I'm using a p4 2.0 note book and looking for a suitable USB 2 external card to go with .A product that support 24bit recording with midi I/O . Please help .
With MIDI (Cardbus) and 8 ch, the RME Hamerfall DSP + Multiface, a great soundcard with very good drivers.
Without MIDI the USBPre fro Sound Devices, two good microphone preamps, 2ch in/2ch out, bus powered. And the Apogee Mini Me, superb converters with mic preamps.
My advice are avoid the USB, and go to a RME, low latency + good hardware + very good drivers.
I've been using a Creative Extigy for some time with both 98SE and XP. So far no problems except for a ground loop problem. Since I'm feeding a mixer it can be eliminated with a special cable. I can supply details is anybody is interested.
I'm presently using an Edirol UA-5, though not on a laptop. No onboard midi, and only does 96KHz at half-duplex (ie: records but no monitoring), but this is a limitation of USB 1. Otherwise has very nice 2 channel hybrid 1/4 inch/XLR inputs with preamps and 48 V phantom power, and is full ASIO2 compatable. I mention this unit only because Edirol has since released the UA-1000 which has none of the above limitations (on board midi too), therefore you can get a UA-5 for a pretty good price these days. I would still recommend it for laptop field recording duty.
I love my Tascam US-428 (be even better if Vegas supported control surfaces). It sounds excellent and runs extremely smoothly. I Couldn’t recommend it highly enough.
It has a little brother the US-122 that may be more suitable for your situation. It’s smaller and powered via USB.