Question about PT hardware upgrade.....

[superpenguin79]

Hey everyone,

Just had a quick question about upgrading hardware for PT in my studio. I am slowly but surely working on acquiring the gear for my room at the moment and am running across some issues in the fact that the MBox that I have is slowly looking "obsolete" as I guess I would call it due to the fact that it does not have near enough channels to record bands with when I finish putting the room together. I mainly purchased it because I wanted to focus on learning the PT software end of things and was not thinking long term hardware wise at that point.

I am currently seeking something that will allow me to have atleast 16-24 I/O's on the hardware side and would like to stick with PT and Digi hardware if at all possible, but am not looking to dump more than $1500 on this. The Digi002r is not something that I really consider a solution because it does not have enough channels for what I am looking to do, and even the Control|24 unit which I found on Ebay is a bit more expensive for what I had in mind and a HD system is definately out of the question financially at this point.

Do you guys know of anything Digi wise that would run on PT LE 6.1 or even TDM that I could purchase hardware wise that would give me this amount of control for channel I/O's for around $1500 or less? I really hate to switch software platforms if I have to purchase an outside piece of hardware to accomplish what I am looking to do and then bounce for mix sessions into PT, but if I have to I have to I guess.

What would you guys suggest as far as hardware goes to accomplish this? btw... I do not have a Firewire port on my computer currently, and it would be difficult to upgrade due to the fact it is a laptop at this point so it has to be either SCSI, Ethernet (not even sure if they make ethernet transfer for recording hardware yet), or USB even though USB would be probably out of the question due to speed for writing data and recording. I cannot afford a new computer to do this right now also unfortunately. Thanks in advance for any suggestions. Best Regards

Charlie

[albee1952]

At that price range, you don't stand a chance of doing what you want with protools. A digi002r will handle up to 18 mic inputs with external pre's as follows: 4 onboard mic pre's, 4 line inputs(w/external mic pre's, 8 inputs on lightpipe(Digimax, Focusrite Octopre, etc. 8 channel pre w/lightpipe out) and 2 more on external pre's with SPDIF. As you found out already, the Control 24 is serious money(and includes 16 mic pre's)(serious money being a relative term). Sounds like you may need to go with a MOTU 24 input interface w/Cubase SX and maybe an analog mixer (24 channels with direct outputs on each channel). Even that is going to cost more than your %1500 budget. While there have been great strides in inexpensive gear, you are going to need to spend more or expect less no matter which platform you go with. By the way, you don't need to worry about SCSI with your laptop as there are plenty of good firewire PCMCIA cards. You will NEED a good 7200rpm firewire drive if you want to record more than a couple of channels at a time.

[superpenguin79]

Thanks for the input. I didn't think of the fact that I could run mic pre's into the Digi02 like that actually to pull 18 inputs. Hmm... might take a while to acquire the correct pre's for something like that is the only downside I forsee. I am looking ultimately to drop $1500 on just the recording console alone actually. I am setting myself limits on putting this entire project together. I don't want to go over $20,000 in the long run over the next couple years or however long it takes me to put this together for the budget. This budget includes building the room, all the gear, furniture..etc.. in which it will be tight, but I believe I can pull it off. If I had unlimited funding, I would go for a Neve console in a heartbeat actually or a nice SSL routed into a HD3 system. hehe Unfortunately $$ does not grow on trees I guess...

As for the Motu, I was actually considering one as I already run a Cubase SX platform in addition to PTLE 6.1 on my system. I just run both with the MBox as the channel input at the moment. The only thing I was concerned with is how the Motu compares in the pre's and inputs to Digi hardware as I have never played with the hardware? Not to mention the fact that I would really rather run a control 24 unit over a Motu any day pretty much probably caus you already have focusrite pre's and you can still use the familiar PT interface. If I break down and go after the Control|24 system, would I still need a Digi02 to run into my computer with, or does it run in otherwise to the computer, or an analog source to record to disc? I have seen them a couple of times at studios I have recorded at, but never gone into detail on the setup and install procedures.

Thanks for the tip about the Firewire card also. Just out of curiousity, how hard are they to install on a laptop? I have taken apart desktops many times and am well familiar with hardware installs, but have never messed with a laptop before for any type of install work hardware wise and would flip out if I somehow managed to break it. lol Not to mention the fact that I am not sure if the motherboard in my Laptop would accomodate any more hardware than it has. I could always take out the 56k modem and attempt to put it in there if its possible, but I am not sure how everything is routed on it.

