recording with a laptop

[shreddies]

is it a good idea


and which would be better mac or pc? what are benifits and disadvantages of both

im gonna be getting a laptop soon and i was just wondering : P

thanks

[Jeff]

PCs are more powerful and generally better suited for recording. However, you can lug laptops around with you.

If you plan on recording on your laptop, your best bet is to get a FireWire or USB interface. M-Audio and many other companies make devices like this.

[nickcoumbe]

If you mean mac or pc format, and still want to get a laptop, I think that the general feeling would be to go mac. Although I have personally never used them, everyone I know who has will attest that they are better at those kind of things.

Doesn't the Mac come with the garageband recording software?

Personally I use PC based stuff because it is cheaper.

[JESTER700]

You CAN get a PC laptop that's every bit as good for recording. The problem is, most of them aren't necessarily made for it, so you have to know what you're looking for and order it as you need (or buy what you need aftermarket).

You need:
1) a high quality front end. PCMCIA card or external firewire box with as many ins & outs as you'll need. USB can also work well, but isn't quite "built from the ground up" for this purpose as the other two.
2) A separate storage drive. Preferably both drives should be 5400RPM (instead of 4200). 7200RPM would be nice, but also louder, hotter, and more battery draining.
3) At least 512MB RAM. Some people will say even more. But definitely not 256MB on an XP box.

[Ibanut]

Laptop advantages- portability,takes up less space.
disadvantages- SLOWer than PC.The processers arent as fast,Less ram.
smaller HD's,Price.

as far as mac vs pc its a personal preference. I use Mac. also if you are going to store what you record get an external HD for this. Audio files fragement the HD easy and take up tons of space. 10 mb per stereo minute.

Get the best software/plugin package you can afford. and a great set of headphones to monitor thru unless you have a mixer/monitor already.