Recording questions

[wraub]

Hello all. I have been doing recording on a Tascam 8 trk, then transferring tracks to a pc for editing and such.

Gettin' kinda old, so looking for a dedicated solution.
Here are some questions for all.

1. What would be considered a decently spec-ed laptop for recording? Already have Win 7 64 bit, so would like to use that if possible. Need to record at least 2 tracks at a time, also need to be able to edit/mix with ease. This laptop would be dedicated to recording only.

B. I plan to use Audicity and Reaper, as I have used them both already and the price is right. Other suggestions?

3. There is no question 3.

4- Among some of my amassed junk I have an old Line6 GuitarPort with software. Having a hard time finding compatibility with Win 7 64 bit. Any users here have a solution?

Currently shopping interface devices, there's a lot of choices...

Thanks to all.

 

[Chromer]

I'm currently mixing a project in Reaper with just shy of 50 tracks, a dozen softsynths and about 150 active plugins on a 2.5GHz i3 laptop, and it's running at 90% cpu and coming close to the point where I'm going to have to start freezing tracks... (My 4.2GHz i7 4770k desktop runs the same project at around 25% cpu usage).

An i5 will handle about 40% more at the same clock speed, and an i7 gains a little beyond that, but not as much.

One final note, avoid the "u" processors. (Like "i3 3220u") Those are ultra-low-power chips that run at lower clock speeds to give extended battery life. They're fine for tracking, but not for plugin-heavy mixing.

 

[ZachariahLee]

Don't be afraid to mix down certain tracks, and reopen in another project file. Drums are a prime example. We typically have over 20 drum tracks with EQ and FX it can put a load on a processor trying to do this with all of the other tracks on a song. I get them where I want them (the overall drum tone I want), export out as a stereo track plus a mono track. If I still have to make changes to the tracks I have to do it all over again in the original mix track, but I don't suffer sluggish processing and really feel I may be saving time in the long run. The main reason I originally did this was to make it easier to mix, but I noticed a big difference in performance too.

 

[wraub]

Good tips, thanks to you both.


Anyone else care to help?

 

[Lownote38]

Audacity is quite limited and not as easy to use (because it's freeware). I highly recommend ProTools or Cubase if you're going to do a lot of multitracking.