I need to buy a new laptop. I would like to buy a moderate price laptop that works well with Audacity software.
I record directly from my Kurzweil digital piano. In the back on the piano are right and left RCA stereo output jacks. In the past, I have been only recording in mono, attaching wires to the back of my digital piano, and then connecting them with a “Y” adapter. I would then plug this into the mic input on my old laptop.
I would like to buy a laptop that has dual inputs so that I can record in stereo directly from my digital piano.
I have tried purchasing various units to record in stereo recommended to me on this forum, and I have had no success when I tried to use them. If some company sells an “Audacity” friendly laptop into which I could plug the stereo outputs from my Kurzweil Digital Piano, please inform me.
Thanks.
We may be revisiting the USB adapters that failed. In particular, the UCA-202 has very wide success. I’m placing multiple units in our company to record voices and conference systems in combination with mixing boards and other sound services.
Live Stereo Recording is not The Mode to use a French term. You can look for a laptop that has all three connections on the side, Green, Pink, and Blue. The blue one is generally stereo recording. We have one very old Lenovo laptop that has all three connections. It may not be available any more.
The last of the Macs, the Macbook Pro 15 and MacBook Pro 17 still have two very good quality connections, Stereo in and Stereo out, so you can still do production with them. All the rest of the Mac line except the big desktops dropped them.
As a fuzzy rule, the soundcard inside a Windows laptop is garbage. It’s a tacked-on feature that they put in so they could say they had one in the brochures. It’s generally used for voice conferencing, not sound production, and to that end, the sound system defaults to echo cancellation which kills music recording.
A full-on recording sound card for a Windows machine can run into hundreds of dollars, and they won’t fit into a laptop.
So what trouble did you have with your UCA202?
Koz
Thanks for your response! This was the post I am referring to and the information about the unit I purchased in response to some recommendations I received on this list:
Tue Aug 23, 2011 3:40 pm
Several months ago, I lamented on this list that while I could make wonderful mono recordings on my Dell Vostro laptop using Audacity, I could not make stereo recordings. I have a Kurzweil RG-200 Digital Piano that I use for my Audacity recording sessions. It has stereo output jacks in the back of the piano.
Some people suggested I purchase a Behringer U-Phono, UFO202. I purchases this item.
Unfortunately, I have had little luck with being able to record anything with it. I was hoping you might offer me some tips regarding what I should do to set up the unit. There is an output line that clearly goes into my computer, which I’ve connected to my computer, and stereo input jacks to which I’ve attached the cords coming out of the stereo output jacks on my digital piano. Yet, nothing happens.
Do I need to set up the unit with some kind of special software? Is there support on the internet? Or do I need to turn on/off any of my laptop’s recording/playback devices (adjusting them to something other than what I use for mono recordings)?
Any help would be greatly appreciated, as I dearly wish to graduate to stereo recording, and perhaps make a small income from my work.
A mic input might work, but the piano should conect to a line input, not a mic input. Offhand, I don’t know of any laptops that have line-in.
The Berhinger device should work when switched to “line”.
There is an output line that clearly goes into my computer…
The USB should be connected to the computer. You don’t need the RCA audio outputs for recording to the computer.
Do I need to set up the unit with some kind of special software? Is there support on the internet?
[u]This page[/u] shows you how to select the recording input device. Windows might not recognize it as a “Berhinger UFO202”, but if not, you should see “USB something” that you can select… Windows might even think it’s a USB mic.
I need to buy a new laptop. I would like to buy a moderate price laptop that works well with Audacity software.
The thing with Windows is… The hardware shouldn’t matter as long as you have the proper Windows drivers. The application (i.e. Audacity) communicates with the driver according to a Windows-standardized protocol, the driver communicates with Windows per the protocal, and the driver also communicates with the hardware. Depending on the device, the communication between the driver and hardware may be proprietary, so th edriver has to be written by the hardware manufacturer.