I'm using my Sony Laptop with the following stuff just to layer down demo band tracks:

Tascam US-122 external soundcard connecting via USB. (pretty small I just keep it in my laptop bag).

Kristal Audio Engine - free, easy to use, supports loads of great VST inserts/plugins available as freeware over the internet.

Shure SM57 mic.

What will you be recording?

laptop recording

I have been using the tascam us122 for recording live shows off the soundboard. I use aux2,3 as the left and right . I am using audition/cooledit to capture the waves. However I sometime get skips in the track. We tried recording one show with my friends laptop, and the skips were really bad. My laptop it a bit better, 2.4 pros and 256 ram. XP home. I have just tweeked xp by using some sites I found linked on a couple post. I havn't had a chance to use it with the new set up, however I am confident it should fix this problem. Overall I am impressed with the simplicity of the 122 and although I ran the install 3 times befor it stoped asking, It works great with audition 1.5

I am open to any suggestions on how to improve my little setup.

also when my power is pluged into the same strip as the mixer, I get crazy distortion. Which mics are best for recording live mains.?

the best way to improve recording in a laptop is to add ram- as much as you can -

an external hard drive also helps...
laptop hard drives can be too slow at times to capture multiple tracks...
but for a single (or stereo), track you should be all right...

I second the Us-122 and more ram. I have an ibook and record Open Mic's everythursday with that combination. It works out well. One time i ran into issues with my Hard Drive being to slow and so it scrambled some audio. If you are recording super high quality, i too suggest the external firewire hard drive.

You play a double-reed... You are a much braver person than I.

Skip the card bus option and go with USB.

The Tascam US-122 is good because it comes with a basic version of Steinberg Cubase (Cubasis) that has quite a few things to help spice up your recordings. It is probably the best entry level audio program out there. That, and you can use free VST plugins with it for a whole library of sound manipulation capabilities.

You will be shocked with what you can do with that $200 interface and Cubasis.

As far as mics go... Bassoons need to have an electric pickup soldered into the bocal for optimal sound.

If you are not willing to do that, you can always use small diaphragm omnidirectional condenser mics.

But you will have problems picking up key clicking and the fact a bassoon is so long that it is hard to pick up an equal amount of sound from all the holes on just one or two mics.

A large diaphragm condenser set further away might even out the sound but will definitely pick up more room noise. If you can live with that for your audition demos, I think the M-Audio Solaris would be a nice-sounding, affordable pick for a big condenser.

Maybe a pair of Audio-Technica AT3032's if you are thinking small omni mics.

Our bassoonist in college actually had someone wire up one of those in-ear hearing aids and dropped it down the bell to record.

I have no idea if it worked or how it sounded. Pretty clever though.