Hardware dillema while setting up home studio

[Rafe]

Hi,

I've been trying to start doing some home recordings on my laptop for quite a while now and have run into a real annoying problem thats i've failed to find a solution to myself, so i thought maybe someone on the net might have more brains than me and could help me out.

Anyways, basically all was going fine until one day the microphone input on my laptop got worn out and snapped off from overuse. So now i can't just plug a mic directly into my laptop to record. I can't just replace the mic input because it's connected to the motherboard so i'd basically have to buy a new laptop to fix it. I tried buying an external usb soundcard, but my laptop didn't like that one bit, it would just lag and stutter heaps when I recorded.

So what i'm looking for is some type of external recording device that can do all the recording for me and then transfer the sudio data over to my laptop for me to edit it all. Unfortunately I don't have the cash to fork out for a $800+ stand-alone recording studio system, but i figure that since i don't need any editing software on this recording device, and just need to get a reasonably solid raw audio file from it maybe someone will know of something that'll do the job for less than $400.

Cheers for any help you wanna give me.

(p.s. i would prefer if it were multitrack, but understand that this might not be possible)

[brandondrury]

Well, to buy a stand alone box that will allow you to transfer the audio data directly into your laptop would get expensive.

I still think the best route for you is going with an external soundcard.

I'd like to know what you used before that didn't "agree" with your laptop and more details about that.

How fast is your laptop? Does it have Firewire or USB 2.0? What software are you recording with?

I want to make it clear that by recording to some other unit and then dumping that into your laptop, you are basically doing the same thing as recording. The only difference is your computer can take its time while doing a digital transfer while it must obviously be on time when making a recording.

Tell me more info and I should be able to help you out.

There are MANY soundcards out there for under $400. If the soundcard thing doesn't work on it's first try, I've got a feeling that it will work on the second try.

Brandon

[Rafe]

Cheers for your reply, sorry if i didn't give you enough info.

My laptop's a Dell INSPIRON 8200, 2.0Ghz, 512MB ram, 40 gig harddrive (a good 15 gigs free space). Its running windows XP and right now im using adobe audition 2.0 for my music editing which seems to work fine except for when I go to record anything. The computers a hand-me-down and few years old, so its built up a bit of excess junk on it and can sometimes run a bit slow.

Unfortunately it doesn't have firewire, and i managed to waste 50 bucks buying a usb 2.0 plugin for it which didn't work because the input bit was right beside where i cracked the mic input, so it was really loose and would randomly disconnect itself all the time. So i guess i'm stuck with my slow usb port.

The soundcard i was using was a Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 NX (which i don't have anymore). It actually worked alright for a while (i.e. for the amount of time it took for the guy in the store to prove he'd solved my problem), but once me and my band took it back and started recording (using audacity back then) it started stuffing up. Basically it was fine when it recorded slow stuff (like vocals and slow guitar) but when we recorded drums halfway through the song it would skip and make a bit of clicking and the whole rest of the song would be completely out of time.

So yeah, my guess is that the slow usb port combined with a bit of a rusty laptop has made it pretty hard to record straight onto the laptop. So unless someones got any ideas about how i could speed up the transfer rate onto my laptop, i'm not sure if the soundcard will ever work with it, and as you said i'll have to use another recording unit so that my laptop can take it's time transfering the data.

[brandondrury]

The computers a hand-me-down and few years old, so its built up a bit of excess junk on it and can sometimes run a bit slow.

This is unacceptable and needs to be fixed immediately. Luckily, it's not difficult. I would 100% recommend backing up anything important and formatting this drive immediately, and then reinstalling Windows and any other necessary programs.

If the computer is running slow, it's probably the cause of most of your problems.

We can go from there.

I've been known to format my main home computer once every month or two just because the advantages in speed and reliability.

Brandon