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Stereo line in to a laptop


paulnick

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hi, I want to buy a laptop for our theatre that I can use for sound prep/ compiling in addition to playback using Multiplay or similar. But I can't seem to find a laptop suitably equipped input socket. Do you know of one or an intermediate device that will take stereo in and convert to a useable stero signal in the laptop?

Many thanks in anticipation

Paulnick

 

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+1 (or whatever) for a USB interface. Besides recording stereo line in, it'll also give you proper balanced professional connectors on the output for live playback--much better than trusting a headphone socket.

 

Get one with one or two mic inputs. You'll be amazed how often you're asked to record a voice of some kind, whether it's a "turn off your mobile phones" message or a spooky ghost or something.

 

However, what are you planning to record from the stereo line in? For things like CD's, MP3 files etc. etc. there are often better ways to do it than a simple line in.

 

In terms of hardware, there are lots of basic USB interfaces. I use an M Audio M Track for exactly the purpose you mention but there are tons of other good ones. For the laptop, after much digging, I went with Lenovo and (touch wood) it's been very good and very reliable.

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I've just treated myself to one of these little beauties at rather a good price from Orbital's 2nd hand shop - although do note that the decription and image are of a mkii, whereas the unit I received was a mki. Still works fine with W8.1 (using the W7 driver).

 

From personal experience, Tascam ones are beautifully engineered, but they don't support them for very long if a new version comes out - I had the original US122 for less than 3 years when W7 came out, and they wouldn't create a driver for it as they had produced the mkii by then.

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I too am looking at this kind of thing.. This one looks and hopefully sounds the business:

 

http://www.behringer...cts/UMC202.aspx

 

...and It even come with a Midas logo....

 

This one also looks very useful but falls outside of the budget somewhat.

 

http://www.behringer...ts/FCA1616.aspx

 

Don't suppose anybody's got experience of using these I/Os?

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  • 3 weeks later...

Hi All,

 

Just to say I did indeed purchase (always painful) a http://www.behringer...cts/UMC202.aspx and am very pleased with it.

 

The Windows driver installation was pain free, works well and is robust across XP, 7 & 8.

 

In real world use the noise floor in and out is superb by being pretty much silent. I chose this particular card because it was purely bus powered so useful for field recordings, did not have MIDI, together with the reasonable price: (£72.75) from BlueAran.

 

Cheers

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