Least expensive 32 in HD system?

[tlester]

Hi all -

I'm still deciding what DAW to purchase. I'm most familiar with PT's layout, so I keep coming back to it. Anyway... I need some help architecting a system based on my minimum requirements. I'd like some opinions. Here's what I need:

Base HD system
32 simultaneous ins
8 outs

I'm looking for the cheapest way to do this. I.e. utilizing the Adat, AES, and possibly TDIF imputs, as well as the analog inputs. The 192 is quite pricy, so I don't want to have to buy 4 of them to get my 32 ins. At least not at the very beginning.

Let me know what you think

-Tom

[doug_hti]

two 192s, with 2 additional AD cards, making it 16 ins for each interface...the additional AD cards are somewhere around 1k...so you have 32 analog ins, 16 analog outs...

[Jeff D.]

If you can live with 32 inputs at 44.1/48 khz only, you could get:

192 + A/D expansion card
1622 I/O connected to legacy port on 192

That's what I did and it works great. 32 simultaneous inputs. The inputs on the 1622 are a little lower in quality, but work great for keyboards, drum machines, scratch vocals, room mics, etc. I route the important stuff to the 192's inputs.

This also gets you 10 outputs (8 from the 192 and 2 from the 1622).

I found a 1622 on eBay for $750.

Good luck,

Jeff D.

[jic3]

I believe you can only have 16 simultaneous inputs on the 192 regardless of format (adat, xlr, analog,etc.)

Good luck,
J

[tlester]

So... what do you guys think of this:

1 Core
2 192's
2 8xMic pre w/ ADAT out (aka Prosonus or Octopre).

That would give me 32 ins and 16 outs. Then I could get some "nicer" pre's for the analog ins.

Can the ADAT in's do 96K? Can you tell that I'm an analog guy ;-)

-t

[aswstudios]

Unfortunatelty Tom DIGI did not use the S/MUX
protocol on these Optical connections so as far as high res recording goes they are worthless. Furthermore you can have 16 ins and outs from 1 192 I/O but they have to be in banks of eight according to digidesign.
ex AD Ins 1 8 ------ DA Outs 1-8
not ADAT Ins 1-4--AD Ins 5-8 -------
ADAT Outs 1-4--DA Outs 5-8.....

[tlester]

What about the light pipe inputs on the 192? How many are there. I see two sets of optical (one of the Digi card, and on on the 192 main section). Are they both 8 channel ADAT light pipes? If so, that would give me 24 ins on one 192. I'd have to front it with and A/D or something like a Prosonus Digimax, but that would be OK.

Does anyone do this?

-Tom