Mackie Onyx question

[Pony!]

Hi,

I just recently purchased a Mackie Onyx and I absolutely love it. Its much cleaner and bigger than what I previously had. And, instead of having 5 different things for both live and recording I have, now, just one.

I love using it for recording but, I'd like to take that on the move with me and use its firewire capabilities to record live shows without having to lug my computer. Does mackie or anyone make a rack mountable product that will interface with the onyx and record the raw tracks allowing me to then transfer and mix everything when I get home to my home PC... or would I just be better off getting a laptop?

 

[suprstar]

Check out the Alesis HD24, it's a standalone unit. You would run the Mackie direct outs to it and hit 'record'. You wouldn't use the firewire interface, you'd just run a 1/4" TS cable for each track to be recorded. After you get it home you can edit and mix, etc.

 

[mixsit]

I'm weighing the same question here -not as a full blown pro mobile tracking rig, but simply for recording my gigs. I've used the HD24 (which turns out to have several TSR intermittent jack problems but that's a side trip and apparently not typical.. ). The down side with the hdr's and it's not huge -if you mix ITB (not on a board for example) is having hook up and load the tracks into your app to proceed.
I'd prefer to track it in Sonar and just swap the whole project into my DAW.
The other thing to consider live is bulk, and set-up time. I figure 8-16 tracks typically. The Onyx looks like a good front end, and either the fire wire or the DB25 d/o's streamlines the patching.
Don't forget to figure at least a little UPS bat. backup for the 'recorder.

... anything near 'for hire, 'pro' - redundancy on the recorder, and on and on..

 

[Pony!]

Also, the hd24 is 1500-1800 bucks where as a new laptop could run less than half of that. I'm looking for an alternative to a laptop... Otherwise I'll just get one.

 

[tom18222]

probabbly your best bet is the laptop, man.

 

[omtayslick]

probabbly your best bet is the laptop, man.

Yup.......................

 

[Pony!]

Ok, so I'm helping a friend of mine build his first PC which means he's giving his mac laptop to his mom who's giving up her old lap top. Would the mac install of cubase save files that can be transferred over to the pc install of it?