Newbie Studio setup!

[spoonx]

Basically i want to start setting up a little home studio to record some music but i am wanting to future proof my purchases for what i plan on expanding this setup into.

Basically eventually i want to be able to record live music from a band and i know this means a lot of inputs.

I am planning on working inside the pc but have a couple of things i don't understand still.

The most amount of inputs i have seen on a card is 10? is this true? and if not am i going to have to sell my soul to get something bigger?

now i know i can put it through a mixer and then merger it all together into say 10 tracks but that means i will not be able to fiddle with the mix later?

how have you guys dealt with this?

I am also looking at doing this all in Linux? anyone had some experience? Ardour (i thinks thats the softwares name) is available in linux? and there are some good apps around.

I would be more comfortable doing this in linux due to the control on the pc you have and stability issues..

hope these questions aren't too newbieish but i have been looking for answers and couldn't find them.

 

[manning1]

recommendations

based on 25 yrs experience.
amd 2ghz pc with two 7200 rpm hard druives plus powertracks from pgmusic.com. go to the forum on pg if you dont believe this is a value for 48 audio tracks. i just got a flyer from them,
christmas price is 29 bucks. huge value !
i have been using it for several years. it does 24 bit as well.
linux is still a way to go imho. but in the future....will be big for audio.

 

[spankenstein]

I haven't tried anything on Linux in the last few years. That is why I bought a Delta card was because there were Linux drivers if I wanted to.

I haven't played with Ardour but I did use SLab and the LADSPA plugins. 3 years ago there was some promise but I haven't had time to experiment too much. I love Linux (work with it all day long) but for multimedia production... it's not there yet.

If you want room to grow look for card that you can add multiple off that sync to a word clock or something with a light pipe interface.

 

[spoonx]

Ok I was looking at the aardvark q10 thing that eveyone keeps talking about. Does this have the word link thing you were talking about?

now i read somewhere that the internal pre amps cannot be turned off completely and will ad some noise? am i better off getting another quality card and buying some good external preamps?

i am struggling a little with the concept of the setup.

I know i dont need a mixer but is there an advantage to getting one other than saving screen realestate?

I had a look at SL lab it said it suppoerted upto 64 inputs i think?

im going to have to find a card with linux support.

 

[spankenstein]

A mixer can always be useful but is not necesary. I am still using a Behringer 2004A because I needed the pres but it's getting ready to be slowly replaced with outboard pres (as the money in my wallet gets replaced with air). The on boards will definitely be "good enough" for starting with but you may want to think about how seriously you're going to take this "hobby".

Linux support may at sometime be good but for now it shouldn't be a selling factor. I learned that. I'm a big Linux zealot but realise where and when it's appropriate.

I really should check out Ardour now.