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DAW help needed

Hey guys, I'd love for some suggestions on equipment and have a few questions too.

First off, I'm leaving my desktop behind because I'm away from home and can't use my RME HDSP 9632 card so I'm gonna try and sell it and want to focus on my laptop as my DAW.

My laptop is:
Toshiba Satellite A200
Core 2 Duo 1.5Ghz
3GB DDR2 Ram
100 GB 5200RPM HD
(will be purchasing a 160GB+ 7200RPM in 2nd Bay)

What I need:
To be able to mixdown my tracks to 24bit/96khz at the best possible quality.

So I need an external audio interface, and something I can hook up my Rode condenser (I have a preamp for it, but if I can find an all in one with a better quality preamp then so be it) and my Studio monitors (MIDI I/O).

The laptop has USB and 4-pin firewire. It also has an express card slot but I want to use that for a UAD Xpander Xpress card in the near future... my question is, will that allow me to do what I want by itself? I was under the impression it was just for the DSP effects, so please correct me if im wrong.

Otherwise I know the speed of firewire or USB wont allow for too many channels to mixdown at once... some audio interfaces can only do 2 channels at once. So does that mean that I would need to render each channel (layer) of a track in pairs one by one, and then combine them afterwards???

I've been looking through a lot of equipment but could use some help....

price range is: <$300 but maybe more if needed.

Thank you in advance for your assistance!

go firewire: echo audiofire 4, it has 4in/4outs 24bit/96kHz, costs $299

http://echoaudio.com/Products/FireW...Fire4/index.php

If u need more channels consider the Audiofire 8 or even 12.
Firewire atleast alows atleast a 12 channels at a time, this i know beacuse i have Echo Audiofire 12 here and its a great peace of hardware.

when it comes to sequencer i realy dont know, i would recomend ableton live but your specs seems too limited for that realy. maybe reaper could do the trick for you, very CPU friendly, its free too. www.reaper.fm

Thank you for the speedy reply! I'm good for sequencers, I've actually been using Cubase for years now...

To be honest, I only need 1 Midi I/O to hook up my Tannoys, and a mic IN for the condenser, maybe 2 MIDIs for future hardware, but I'm fine with software and my midi sequencer for now

So, some of my tunes have over 30 channels to them.. would that mean I can only mixdown 12 at a time? and would it make a difference in how the overall tune meshes if the layers were individually combined later say with Soundforge? What do you do if a track u've made has more than 12 layers?

theres something realy wrong here. u have 30 channels in cubase and want to mix them down? cubase does this for you and "combines" them to a pair/stereo channel out from the sequencer. then the mixed signal goes to the soundcard and from there to your tannoy monitors. u only need 12ch if u plan to record 6 stereo sources at the same time, like 4 synths, 2 mono guitars and 1 stereo mic (with a preamp). u dont need a soundcard at all just to mix down your channels in your sequencer, as u say u have been making music in cubase a few years without it right?
if u only have a mic going into the computer and nothing more you could get the echo audiofire 2, but the 4ch version has mic-preamp too so i would go with that one. btw dont mix up midi and audio. u dont connect midi to your tannoys, midi is just digital control signals triggering synthesizers. someone else probably can explain it all better to you than me caus my english suck.

on the other hand i might have missunderstood, do u plan to mix down your tracks with an external analog mixer? then u should have atleast 12ch, maybe even two devices out from the comp and into the mixer (depends on how many channels the mixer are), but i dont think this is what ur asking, this will be very expensive and quit pointless imo when mixing quality in computers are very good.

if u plan to use hardware synths we can discuss midi more but i dont think its necesary to confuse you any more right now.

quote:

Originally posted by Boy trance Thank you for the speedy reply! I'm good for sequencers, I've actually been using Cubase for years now... To be honest, I only need 1 Midi I/O to hook up my Tannoys, and a mic IN for the condenser, maybe 2 MIDIs for future hardware, but I'm fine with software and my midi sequencer for now So, some of my tunes have over 30 channels to them.. would that mean I can only mixdown 12 at a time? and would it make a difference in how the overall tune meshes if the layers were individually combined later say with Soundforge? What do you do if a track u've made has more than 12 layers?

you are very confused

quote:

Originally posted by echosystm you are very confused

cool! someone who knows what they're doing...but...wont...help...

quote:

Originally posted by palm theres something realy wrong here. u have 30 channels in cubase and want to mix them down? cubase does this for you and "combines" them to a pair/stereo channel out from the sequencer. then the mixed signal goes to the soundcard and from there to your tannoy monitors. u only need 12ch if u plan to record 6 stereo sources at the same time, like 4 synths, 2 mono guitars and 1 stereo mic (with a preamp). u dont need a soundcard at all just to mix down your channels in your sequencer, as u say u have been making music in cubase a few years without it right? if u only have a mic going into the computer and nothing more you could get the echo audiofire 2, but the 4ch version has mic-preamp too so i would go with that one. btw dont mix up midi and audio. u dont connect midi to your tannoys, midi is just digital control signals triggering synthesizers. someone else probably can explain it all better to you than me caus my english suck. on the other hand i might have missunderstood, do u plan to mix down your tracks with an external analog mixer? then u should have atleast 12ch, maybe even two devices out from the comp and into the mixer (depends on how many channels the mixer are), but i dont think this is what ur asking, this will be very expensive and quit pointless imo when mixing quality in computers are very good. if u plan to use hardware synths we can discuss midi more but i dont think its necesary to confuse you any more right now.

