What for Recording?

[Fineghal]

My little brother is really into music and what not. He wants a laptop for college, but he also wants the ability to be able to record and edit music.

And before you ask: Yes he's deadset on a laptop. No, he won't get a mac.

So what does he need?

Probably going to get a mixer.
Right now leaning towards a dell or something unless this isn't the way to go.

Most of the sound equipt. seems to be firewire, but are there going to be any specialty things like soundcard etc?

Honestly, I'm a little out of my depth here, and I figured AT would be the place to go.

 

[corkyg]

That's somewhat howI use my laptop. I have a mini-recording studio set up with a cassette deck, a reel-to-reel deck, and turntable as well as an external burner. These are all connected to my HP dv1000 notebook through a Creative Audigy 2NX (USB external) sound module. Laptop on-board sound and speakers are not too great - and the 2NX has a variety of ports, inputs and outputs that give me all the controls I need. I have all of that connected to a decent external stereo amp/speaker system.

The 2NX is compact - shirt pocket size, and easy to set up.

3NX

Of course, there are other solutions, but a good laptop can be the heart of a good portable sound studio. Here are the specs:

Specs

 

[oynaz]

Which kind of music?

 

[Fineghal]

From my understanding it's going to be mostly rock type stuff. Electric guitar, drums etc. But does the type really matter? All you'd need I think would be a mic for just about anything. Am I wrong here? He's not around about at the moment for me to ask him.

 

[T9D]

He needs to pick up something from M-audio. for recording that's a must.

http://www.m-audio.com/index.php?do=products.list&ID=mobileinterfaces

Then I'd suggest using a full fledged microphone. The Shure SM57 is an extremely popular and rugged microphone. Pretty much everyone has heard of it. It's very versatile. It will work for everything.

http://www.shure.com/ProAudio/Products/WiredMicrophones/us_pro_SM57-LC_content

 

[corkyg]

BTW - here's a shot of my compact laptop jusic lab:

Lab

 

[Maiora]

Does the laptop have a firewire interface or at least a free PCMCIA slot for one? If so there's lots of real recording solutions out there from MOTU, Edirol, Presonus, etc. M-Audio has a few but they're entry level products mostly.

 

[Gautama2]

E-MU 0404 USB would be good for soundcard

 

[oynaz]

He will need:

A good soundcard
A good pre-amp. The soundcard might come with an adequate preamp.
He might want a mixer. Yamaha has some decent cheap mixers, for instance the MG10-2
A condenser mic. Golden Age Project has some decent cheap ones. Remember, a condenser mic needs phantom power. Nearly all mixers can supply that, but it is rare in soundcards.
Possibly a dynamic mic. The Shure SM57 is a good choice.
I use a small Roland Microcube as well. It is not absolutely nescessarry, but I find myself using mine a lot.