Quote:
Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm
You can get an ADAT/SMUX preamp and drive the Omni with that. But the Omni is limited to 8x8 IO so if you use an 8 way ADAT/SMUX you don't have access to the Omni's own analog inputs. It's a pretty restricted in IO capacity, but nice in other ways.
Lots of used 192 IO are available, and occasionally well priced HD IO. If you want to expand within the Avid HD family I'd look at those used/EBay etc. boxes. Either drive them with analog preamps (I personally would go with a mix of 500 series rack peamps for their flexibility if your budget can do that) or again look at ADAT/SMUX preamps. Or start with an ADAT/SMUX preamp and add some specialized 500 rack preamps later.
There are so many good USB interfaces available today, some with 8 internal mic preamps. You could ditch the HD card and Omni all together. e.g. Focusrite, including their RedNet products, Motu, etc.
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Option 1:
ok so when using the ADAT input I won't have access to the onboard analog inputs. That shouldn't be a problem if I'm not recording more than 8 channels at a time, right?
Option 2: USB interfaces
I have a USB Apogee duet sitting somewhere. That's kind of an audio interface/preamp that also gives me an option to connect a headphone amp...etc. So something like 8 channel Focustrite :
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/ISA828
So would this Focusrite preamp would be a more glorified version of the duet with nothing sitting in between? Just protools software and 8 channel focusrite preamp?
I'm not worried about the budget all that much but portability. If need be, i'm willing to spend more.