Laptop recording question

[my real name]

Does anyone on the alley record directly into their lap top and get stellar sound quality?

Currently I use a Sony Minidisc recorder and it works great. But I have big issues with sony's ATRAC3 DRM and the fact you can only transfer an audio file once from the minidisc to your computer.

What I want to do now is record directly into my lap top but the current sound card is less than ideal. Does anyone have any ideas on how to accomplish this. What sort of soundcard would you recommend, etc?

Thanks!

[roadrageradio]

As a rule, laptop soundcards are terrible. The cheapest and easiest way to aviod the ugly sound card is to use a USB mic.

A better way is to use a device like http://www.tascam.com/Products/US-122.html

... which provides some of the capabities of a mixer and bypasses the sound card. There are a few variations of these around at cheaper prices than this one ($200) that do the same thing.

There are also full blown mixers from Mackie and Behringer that have USB or firewire interfaces

Or you could buy a soundcard meant for audio that fits in your laptop's pc card slot, but I think USB is the way to go.

[JohnnyWB]

We just started using one of these:

Alesis MultiMix8 Firewire (http://www.alesis.com/product.php?id=40)

Great audio quality when connected to laptop or desktop.

Came with Cubase LE (http://www.zoom.co.jp/english/products/cubase/cubase.html) too.

John

[NaughtiusMaximus]

If you don't want/need the 24bit interface (or don't have a firewire port on your laptop) you can settle for the 16bit USB version. I have one and it's a nice little machine. It'll also set you back only $150 (USD), that's roughly $100 less than the Firewire version. (Yes, Cubase LE still included)

http://www.alesis.com/product.php?id=37

[TheBiblePodClass]

A better way is to use a device like http://www.tascam.com/Products/US-122.html

....
There are also full blown mixers from Mackie and Behringer that have USB or firewire interfaces




The tascam above looks pretty nice. That may be a good bet. I bought a Mackie ONYX board and love it, but I use it for applications other than podcasting. It may be overkill. Also don't pay full price. I found a good deal where they threw in the 400$ card for free.

I have used a USB headset. USB headsets are the best way to get started podcasting. I had trouble with it catching my breathing and It also started to make a lot of noise if I started to move around. But for 40$ you can't find a better deal.

[my real name]

Thanks for all the feedback.

To be honest, I don't need an external mixer. I've also tried the Griffin iMic USB mic plug and the sound quality still doesn't match that of the minidisc.

This is what I have been looking at:

http://digigram.com/products/getinfo.htm?prod_key=11500

http://www.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=237&subcategory=239&product=13552

http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/FireWire410-main.html

Anyone have any experience with these? I am sort of into the digigram option only beacuse it is small and you won't need to carry any extra stuff around like the other two options.