Digi001+SoundBlaster 128 & Is Cubase VST OK?

[cstolar]

After reading many of the postings on this Forum, I am becoming afraid to buy a Digi for PC. Can someone give me hope that I can do what I want? I want to buy a Digi001 with an Alesis add-on Analogue to digital converter that will give me 16 simultaneos inputs. My salesman at the music store I buy equipment at seems to think this is a good solution. But, I also want the ability to use the midi synthesizer that is built into the Sound Blaster PCI 128 card (NOT the LIVE! card) to get drums, strings, etc. recorded on tracks with the audio tracks. I Have a Pentium 3/733-PC133 with a Gigbyte BX2000 system board (NOT with the VIA chipset), 256MB RAM (pc133), 18GB SCSI LVD drive. I am hoping that the ProTools LE can handle all that. I am currently doing all of that (with only 2 simultaneous inputs) using a Darla card with Steinberg's Cubase VST. I have read about people having problems with SoundBlaser LIVE! using Pro Tools LE and I am wondering are there problems using this with the regular SB PCI 128? Am I wasting my time or should I wait to buy 2 Layla 24's. Any input is appreciated.

[Archie Gates]

From my experience, I couldn't use the Soundblaster MIDI sounds in Pro Tools. Maybe I wasn't doing it right - I could select the Soundblaster device Pro Tools, but couldn't change instruments.

I kept the Digi001, but also added a M Audio Delta 1010 interface to be able to use other software besides Pro Tools. You could probably keep your Darla for this purpose. If most of your stuff is MIDI, and you like Cubase, the Digi001 isn't for you. If you do a lot of audio recording, then Pro Tools is great.

AG

AG

[cstolar]

Archie:
Thank you so much for your insight. I am starting to gain a better understanding of what the Digi 001 is and is not good for. I do want to do audio recordings as well. I really want to do 16 simultaneous audio channels for some projects, and use midi with others. I am trying to find out if it is true that (in Windows) you can only record 2 channels at a time on the Digi 001. Maybe I should open a new topic, but if you do read this and happen to know, the answer, i'd love to hear it.
Thanks again
Craig Stolar