Mobile DAW

[Moon]

I just bought myself a nice quiet laptop. Besides it's buisness use, I would also like to use it as my portable DAW. Any one has any advice on the pheriphical gear I should get? I had a short look at M-Audio's Ozonic and Novation's X-station (25 keys). Or should I go for a setup with a separate soundcard and controller? I like to use it mainly with Fruity loops. In this way, I can work on some ideas when I'me on the move and finish them on my main DAW at home.

If you have any ideas, I would appreciate your feedback.

[kara]

congrats with your new laptop 

IMHO it all depends what you exactly want to do with it, create some loops and stuff that you can use later on your Main DAW, or actually play some melodies ? I'm doing a lot travelling myself and have allways my laptop with me, but I wouldn't travel with some keyboard. Problem is that you have to carry it... if you only travel by car that wouldn't be a problem but I also travel a lot by plain and there the situation is different.
If you want to go that way, I have the M-AUDIO OZONE since a couple of years now and I must say that it is a good keyboard and the controllers are of good quality (no problems yet) but it suffers from a flaky USB driver, the driver works good but it takes way to much CPU. I have read a couple of test of the X-station and it seems that this one is still pretty buggy.

Comming back to your question, I wouldn't go for an external soundmodule if you just want to play a bit with FLS when your away. As long as you're staying in the digital playback domain, your internal soundcard would do (AC97 card?). IMHO an external soundmodule would only be justified if you want to do some recordings.
If you need a keyboard ? That's up to you to decide 

Kara

[birdbrain]

I see this is an old topic, but i would like to renew it with my own experience.  I have been traveling for long periods of time in the last couple of years (flying and driving), and needed to go with a mobile music set up.  I went and got a dell laptop (insperion).  I already had a small keyboard controller ( emu xboard 49).  I have loved my emu keyboard so decided to try their audio interface and ordered a 1616m with the pcmcia laptop card.  To my amazement and education, my dell laptop pcmcia card slot doesnt fit the standard pcmcia cards, its a express card slot.  I dont know what that is, but there arnt any audio interfaces that fit it as far as i know.  so i went for the ultra cheap Behringer fca202 firewire interface.  It has worked pretty well.  on occasion the drivers go unrecognizable, but i reboot and its there again.  i like its size and sound quality.  i use a m-audio audio buddy mic preamp with it, and a ultra cheap tacstar condenser mic.
i have cases for every thing.  the keyboard actually fits an old Roland Juno hard case that i got many many years ago when i worked at a music store.  I got a hard laptop case that fits all the laptops perifials, and another laptop case that fits my interface, preamp, mic, headphones and cables.
Now all I need are a descent pair of monitors that are ultra small but loud.  And cheap is preferable aswell.
its been a very nice mobile setup.  it takes me about 5 minutes to set it up every time, but is worth it to have my music on the go.  i look forward to trying out the gear on a live gig, but with only 2 audio inputs (one stereo pair).