

Dave.

Danny1969

 Loads and loads of laptops have soldered in ram, some give you a spare slot though as well. 

Easiest way to upgrade a Mac drive is to clone the drive 

horse

Hey @ecc83, from your recommendation I guess you know the native instruments well?

I was reading that you can't direct monitor inputs 3 & 4, so if I wanted to record 4 channels simultaneously I'd have the signal for 3 & 4 coming back from the laptop rather than direct? Do you have any experience with that and do you think the signal would be delayed?

other than that I'm liking the look of it so far

ecc83

horse said:

Hey @ecc83, from your recommendation I guess you know the native instruments well?

I was reading that you can't direct monitor inputs 3 & 4, so if I wanted to record 4 channels simultaneously I'd have the signal for 3 & 4 coming back from the laptop rather than direct? Do you have any experience with that and do you think the signal would be delayed?

other than that I'm liking the look of it so far

Pretty sure you can direct monitor 3/4 on headphones as there is a 1/2-3/4 button but no, can't see how you would assign 3/4 to line outs 1/2 to speakers!

There would be a delay but only a very tiny one with ASIO drivers because the KA6 is noted for very low latency. In any case, you would need some form of monitor switching?  Can you explain the exact scenario you wish to set up and I will try to duplicate it here.

Jusfort! I also have a Focustite 8i6 and you can download Scarlet MixControl software for that and other F'rite AIs . Looks bloody complicated but I dare say it would be possible to set up all kinds of custom routings...but who has the time!! Being an old TV/amp valve jockey I tend to go for hardware solutions!

Dave.

Dave.

horse

I'm mainly thinking of if I want to record electronic drums in live, as I do currently rather than recording the midi (which I may switch to). I currently use 4 inputs, bass drum, snare then a stereo pair for the cymbals and toms. I'd want to be able to hear the click and recorded tracks as well as all 4 inputs in my headphones, and any lag on them would probably be off putting.

digitalscream

horse said:

I'm mainly thinking of if I want to record electronic drums in live, as I do currently rather than recording the midi (which I may switch to). I currently use 4 inputs, bass drum, snare then a stereo pair for the cymbals and toms. I'd want to be able to hear the click and recorded tracks as well as all 4 inputs in my headphones, and any lag on them would probably be off putting.

Why not do both? Pretty trivial, really, and recording the MIDI data barely involves any processing or bandwidth overhead at all.

horse

True, but wouldn't I have the same issue still? Eg hearing all 4 tracks I'm recording back without lag? Maybe lag is much less of an issue now than when I last tried years ago?

digitalscream

horse said:

True, but wouldn't I have the same issue still? Eg hearing all 4 tracks I'm recording back without lag? Maybe lag is much less of an issue now than when I last tried years ago?

As long as your round trip latency is below 30ms, you should be fine. I haven't noticed any issues with any of the interfaces I've used lately (Tascam US-1641, TC Impact Twin and Eleven Rack).

Danny1969

Any kind of latency is a bitch for drums ..... I recommend using a small mixer and monitoring direct. As the drums are electronic record it in midi and just midi back it out to the kit so it plays back. That way you can quantize if needed to tighten things up and you can also change drum patch's if desired