Producer Talk Interesting article on a Laptop studio
| Interesting article on a Laptop studio |
| Tuesday, 22 December 2009 14:00 |
|
Build a Laptop Studio on Any Budget The latest laptop computers are powerful enough to make them a viable alternative to the tower in the personal studio, especially for musicians for whom portability is an important factor. Whether you are a touring musician, a weekend gigger, or just someone who wants to make music while on vacation, there's a lot you can do with just your laptop and a few choice pieces of gear. Play your cards right, and you can fit the whole setup into a gig bag or a backpack. Although there are many reasons for choosing a laptop for music making, we've focused on three common scenarios: the software-only, all-in-the-box setup for the composer-performer; the songwriter's studio, which will need mics for recording voices and instruments; and the multitrack live-recording rig. Even if what you do doesn't fit neatly into one of these areas, our reasons for choosing particular pieces of gear may help you with your own buying decisions. For this article, we'll assume that you already have a laptop or are getting ready to purchase one. (With so many options and price ranges to choose from, it would be impractical to factor the computer into the cost of these studios.) In addition, we expect that you already have a digital audio sequencer that you're comfortable with, so we've designed these studios in such a way that for the most part, it doesn't matter what software or platform you prefer. (The exception, of course, is Digidesign Pro Tools, which requires that you use a Digidesign or M-Audio interface.) The prices, rounded to the dollar, are average street, such as you would find on the Web or in a brick-and-mortar store. The Software In this section, I'll cover studios designed for creating music completely within your computer using your chosen sequencing software, virtual instruments, and sound libraries. At the budget end, the cost is considerably lower than that of the other studios here because it doesn't include mics, multiport audio interfaces, mic preamps, and ancillary recording hardware.
Ultracompact on a Modest Budget($89 to $1,000) For starters, you need a way to hear your music. I suggest either the M-Audio IE-10 Professional Reference earphones ($89) or the Audio-Technica ATH-M50 closed-back headphones ($159). The earphones look cool and are certainly more convenient if you're sitting in the middle seat on a coach flight. The headphones offer higher fidelity, better isolation, and greater comfort. You can use either of them with your computer's built-in audio output. Because most sequencing software gives you complete operational access (including primitive note entry) from the computer keyboard and mouse, you can make a lot of music with nothing more. Of course, using your computer keyboard for writing and mixing music gets old pretty quickly. If compactness is the ultimate issue, consider one or more of the USB Korg nanoSeries control surfaces (). The nanoKey ($49) has 25 Velocity-sensitive keys along with pitch-bend, mod-wheel, and octave-shift buttons, and its CC mode provides access to other MIDI Control Change messages. The nanoPad ($59) is a 12-pad drum-synth controller. You can configure its pads to trigger chords, and it has an x-y pad with roll and flam modes. The nanoKontrol ($59) provides transport buttons along with 9 sliders, 9 knobs, and 18 switches for mixing duties. The nanoSeries control surfaces are just over a foot wide and weigh less than a pound.
FIG. 1: The Novation ReMote SL Compact 25 delivers a lot of control in a small footprint. For a more conventional solution, I recommend the Novation ReMote SL Compact 25 ($285; see Fig. 1). If you don't need keys and want a smaller footprint, consider the Frontier AlphaTrack ($199). Both units are supported by most DAW software and will follow your selections to give you instant access to mixing and plug-in parameters. In addition, the ReMote SL's Automap Universal software lets you customize its plug-in mappings. Finally, you can get the music out of your ear and improve on your computer's built-in audio while staying within your budget with the Alesis M1Active 320 USB ($99). This powered-speaker system doubles as a 16-bit, 44.1/48 kHz USB 1.1 audio interface with two inputs and stereo headphone output. In the best of all budget worlds, you can have everything here for about $1,000. Full-Featured In-the-Box($2,700 to $4,600) With a higher budget, you can improve your audio experience as well as make your laptop serve as a viable home studio. For road work, you might want to upgrade your headphones with either the M-Audio IE-30 earphones ($225) or a pair of Sennheiser HD 380 Pro headphones ($199). The IE-30s add dual-driver technology, separate canals for high and low frequencies, and an in-line level control. They boast the same noise isolation of 26 dB as the IE-10s, but a greater frequency response — 20 Hz to 16 kHz versus 13 kHz for the IE-10s. The closed-back Sennheisers claim ambient noise suppression of 32 dB, a maximum 110 dB SPL, and a frequency response of 8 Hz to 27 kHz, and they weigh 7.75 ounces. |
