Well, little by little I am dipping my toes into the very complicated and confusing world of recording and editing music on a computer. My first step was to order an audio recording device with a midi interface as well as the necessary inputs for a decent mic and keyboard if necessary. I am now toying with the idea of possibly having a dedicated machine just for audio stuff. I haven't decided yet whether it will be a very hefty laptop, or a very small desktop, but I would like to gather opinions on what the minimum specs should be for a decent DAW. Keep in mind that I said decent, and not spectacular. I don't have a lot of money to plunk down on this, so it will either be a used laptop, or perhaps I'll have my Son build me a small footprint desktop. I am not an audio engineer by any stretch nor do I play professionally, so the scope of any projects would be usually quite simple.
I would never be recording more than 1 audio track at once, but there could conceivably be a few audio tracks as part of the entire project, for example, a vocal track with a couple of other vocal tracks doing harmony parts. The rest would be all midi, using either my keyboards as sound sources, or controllers for any soft synths I might try using. What would be the minimum I would need in terms of memory, and cpu speed? I know the HD is also an issue and this is one thing that concerns me when considering a laptop since they usually use 5400rpm IDE drives. Would a laptop cut it if it had a reasonably fast cpu? Regarding the audio/midi interface I ordered, for now, it is going to be USB 2.0. I do understand and agree with the fact that FireWire would have been much better, but the problem I ran into was that I had to spend quite a bit more money to get the features I needed in a comparable device using FireWire. Since I am just getting started with this stuff, I didn't want to spend quite that much just yet. If I find that I can actually get somewhere with all this, I certainly don't mind upgrading to something better in the future that uses FireWire and has a few other nice features as well. The Tascam US122L that I purchased was only $149 and can accommodate anything I would use for now, and it is very simple to use, or at least that's the way it seems. When looking for something comparable but with Firewire, the only stuff that appealed to me was at least $300. If things go well, I won't have a problem ditching the US122L and going for something with the I/O I want and perhaps a control surface as well, using FireWire. So, what do you guys think? What are the bare bone specs I need to be reasonably happy? Thanks in advance for any ideas. BTW, my ballpark budget for this machine would be about $800. I think with that amount, I can easily find a good used laptop, or purchase what I need to build something. --Warmest regards, --Rick Alfaro [EMAIL PROTECTED] _______________________________________________ PC-Audio List Help, Guidelines, Archives and more... http://www.pc-audio.org To unsubscribe from this list, send a blank email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] This list is a service of MosenExplosion.com. To see what other lists we offer, visit us on the web at http://www.MosenExplosion.com
