Best bang for the buck multi i/o...

sstillwell wrote on 5/7/2004, 7:24 PM
Okay...I need multiple ins...lots of them.

Most of my recording anymore seems to be on-site, live, recordings taken directly from the direct outs of the FOH board at one venue or another. Sooner or later I'm going to invest in a decent mic splitter, and if I win the lottery, a GOOD isolated splitter. What I need is lots of simultaneous inputs. I currently have an M-Audio Delta 1010 and a Delta 44, but that's not cutting it. I'd like to have a minimum of 24 ins.

What's the best way to get that many simultaneous inputs into Vegas? I'm looking for several things:

1) ASIO-capable
2) Rock-solid with VEGAS...not with Sonar, or Cubase, or Protools...VEGAS.
3) Expandable
4) QUIET
5) Cheap.

I know that no single product is likely to hit ALL of the points, but hopefully several products come close...then I just try and balance the features and prices and see what works for me...

So, what do you do for large I/O capability? Firewire? PCI? External Hard-Disk recorders and then file-transfer into Vegas???

I need to get my ducks in a row so that I can start planning. I think it's becoming obvious that I won't be able to continue expanding my Delta rig to the size I want.

Regards,

Scott

Comments

kbruff wrote on 5/7/2004, 7:40 PM
ALESIS HD24 maybe?
PipelineAudio wrote on 5/7/2004, 8:06 PM
Solid is soundscape mixtreme, but youll need converters
drbam wrote on 5/7/2004, 8:17 PM
I agree with kbruff. The Alesis HD24 is probably a better and more reliable approach for live tracking like you're doing. You could later import the tracks into your DAW for editing, mixing, etc.

drbam
sstillwell wrote on 5/7/2004, 8:27 PM
Hmmm...haven't looked at them before. What would YOU use for converters? I note that they have some TDIF converters, but I'm a bit leery of anything with that many RCA jacks on it... :)

Scott
sstillwell wrote on 5/7/2004, 8:33 PM
I've thought about the HD24...and may yet wind up going with it. My rig is VERY stable at the moment, but I still sweat bullets every time I press "record".
PipelineAudio wrote on 5/7/2004, 8:36 PM
If the RME anniversary edition converters are still available I'd use them, if you are talking cheap. They have TDIF, ADAT and can copy between them. Soundscape's mixtreme was a favorite of some early vegas users. The support was unbelieveable from the company, then mackie bought em, and who knows whats going on now. The cards do ASIO and as old as they are believe it or not, they can do 96k SINGLE wire on TDIF as perf the original spec that tascam screwed up recently. They have their own mixer and FX and can allow for some flexible monitoring

Swissonic and Lucid make some good lower priced converters as well
drbam wrote on 5/7/2004, 10:07 PM
Personally I couldn't/wouldn't live with the stress on a regular basis. I want to enjoy what I'm doing – not contstantly worrying about whether the gear is going to crash or crap out during a live gig! As stable as DAW systems have gotten recently, I rarely read or hear about a genuinely professional live system that doesn't also track to a backup system (2in tape, dedicated hard drive, etc) in addition to the primary DAW setup (typically a protools rig). I don't care how stable and solid the system is, tracking 16-24 tracks to a native DAW in a live situation is simply riding a thin edge IMO. Of course others here may feel differently.

;-)

drbam
Rednroll wrote on 5/8/2004, 7:20 AM
I would check out the MOTU hardware interfaces. I've read some posts with troubles due to MOTU hardware, and personally I'm not a fan of MOTU, so I couldn't directly comment. MOTU does have some firewire based I/O's that sounds like it would fit your needs. Also, I highly recommend the Echo Layla, it works rock solidly with Vegas. For portability you should look into their "cardbus" interface. The Layla has 8in/8out, but you can have more than one on your system, and they work well together.

www.motu.com
www.echoaudio.com
zemlin wrote on 5/8/2004, 8:42 AM
I have a MOTU 24i and have done a fair amount of live work with it - ASIO with Vegas 4 works great for me. Never had any problems with stability/reliability. I've done recording with 15 tracks - have test-recorded 24 tracks for hours with no problems. I can monitor with effects with 1 or 2 ms latancy.

2 outputs is a bit limiting - if I had the $$ I'd consider the 24io.
kbruff wrote on 5/10/2004, 11:13 AM
"
Personally I couldn't/wouldn't live with the stress on a regular basis. I want to enjoy what I'm doing – not contstantly worrying about whether the gear is going to crash or crap out during a live gig! As stable as DAW systems have gotten recently, I rarely read or hear about a genuinely professional live system that doesn't also track to a backup system (2in tape, dedicated hard drive, etc) in addition to the primary DAW setup (typically a protools rig). I don't care how stable and solid the system is, tracking 16-24 tracks to a native DAW in a live situation is simply riding a thin edge IMO. Of course others here may feel differently.

;-)

drbam
"

Which is why the ALESIS HD24 is an attactive alternative, since they have the option of using external / internal / TDIF / Light pipe connections for acquiring and routing signals.

It even has a wired remote so that you can tuck the unit away and still have access to key features.

More so -- Hard drives are now $0.69 per gigabyte, which is a great advantage when you have one DAW (and plenty of editing to do). You can leave the DAW at home, bring your recording unit with mixer and have "good" recording capabilities and never worry about "billsoft" crapping out on you.

Dial into the unit via ethernet or firewire and get your tracks into VEGAS / SF7 and continue with your project.

It is just one of many alternatives in the ever growing pc / audio market.

Enjoy,
Kevin
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