Pipe Dream Quadra system

[TylerEss]

I've read that with a SysAxe and 4 442s it's possible to do 16 tracks on a Macintosh Quadra.

Correspondingly, is it possible to use a SysAxe and two Project (Disk I/O NuBus) cards to get those same 16 tracks? Or, since each Project card has its own disk I/O, could this even be done without the SysAxe?

That would leave two or even three slots open for DSP Farms in a Quadra 950, without an expansion chassis...

Thanks so much for enlightening me.

First Post!

[jeffro]

Not possible, sorry!

The SysAxe is the SCSI card for the original Pro Tools (442) system, and doesn't work with PT Project or Disk I/O cards.

[TylerEss]

So the most tracks possible in ProTools on 68k is 16, and that only comes from a SysAxe and 4x442s?

There goes my evil plan, darnit.

Thanks!

[jeffro]

Correct... 16 voices with four 442 cards/interfaces and a SysAxe.

[ppuskari2]

I will add to this, that yes this all works great in a Quadra950. That is one of my machines in my basement lab.

I'm running A Q950 with 4 Protools Audio Cards, and a SysAxe. I've then got 4 4X2's attached to the cards and then run 10bt ethenet on the AAUI to transfer files later for post processing on a faster Mac and PC. Works great. Have recorded many a live performance with this setup for a small church band this way.

BUT if you have One Disk I/O card, One DSP Farm Card, then two Protools Audio Cards you might still be in luck. But they all have to have TDM interfaces on them. That will get you 8 channels of Recording I think, and total of 16 channels IO.....

Please Correct me if I am wrong. I might try this sometime later this week as an experiment.

Hang an 882 or 888 off the Disk I/O, and then the 2 4X2's off the the other two cards. You won't need the SysAxe card, BUT you will need TDM on all the cards and Protools 3.x I with TDM installed I would imagine. If you go the TDM route then you CAN use the PowerPC upgrade card in the PDS slot of the Q950 though!! The SysAxe card just chokes if anything PPC is in the machine.

ppuskari2

[TylerEss]

Ooh, that sounds pretty great. If you've got the goods to experiment with it, please do! There's at least one person who still thinks its interesting.

If that would work, you could do 16 tracks on a Quadra with two DSP Farms internal! Sure, only 8 record tracks, but I can barely afford two microphones, let alone eight!