[froyo]

Hello. You can do 18 simultaneous ins and outs in LE when you use all available analog and digital I/O (ADAT, SPDIF, etc). Read the manual for the specifics on how to set this up. You can also use an analog or digital mixer for the mic pre's and monitoring for headphones and such. And also, keep your eyes out in the next few months. Digidesign just announced a new digital mixer designed for live sound applications. A part of it is a new Firewire card set to be released next year which will apparently allow LE to get up to 32 I/O. It remains to be seen if this is only for the console or for all LE systems. If you want to go to other software you will definitely have a hard time staying under $1500 for any decent hardware/software combo, as you do with Digidesign. By the time you pay for say a 002 Rack, extra mic pre's or mixer, etc you are well beyond the $1500.

[bb_aus]

002 rack and a behringer ADA8000 should do it (and some other spdif io for 18 tracks)
i got an ADA8000 one afternoon when i needed some extra mic pre for a live job the next day (was only using it for the pres at first had nothing else with ADAT) it was the best thing i could afford at the time and i have to say i was impressed with them
while they wont compare to a focusrite or something some people have said they are very close to the presonus. wont color the sound at all so not as 'warm' but very clear which makes them easy to work with
i also made sure with my dealier before i paid for it that i would be able to take it back if i didnt like them, however they worked fine and for about 1/5 of the price cant complain.
good base system with plenty of io and easy enough to upgrade the extra io at a later date if/when required

[Bastiaan]

The control|24 is nothing more then 25 faders and a bunch of knobs combined with 16 mic-pre's. It is NOT an audio-interface, so you will still need something to utilize those 16 pre's. And they are only pre's so you still need A?D for them.

Reconsider if you need so many channels at one time. Usualy you don't, and 18 is a good start.

Start your business by getting true high-end gear one at a time. Get a good mic, and a good micpre and a good AD-converter. Then get another pre...etc etc etc. This way you can spread out the expenses over the years.

Usualy you need 1 or 2 mics only when tracking (not with drums though, although 2 mic's can get a pretty decent recording). Maybe you need more channels as guidetracks, but then the quality isnt that important ofcourse, as you wil re-record them anyway. So for that you could use a cheapycheapo mic/pre/ad.

[albee1952]

The firewire card for a laptop is a PCMCIA card that plugs into a slot on most laptops. No disassembly required.

[superpenguin79]

Thanks much to all for the advice. Hmm... sounds like the Digi002r would still be my unit of choice I guess. I am just not into starting to learn a whole new platform to get things off and running. Software is not that hard to learn as I am already familiar with PT LE, TDM, and Cubase SX, but in the long run I would like to stick with something out of those three I guess and wasn't thinking logically on how I could maximize use out of a Digi002r.

As for the gear over time thing, yeah have been doing that for a while now. I guess the old saying "all good things come in time" or something to that degree stands. I think there is a saying about being patient as patience is a virtue or something also. *shrugs*

albee: good call, you're talking about a firewire card that would work similar to the way a wifi card works correct? hot swapable, and very interchangable. I did not think of that as an option, but it is definately looking good. I will check into those at the store this weekend.

Maybe later I will post a gear list to share with you guys and see what you think. I have already got a bit of gear from acquiring things over the years in music otherwise before I got into the studio end of things, but I would like the studio to be competetive so to speak.

Thanks again for all your inputs. peace

Charlie

[Cliffy_Boy]

The firewire card for a laptop is a PCMCIA card that plugs into a slot on most laptops

Provided the slots are the new Cardbus and not the regular PCMCIA. Cardbus is PCI bus and older PCMCIA are ISA bus. Check the specs on your PC slots to be sure they are cardbus otherwise you won't get a FW of any value.

[superpenguin79]

yeah, just double checked my specs on the manufacturers website and they are cardbus as far as I can tell from several different sources. I am running a Compaq Presario 2100 laptop with an AMD athlon 1.7ghz processor. I just got it back in January so I am pretty sure it should be up to date with the cardbus pcmcia slots. good looking out though man and thanks for the tip.