Audio / Midi interface for on the road?

thebookofbob

Can anyone recommend me a budget Audio/Midi interface ( USB ) for my laptop. I do a lot of Travelling & wish to be able to compose on the road. I'm looking for something small that is powered off USB port. It will be running with Cubase SX3 so must be ASIO compatible.

Regards

Bob

frobisher

thebookofbob wrote:

Can anyone recommend me a budget Audio/Midi interface ( USB ) for my laptop. I do a lot of Travelling & wish to be able to compose on the road. I'm looking for something small that is powered off USB port. It will be running with Cubase SX3 so must be ASIO compatible.

Regards

Bob

Am I right in thinking that you want it to be USB so that it can run off the laptop without the need for a wall socket? How often will you really be recording without the laptop plugged in? Most laptops power life on battery is pretty small and plugging in external USB powered devices will lessen it even more making any work you might hope to do quite short. Maybe that suits you. If not you could look at the Echo Audiofire. I've been doing some research and I'm going to buy myself one or three of these little bad boys. If you still want USB and can sacrifice midi (USB keyboard?) then the Apogee comes highly recommended by some. Not cheap though! And then how could we ever forget the Mbox?!

I'd be interested to hear what you buy and how it works out for you.

thebookofbob

Hi Thanks for the info,

I have a decent setup at home with a decent audio/midi interface & SX3. It's great for when I have "proper" time to put things together but I'm increasingly finding that I'm here or there overnight with work & want something I can record snippets, ideas & start tracks. The laptop isn't new so only 1 USB port , Win2K & no firewire.. ( it's PIII 500Mhz 512MB Ram ), it will run cubase VST but not SX3 so it's a kind of minimal setup. I want to get a 2 octive keyboard & just something I can route midi into the thing & audio out & maybe a mic/guitar in if I have that with me. Actually I've been looking at the Behringer Ucontrol controller keyboard as although it's cheap , it forfills the requirements & has the lot. Anything I compose on this setup can them be whipped off using a USB key & imported into the proper setup when I'm home.

I'm just heading to Wales for 3 days so must get something like tomorrow so
It will kind of be a rush decision. I'll post back when I return with what I got & how it worked out.

Regards

Bob

frobisher

Gotcha, now I have a better idea. If the M-Audio Ozone isn't too big the it would be pretty much perfect. Although it costs a bit more than the u-control.