Digital Audio Recording

[ag_inspector]

Is anyone using a thinkpad as a digital audio workstation?

[skitty4gzus]

As far as the recording end of it goes there is no real reason NOT to use one. Especially one with a firewire port. My t42p does not, but that would not keep me from using pro tools on it if i wanted to. My buddy uses pro tools on his macbook pro, but then again he is a true sound engineer, and im a technician. A nice T61 with a decent processor, loaded ram and big hard drive would be a nice tool to record with IMO. Believe it or not there are still some softwares out that do not have Apple support. Take for instance Yamaha digital consoles. this might have changed as of late, but im not 100% sure of that.

[ag_inspector]

That is the direction I am heading. Given my budget for this project, I want to try it with my current laptop and spend the money on better audio equipment. If I can't make it work on the R40 (with a pcmcia firewire card), I will look at a more powerful thinkpad. Do you know what firewire chipset most thinkpad motherboards use?

[bhurley]

My understanding is that you get better results if you record to a separate hard drive that is not your boot drive. Most digital audio interfaces (Presonus, MOTU, M-Box, Mackie, etc.) tell you to do this; you run the software on your computer but you record over Firewire to a separate hard disk. Also, a standalone hard disk is more likely to be desktop speed (7200 rpm) than notebook speed, and that helps....for some recording interfaces it's a requirement.

It is possible to record to your boot drive, and many people do when no other solution is available, but it's not as reliable and more prone to crashes or other problems; at least according to all the reports I've read.

[beGi]

Do you know what firewire chipset most thinkpad motherboards use?

My R60 has Texas Instruments OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller...don't know for others....probably the same...

[skitty4gzus]

I 2nd the big external hard drive. most audio interfaces will work with usb, but it is not the desired choice. i dont know of a Tpad that utilizes firewire 800, but if there is such a beast i would track it down. MOTU, digidesign, M-audio, Edirol, Presonus, etc.... all good gear. I say T61 because you get firewire, newer processors with faster bus speeds and so on and so forth.

[bhurley]

The other option to consider (based on budget) is a standalone recording device, such as the Korg unit described here:

http://www.korg.com/gear/info.asp?a_pro ... egory_id=3

I know a few people, including some pros, who have abandoned direct-to-computer recording due to problems with latency, interference, and other technical problems, and have gone back to ADAT or all-in-one dedicated portable recording devices.

With a standalone device you record to it and then transfer your sound files via USB over to your computer and then do your production work there.

You can get remarkably high-quality sound from some of the portable Flash-based recorders out there in the $500-$600 range; if you need something more professional the Korg unit is worth looking into.