Older pro tools systems?

[mixerboy]

I am in the process of building my studio and I am worried my pro tools LE system isn’t quite reliable enough for when I might have clients.
Would love the go HD but haven’t the budget for it at this time.
I was wondering about older pro tools TDM systems as there seems to be some bargains on eBay.

I am not familiar with what systems there are although I have heard about ‘Mix’ though I don’t know its specs.
Are any of these systems able to go to 32 tracks and do 24bit/48khz rates?
I understand there is now no software support for these systems but what was the last available software update? Did pro tools 6 with its new look cover any of these systems?

And what about in/outs options?. I would be looking ideally for a max of 32 ins. Also would I have to use old versions of plug-ins and can these systems handle a fair amount of plugs and tracks?

Overall I am looking for reliability and a guarantee of performance rather than being at the mercy of my PC’s cpu.

Any advice appreciated 

[bigbubbaj]

The LE folks here might not know about the MIX systems.

You will get a better answer in the TDM forum.

[Chris Cavell]

Mixerboy,

It's been quite a while since I last used a Mix system, but I'll do my best to answer your question. Some of the info might be outdated though.

The most recent (and last supported version of software) released for Mix systems is TDM 6.4.

You'll need at least one mix core card and one mix farm card in addition to interfaces totalling 32 channels of I/O to meet your requirements.

You can achieve 32 inputs a number of ways, but I'd suggest getting 2 adat bridge interfaces and four third party 8 channel converters with lightpipe output. This would maintain a certain level of compatibility with future upgrades to your system by utilizing the digital I/O, and would circumvent the use of the awful converters (by todays standards) found in the interfaces with analog I/O. However, you could get 4 888|24's, or any combination of interfaces of your choosing (up to 4 interfaces, adat bridges count as two if you use all 16 channels, unless you got additional farm cards) to get to 32 inputs.

The max sample rate of such a system would be 48k. YOu have a choice b/w two mix engines with a Mix system, either 32 or 64 voices. The dsp cards (the mix core card, of which you need and can only have one in a setup, mix farm cards, of which you can have multiple, and mix process cards of which you can have multiple) are not very powerful at all. In other words, buy as many farm and process cards as you possibly can. In reality, there are only a couple of dsp chips on a card that are usable by any of today's better plugins...so while the cards have lots of dsp, they have very little "good" dsp.

Now, for my opinion part: Is this worth it? If you need that much simultaneous I/O and don't require higher sample rates, yes. I think it would be worth it. However, I'd keep a smaller up to date LE system around if you plan on using any newer incompatible plugins...flying subsessions back and forth to get what you need, or using the digital I/O with the LE system in rec/pause mode as a standalone FX processor.