Can a PC laptop be as efficient as audio workstation compared to desktop computer??

I have been using Desktop PCs all my life, with a Delta 1010LT soundcard to record music in my home studio....But recently I've acquired a new firewire soundcard...the Profire 610 and it really makes me want to get a laptop so that I can become a mobile recording engineer and record pretty much anywhere carrying my laptop around with my firewire soundcard! But there are some people who say that laptops aren't as efficient compared to desktop computers.....

What do you think about it? If I really get myself a laptop, I will also have to look for the appropriate firewire card with Texas chipset for it!!!

Can I get some advice on the subject? Are you able to work and record big projects (Say with 25 tracks or more) on a laptop? Thanks in advance for the help!

Neel1


I have been using Desktop PCs all my life, with a Delta 1010LT soundcard to record music in my home studio....But recently I've acquired a new firewire soundcard...the Profire 610 and it really makes me want to get a laptop so that I can become a mobile recording engineer and record pretty much anywhere carrying my laptop around with my firewire soundcard! But there are some people who say that laptops aren't as efficient compared to desktop computers.....

What do you think about it? If I really get myself a laptop, I will also have to look for the appropriate firewire card with Texas chipset for it!!!

Can I get some advice on the subject? Are you able to work and record big projects (Say with 25 tracks or more) on a laptop? Thanks in advance for the help!

Any modern laptop can do 25 tracks easy.   Might want to confirm the speed of the drive. You don't want anything slower then 5400rpm and 7200rpm would be best.

Have you looked into the ESATA laptop cards? You can get an external drive that runs via ESATA boosting Data speeds up far beyond that of a Firewire port and starting to get closer to tower speeds... well for the hard drive solution atleast... Then of course you could also get an external PCI mini box that can send data at PCI card speeds externally to an adapter card...

Still won't come close to a "custom built" desktop but it starts to get close....

http://www.iogear.com/product/GPS702W6/

Yes.

You bet it can,

if you want to stick with firewire though you might have some issues.

I have a Sager NP9280, it has a desktop Intel i7-950 processor in it (not the dumbed down laptop i7) this thing has 3 internal HDD's, a 17 inch laptop... but it isn't exactly what most people would think of as a "laptop" as it's thick and weights like 12lbs! The power supply is a big and heavy black brick.

I use the V-Studio 100 and a Tascam US-2000 (both USB 2.0 interfaces) 

I use the Tascam only for multitracking audio as it's a 16 in 4 out interface and its driver support for windows 7 64 bit isn't there yet, I'm using Vista 64 bit drivers but the unit is perfectly fine for tracking just audio (don't try do any software processing on it though)

For everything else I use the V-Studio 100 (smaller projects) mixing and mastering etc. I love this unit! A portable wave recording, audio interface and control surface! as well as a digital mixer.

Ontop of this I have 6U portable rack which I have some rack units in (including the Tascam US-2000) this rack is like a piece of suitcase luggage (it has wheels and an extendable handle) 

Together these hardware pieces make up my mobile rig! And so far it works great!

Mind you a "laptop" like the Sager NP9280 will start around $2200 US 
It's a sweet computer that can support the newest intel desktop processors including the lastest i7-980x, a 6 - core extreme processor as well as Nvidia's latest GTX 480m,
I highly recommend if you're looking for a portable solution but be warned to thoroughly investigate it's firewire compatibility, I had issues when trying out some firewire interfaces at a local store so I went with USB instead... with the V-Studio 100 I can get down to just under 10msec round trip latency, the tascam US 2000 has hardware monitoring, but if you need to software monitor.. at this point I would not recommend the Tascam US-2000... for me it works great as a cheaper 16 input audio interface with hardware monitoring.. don't expect it to do anything else though.

Hope this helps!

What is the life span of a soundcard of the category of Delta 1010LT? Can anyone of you tell? I've been using one since 2005 approximately! I suppose that at one point it will break down! Hope it is a late as possible...Mine already has 5 years of age, and been moved from one system to another during that period! It is still working well but sometimes there are some surprises, unexplained freezes of the sound....I hear one very loud sound continuously and the only way to stop it is by shutting down the PC...Otherwise the soundcard seems to work well....

What could be the life span of a Delta 1010LT? Do you have any experience of this?