Live DAW recording

[Paul881]

Sorry guys, but this is a long one, but I do need your advice.

Currently, I have a home DAW based on Home Studio 2002 which I use for recording using either a single track or at most, two tracks at a time. Mostly guitar, drums and vocals. My soundcard is a delta 66+omni. I am buying a Soundcraft M 12 channel mixer to submix the drums better, as well as give me better multi- vocal recording options.

I now have a number of opportunities to record live sessions of choirs, bands and singers.

I am thinking of using a laptop for this application and running Sonar plus the Midiman quatro soundcard which will directly interface to the laptop's 4x USB ports. I can also supplement the quattro with my omni if I need more inputs. The quattro also supports midi I/O. My mixer will obviously be a good investment for this scenario.

The laptops audio spec is as follows:-

· Built in 16 bit stereo, full duplex sound card. ALC201

· 3-D stereo enhanced sound system

· Built-in high quality FM music synthesiser compliant to PC 97 rev.2.1

· Built-in high quality 3D stereo sound speakers and microphone

· Built-in 1MB MASK ROM hardware wavetable (produces CD sound quality)

· Sound-Blaster PROÔ v. 3.01 compatible

· External microphone input jack

· Headphone jack

· Audio DJ on board



All this is pretty much academic though cos I'm really going to use the midiman quattro as the input device and monitoring will be via the mixer and/or the quattro.

What I am worried about is the hard disk capacity of the laptop. If I am recording a two hour programme of work, that is going to take one hell of a hard disk at 24/44k1. What other recording media could I use for this application? DAT? CD? If so, couldn't I go via the mixer direct to the DAT/CD?

I would then master the recording in wavelab or Sonar back at my home DAW or in the laptop.

What advice can you give me, is this viable or are there any other better ways of recording live? I have ruled out digital desks due to cost and flexibility, the laptop will be dual boot as I need it for "normal" office work applications too.

Sorry for the post length.

 

[Polaris20]

Sorry guys, but this is a long one, but I do need your advice.

Currently, I have a home DAW based on Home Studio 2002 which I use for recording using either a single track or at most, two tracks at a time. Mostly guitar, drums and vocals. My soundcard is a delta 66+omni. I am buying a Soundcraft M 12 channel mixer to submix the drums better, as well as give me better multi- vocal recording options.

I now have a number of opportunities to record live sessions of choirs, bands and singers.

I am thinking of using a laptop for this application and running Sonar plus the Midiman quatro soundcard which will directly interface to the laptop's 4x USB ports. I can also supplement the quattro with my omni if I need more inputs. The quattro also supports midi I/O. My mixer will obviously be a good investment for this scenario.

The laptops audio spec is as follows:-

· Built in 16 bit stereo, full duplex sound card. ALC201

· 3-D stereo enhanced sound system

· Built-in high quality FM music synthesiser compliant to PC 97 rev.2.1

· Built-in high quality 3D stereo sound speakers and microphone

· Built-in 1MB MASK ROM hardware wavetable (produces CD sound quality)

· Sound-Blaster PROÔ v. 3.01 compatible

· External microphone input jack

· Headphone jack

· Audio DJ on board



All this is pretty much academic though cos I'm really going to use the midiman quattro as the input device and monitoring will be via the mixer and/or the quattro.

What I am worried about is the hard disk capacity of the laptop. If I am recording a two hour programme of work, that is going to take one hell of a hard disk at 24/44k1. What other recording media could I use for this application? DAT? CD? If so, couldn't I go via the mixer direct to the DAT/CD?

I would then master the recording in wavelab or Sonar back at my home DAW or in the laptop.

What advice can you give me, is this viable or are there any other better ways of recording live? I have ruled out digital desks due to cost and flexibility, the laptop will be dual boot as I need it for "normal" office work applications too.

Sorry for the post length.

I would highly recommend something other than the Quattro. It has been highly problematic for many users on the boards I visit.

If you're worried about capacity, you might want to get an external Firewire drive for immediate backup of the song data. They've come down quite a bit in price, and it'll make it easier than trying to use a DAT or a CDR.

 

[Paul881]

Thanks for the advice, I can get a 60Gig external 7200 firewire device for around $200 here in the UK. My new laptop will have a firewire interface so that would seem good advice, polaris. I could do without all that messing about with synch'ing DAT's.

 

[Paul881]

Polaris, I have just searched for Quattro on HoRec and saw your post of a couple of days ago concerning Laptops and recording. Reading the whole thread, I guess that until a manufacturer comes up with a firewire soundcard or a better USB, the limitations on the quattro kill it off, pretty much?