Haha, I missed this post. Thanks dude! I was hoping that was the case with Cubase combining everything on its own but I wanted to be sure... and as for using Cubase for so long, I always used it on my PC at home with the RME card so I assumed u needed a better soundcard to mixdown at 24/96, and my laptop now has an integrated soundcard so i wasnt too sure about it's capabilities...

As for the Speakers, I did get confused mixing them up with MIDI, what I meant was I actually had them hooked up through XLR breakout cables from the RME L/R 3 pin jacks and that's all I remember (I haven't been home for a while to reference) and not a regular jack...

What do you suggest there?

Hmmm, having looked around some more, I think I might just have to get two XLR Female To 1/4-inch TRS Male Connectors, and it will make my life much easier...

Hmm, I think your biggest drama won't be your soundcard but your CPU. And your confusion Honestly, I don't think you'll have much luck with that setup because your computer's just too slow.

quote:

Originally posted by kitphillips Hmm, I think your biggest drama won't be your soundcard but your CPU. And your confusion Honestly, I don't think you'll have much luck with that setup because your computer's just too slow.

lol trust me I know 2 cores at 1.5Ghz isnt much, and as frustrating as it is I manage just fine thanks to Cubase's ability to freeze tracks + effects. I've been able to still write with over 40 channels and vsts just fine with it thankfully... I think about the old days with FruityLoops on a P3 with over 100 layers and being unable to play back more than 1 second of ur track, and I think im spoiled now! It's not the system that makes the music, its the individual... Besides, with a 2nd HD for samples I'm sure the increased performance will show... as well as when I get the UAD DSP Expresscard chances are I wont be using many plugins (aside from a few Waves') on the system at all, so what will my CPU really have to do???
all I really want to do is be able to monitor my tracks so I can mix them properly and have them mastered afterwards... i didn't anticipate it being so difficult with a laptop

quote:

Originally posted by kitphillips Hmm, I think your biggest drama won't be your soundcard but your CPU. And your confusion Honestly, I don't think you'll have much luck with that setup because your computer's just too slow.

Seriously i can only run 6 instances of v-station at the same time without unison before my computer starts lagging out not including other things like drum samples which don't take up much processing power but then effects on them and stuff.

1/4 jack to XLR works fine. you need to be more spesific in your questions if were going to be able to help you more. u also know how to freeze tracks so u might get away with it on that comp, i wouldnt know. just try various things, and consider one of those soundcard i told you about to get better performance. the internal one on your laptop wont take you long.

Well to be honest, I feel like an idiot now... I can mixdown in 24/96 no problem, I just tested it out (yes I know, I should have done that first)... I had figured the soundcard needed to be 24/96 for this to be possible (since I had never done it with anything other than one before) but good ol Cubase does it all internally... it's just for recording that a good soundcard is needed I guess. And since I plan on recording vocals and still need to hook up my monitors, I guess now I need the following:

Can anyone recommend the best bang for my buck as far as quality, specs (24bit/96-192khz, pre amp, freq range, noiseless, SNR, etc), and for what I need (1 MIDI I/O is fine, 1 line in, 1 XLR mic w/ phantom power, 2 balanced 1/4" outs) in a USB or 4-pin firewire audio interface??

I also want to be able to switch from ASIO to WDM drivers freely to be able to play mp3's for reference using the interface as my main sound device (which will most likely take over for my integrated soundcard) and I've read that some interfaces won't allow you to do that. So the cheaper I can find one, the better!

Any suggestions would be great

Echo Audiofire 4

quote:

Originally posted by palm Echo Audiofire 4

Thanks dude! I've actually been doing a lot of homework and it seems Echo is one of the best and most reliable out there... but now I'm wondering whether I should go all out and spend more on a higher quality interface...

Do you think there's much of a difference between the Echo Audiofire 4 and the Echo Audiofire 8 in quality...? And if I were to go there, then what about the MOTU UltraLite mk3...? or maybe I should just go for gold and get an RME Fireface 400. lol

only diference is number of channels i think.i got both 2 and 12 and i cant realy hear any diference there (ill admit i havent realy been listening carefully either tho and i havent tried the inputs on audiofire 2, only outputs). im selling my 12ch if ur interested, dont need that many inputs anymore as im selling my synths. well u live in canada, i think its cheaper new there than what i want from mine used here in norway. seriously u dont need any more than the 4ch Echo if ur only recording vocals. and u dont realy need any more that 48kHz recording.

Thanks dude, I really appreciate it.

Ya I think I might go for the Echo Audiofire 4 since it's all that I need. I mean, does it really make a difference in audio quality if I'm mainly just mixing down tracks through Cubase anyways??? Would I really hear a difference mixing down using one interface or another? or is the difference mainly for outboard gear and recording?

i think i said my opinion enough times here now the audiofire 4 is all u need. someone else might disagree but i doubt it.

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