Using Sonar on an underpowered laptop for very basic single track tracking?

So here's the scoop. I'm trying to figure out the easiest and most cost effective way to be able to track my vocals in another room without have to haul my entire DAW around. It's mainly just for vocals as I'm a little shy when I'm trying to hammer out parts and don't want the neighbors to hear me squeaking and croaking away. I've considered elaborate set ups involving long cables to hook up peripherals and mics from the DAW into the other room but that costs a bit of money and will be a bit of pain as I couldn't leave them hooked up. I also don't have a second desk in that room to set up another workstation for this and where the current desk in that room is is too far and in an awkward spot for all that cabling.

I figure the easiest way to go about it is to use my laptop and just install my USB interface onto it and record my vox that way. However the laptop is WAY below the minimum specs for even X1. I'm just wondering how many of you guys have tried running on underpowered systems and how much success you've had. I know this is obviously not advisable but it's all I've got for now so here's what I'm thinking to keep resource usage down.

*I'd export the backing tracks of what I'm working on down to a single stereo track (or even a mono track if that somehow would reduce power consumption). 

*I'd only be recording one or two tracks at once. 

*Obviously I'd optimize the system as best I can for audio (can this be done in a second user profile?). 

*I'd push my latency buffers up as far as I can without causing the latency to be too unbearable to work with and/or use the 0 latency monitor setting on my interface (I don't need FX). 

*I'd have absolutely no FX or any extra fiddle faddle in the project. 

*I would like to keep things at the original sample rate/bit depth (I use 96k/24bit) but maybe there is a way to lower those without effecting quality and then importing them back into the original project at the correct settings (will this be a bad idea?).

*I would use Sonar X1 on the lappy as it's required specs say dual core whereas X2 wants quad core and then I'd just open the new clips up in X2 on the main DAW 

Is there anything else I should be trying to do to make this work? Will this work at all? There is a fellow Shawn (trustmedia) on here who said he's had some good results with his laptops with the right tweaks and set ups but I'd like to see if anyone else has tried this kind of thing.

Here are the laptop specs:

*Acer Aspire

*AMD Dual Core E300 running at 1.30GHz (this is the main limitation of the system as far as I can tell)

*3 GB DDR 3 RAM

*1 single 320 GB HDD (not sure the RPM and don't know where to check for that info but I'm assuming 5200RPM or less)

*Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit Service Pack 1

*Interface is a Focusrite Scarlett 18i6

So what do you think? Am I living in fantasy land or is this doable? I've also considered using other recording software that might not be as demanding. I have Pyro Audio Creator and I think I can record into that but it's 32 bit and I'm not sure if that will make things screwy. I've also thought maybe the free version of Reaper could do this (gotta research more) but I have no idea how to operate it. Just so many different paths I could take here and not sure where to start. I would very much rather use X1 though as I'm already familiar with it.

Sorry for the long post and thanks in advance for any input.

Cheers. 

  Hi. Yeah, I'd love to have a Zoom unit or something but can't afford that kind of investment right now. If I could afford one though I'd probably just pick up a more powerful laptop or maybe a tablet instead because I'd be able to use them for other things too. 

Cheers.

Right on. I haven't really been looking at standalone recording devices like that in recent years but it's always good to look at what's out there. Still can't afford them though. Cheers.

@Cactus... That is REALLY good to know, Johnny. Thanks for the insight. Shawn was telling me not to worry too but I'm a worrier. lol

I'll definitely be using the same interface. I made sure to snag a USB one so I could swap it between computers easily. I hadn't actually thought of that routing issue but yeah... shouldn't be a problem.

Well I feel a lot better about this now. I thought it was gonna be a nightmare but that all makes sense. Nice to know that it might be a good option for live off the board recordings as well if I ever get back out onto the club circuit again. Thanks, dude. :-)

if you have an old pc, just use wavsaur / audicity etc. if it's solely for tracking as I doubt either will be cpu hungry compared to a DAW 

My Laptop is obviously XP 32 bit, and the Desktop is W7 64 bit. 
I forgot about that hitch. But It matters little for me because the Laptop only records Audio and MIDI data and I don't  insert any VST's at that point. 
I use Sonar 8.5 on both computers. 
But for your situation you'll want all 64 bit OS. 

From what I was told you can install W7 64 bit on a lot of older machines IF you can then find drivers for things like the video card. 
But It might have to be the entry level W7. 
There is a 64 bit version of XP but that might cost you, not worth it. 

If the lappy can run SONAR it should be fine for recording a couple of tracks, even w/ a slow drive.  As pointed out above, it is the effects and synths that take CPU, not recording or playing back tracks.  One of the reasons people used to use PCI slots instead of FW was the strain on the CPU FW made.  I used to play plenty of audio back on a 486 computer - as long as I didn't put reverb on the song.  You had to freeze (before there was a freeze function).

The other option is a portable recorder.  You can pick up a tascam for $50 w/ pretty good mics and on mine there is a line in.  But Ive used it to record "intimate"  concerts - piano and vox.  If you watch the levels and massage the files later you can get acceptable playback.  W/ an external preamp and mic, it will do very nice recordings, thank you very much.

Good luck - either way should work.

@

   I agree with the above, I know you can't afford one right now, but the Tascam DP004 is an awesome recorder with phantom power to boot and 4 AA batteries last a very long time, the only downfall is that it's all 16/44.1k.
   Another option, what I do now on my older laptop, is to use Reaper so I can record 24/48k. I favor using a computer over a stand alone recorder personally, just feels like I have way more control. You can even run Reaper from a thumb drive and, atleast for me anyways, it has been very stable for just tracking audio and minor tweaking. I save all my midi work, mixing, mastering, and heavy effects/synths for Sonar. 
   Reaper is Free to try for 30 days I believe, but I was in a situation like your a while back, where I just did not have the funds to purchase any musical equipment and I was closing in on my 30 days, so I wrote them to see if I could use it a little longer and they basically told me that even after the 30 days I could continue using it, but they would appreciate a payment. It was uncrippled the whole time with only a nag screen when starting up, reminding me my trial was over. After 50 some days of using it I ended up buying it and it really works great if you have an older system you want to put to good use, it's probably one of the lights DAW's available and has some great features. 
   Would I trade in Sonar for Reaper...NO WAY, but for what I'm using it for, it definitely is a great tool. HTH 

That's the nice thing about Reaper. The $60 they ask for it is next to nothing comparatively and it's really more of a voluntary donation. That was going to be my main DAW until I saw all the goodies Sonar came with at such a low price. Still going to try to learn Reaper at some point though because I'm curious. Cheers.

I am a very happy Beepster today. Thanks again for all the insight guys. Maybe I can even try doing some PRV composing with some light synths for practice when I don't feel like firing up the big rig.

Sweet! Might even try using the internal card as an experiment. That'd be more convenient if I'm just trying to learn stuff/practice workflow.

his laptop is not really under powered....only for massive vst use