Date: Thu, 21 Aug 1997 10:55:54 -0700 From: grady@scam.XCF.Berkeley.EDU To: freebsd-multimedia@freebsd.org, freebsd-mobile@freebsd.org Subject: recommendation for FreeBSD laptop configuration for sound production? Message-ID: <199708211803.LAA08875@hub.freebsd.org>
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I am going to be buying a laptop soon. The main initial use of the
machine will be to produce sound effects for improvised theatre
performances, but I wouldn't mind having a generally cool system as
well (perhaps also running W95 for gameplay during commutes). I've
gotten some ways into writing sound effects program (in Modula-3), but
decided to stop until I actually had a laptop (since it's kind of hard
to lug my tower to each show).
I've never bought a laptop before, and in particular, I don't know what
the story is with respect to sound cards. Does anyone have a
recommendation of a laptop that would have a decent-quality
sound-card? I'm going to need to load samples from CD, so something
with an appropriate digital input is important. Also, I have an
external SCSI Jaz drive for my desktop system, and I would like to be
able to connect it to the laptop, so SCSI would be good as well.
Along with the card, I'll need more than a gig of disk (since the sound
FX samples themselves will probably take around a gig, and I don't want
to rely on the Jaz drive). Also, at some point I might want to connect
an external controller (a large knob would be best) to some port.
Generally speaking, I don't usually buy bleeding-edge stuff (because
I'm too cheap); suggestions that might be just above the mid-point of
the curve would be useful...
BTW, I'm willing to run 3.0-current, assuming it's reasonably stable...
I've heard it said that for laptops, it's a good idea to try one
out before using, so I'll add that I live in the SF Bay Area,
in case someone has a particulr store to recommend.
(I will, of course, be releasing the software when its complete; I
can't imagine many people are clambering for improvised SFX, though..)
To summarize, I'm looking for recommendations for a laptop with:
good sound card
>1G disk
SCSI
reasonable # of external ports
Thanks for any help!
Steven
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