Clueless Newbie - Powerbook Audio Suitability Options

[protocool]

Hi,

I'd *really* appreciate some guidance from those who know more than I do (and there must be plenty of you out there!).

A little background. I've got a powerbook 1.5ghz with 1.5gb of ram. It was not bought with recording in mind - it's my work machine.

However, I'm considering letting my wife take it with her on a trip where she'd like to record some of her singer/songwriter tracks.

The sort of stuff she does is a few acoustic guitar tracks plus a vocal and a harmony or two. In a dreamworld she'd love to be able to produce something in the league of Nickel Creek's latest album but her realistic goal would be to produce a CD she'd be proud to sell for 10 bucks at one of her gigs.

We tried the whole "home recording studio" thing with a Korg D1200 and a Joe Meek ThreeQ preamp/compressor with a Studio Projects B1 and an Apex 460 mic. Alas, my wife just doesn't 'click' with the D1200. She finds the whole interface too confusing.

She's looked at GarageBand and she's *much* more comfortable with that interface.

So, here are my questions:

I tried plugging the threeq preamp into the line-in of the powerbook. It sounded good to me (but what do I know?). The threeq is apparently a *really* good single-channel preamp/eq/compressor but I'm wondering whether the powerbook AD conversion is noticably worse than the cheapest firewire AD converter...

So firstly, is a firebox (or similar) the minimum requirement to get a good sound with my powerbook (bearing in mind that the mic and preamp are reasonable)?

Secondly, lugging around the JoeMeek and one of the nice mics on her upcoming trip seems like a bad idea. She's got a little sony condensor mic with 1/8" jack that's got surprisingly good sound quality. It's more than good enough for noodling ideas but it's not suitable for the line-in levels of the powerbook.

I've seen the Griffin iMic advertised but also seen complaints about quality and latency (out of synch by as much as 100ms when putting down additional tracks). I'm not worried about wasting 30 bucks to try it out - I'm worried about discouraging my wife with a tool that she has difficulty controlling.

Is the iMic a bad bet? Is there another portable option to get mic level inputs into the powerbook - without breaking the bank?

Finally, of course I'm not expecting the sort of quality you'd get out of a system that costs thousands of dollars but do those of you in-the-know think it's reasonable to try and produce a "CD you'd be proud to sell for 10 bucks at a gig" with the equipment I've got?

Thanks very much for taking the time to read this.

Regards,
Trevor

[Morbass2004]

Hello Trevor
To answer some of your questions, Does your wife want to record guitar and vocals at the same time? Or one at a time? I have a Korg D16 so I'm familar with the Korg Series. Maybe you are trying to do too much.With the information that I read from you, It would seem like your wife is a plug and play kind of person. So with that in mind maybe you should lose the ThreeQ & Studio Projects B1 and the Ampex 460. Now I know that they are pieces of equipment (mic's, compressors,pre-amps,etc) that will do wonders but sometimes a Shure SM57 or a SM58 will get the job done for the time being. Plug them into the 1st 2 channels,of the Korg, get a level and your off to writing that masterpiece. If she approaches the Korg as a analog tape recorder (with no tape)maybe that would make more sense to her. Then when your wife gets back from her trip you can tweek the tracks later. Believe me I am a firm believer of gettting the best possible sound first then tweek later but sometimes you may not have that option.
Now with the Powerbook, all you would need is an interface http://m-audio.com/products/en_us/Audiophi...leUSB-main.html (The interfaces can vary, so you have to get what works for you and your budget.)
and a audio program to deal with the tracks that you (your wife) would like to record. Mackie makes a audio and midi program called Tracktion. http://www.mackie.com/products/tracktion2/index.html Its pretty simple. Everything is on one window and its doesn't have too bad a learning curve.
Another one is Audacity
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
Now bear in mind there are many more products that are out there on the web. These 2 can get you up and running with little or no fuss. Again you have the option of the Korg. I have used mine (Korg D16) for years. I have as out board gear a TC Electronic VoiceOne 2.0. And a TC Electronic Finalizer 96K. Plus the D16 Users Group that would get you into some modifications to make it really give you more possiblitys. if I didn't get a new Powerbook (1.67 mhz) I would still be using it. I hope I was able to help in anyway.
Good luck
Gene