Help me record on my Sager 5680, please-

I'm not too sure about this but it looks promising for what you are talking about. Creative makes high quality stuff and this one connects via USB 2.0.

http://us.creative.com/products/prod...y=&product=585

You could do it right with the onboard sound, though the results might not be all that amazing.

An alternative to the Creative is Indigo's I0.
http://www.echoaudio.com/Products/IndigoIO/index.php
much less muss and fuss. Its just all there in your Card slot.

Ahh.... I remember when I was trying to do this on my old Comcrap Presario and the only way to get 16/24 bit stereo sound out of a laptop was the ($600) Digigram PC card.

Yes, it will work you'll need some 1/8 miniplug to 1/4 plug adapters if your going straight from the guitar or an amp out.

Will it sound good?
Yeah it will sound.....ok, especially if you are running a heavily distorted G.

But if you want a more clean sound....it might not sound so good.

With the input jack soo close to the 5680 you might pick up all kinds of interferance and probly even fan noize.

Try it first and see if it sounds good to you, if not look into some external hardware.

You'll want something that's either firewire or USB 2.0, and has 1/4 jacks built in.

MAudio has a ton of little boxes that do this.

Now the more IN/OUTS you want the more your gonna pay.

I run a MOTU 828 with 10 IN/10 OUT.

Now before you run out and buy software, there are TONS of FREE programs you can use.

Some of my favs are

Audacity
Hammerhead
NTrack

And there are TONS of FREE VST(EFX) and VSTi (Synth Instruments) plugins.

Check out KVR-VST

Audacity will run VST (EFX) plugs but not VSTi.

For that you'll need a VST host program.

You can search KVR-VST for either.

A lot of those plugs are free but some of them are gonna suck, or crash, or puke out some weird results but it's FREE so who cares, right?

And most likely you'll find a bunch of free plugs that all do sorta the same thing, it seems everybody wants to make their own chorus plug, or reverb plug, or distortion plug.

Finally after you get everything installed, hooked up, calibrated, modulated, hit REC, cross your fingers, and hope to (whoever) it doesn't all crash your PC.

Good Luck.

You could also try doing a midi capture. I don't remember much about this, but you can get the midi adapter for the usb port, then get the midi adapter for the guitar. That should work. Been a long time since I've seen this done.

honestly it depends on what you can and are willing to invest for your lappy, I know audigy series of soundblaster makes a external unit for sound with in's and outs think it even has midi plugs but I prefer the sound of aux line ins myself over midi... and it costs like 250 at frys electronics... internal units for desktops are like a lil under 200...
as for mixing I like my soundforge... its got simple to complex features... and it is cross platform and media friendly... the downside is that other than a couple sound codecs it comes with you have to buy the other codecs from the manufacturor of that codec or a reseller... as for its cost im pretty sure its under 100 bucks but then mine came with my macromedia suite so could not say for sure...

was thinking of buying a baby guitar from walmart for 20 bucks to make my own sounds, I know basics mut my fingers are just to short I have a teanager guitar, but pack rat I won't give it up it was my dads before he let me and my sister take lessons on it... I need to get my clarinett recorked again dang it, it suxs living in the desert...

oh well hope some of this helps....
::sniffs my rose::

You got a couple of choices:

1. Go to Radio Shack and buy some 1/8 to 1/4 adapters, plug it in, hit REC and see if it sounds good to you.

2. Go and find a Firewire/USB 2 (not USB 1!) box with the inputs/outputs you want, hook it up, hit REC and agian see if it sounds good to you.

3. Go to a studio and get charged a ton of money (unless you come to me, I'll only charge you 1/2 a ton).

To help you further I need more info...

How much money are you willing to spend?
Are in a band or are you solo?
Do you want to only REC your G, or bass, drums, and/or vocals too?

What kind of mic(s) do you have?
Do you eventually want to make a CD?

This will not work.

MIDI IS NOT SOUND.

It's hard to explain but think of it like those old self-playing pianos.
The ones that have big rolls of paper with funny holes in them.
I'm sure you've walked by one somewhere and seen the keys moving by themselves thinking....what the F*ck?

These rolls of paper make the piano play the right notes at the right time in order to sound like a song.

MIDI is like a digital version of that roll of paper.

MIDI can control notes, volume, pitch, EFX, and tons of other stuff.

When you press the key on a MIDI keyboard, it sends message to the synth telling it...

1. Which note was pressed.
2. How long was the note pressed.
3. How hard/soft was the note pressed.
and so on.....and so on

But again MIDI has NO sound, MIDI just basically tells the sound what to do.

Btw.....

You don't need MIDI, in fact if all you want to do is REC sound you prolly won't use it at all.

But if your planning on doing more, MIDI is a VERY handy thing to know.