PCI or Digi Board

[zachzaba]

I recently had the chance to join forces with a few people I met in my area to start up a project studio. It is nothing all that special but it will at least be "ours" and we can do what we will with it. I have experience for smaller sessions but can only record up to four tracks at the same time. Basically we would like to go more towards live recordings but was rather stumped on which way to go. There seem to be two choices, one being a PCI card with 10 or 12 inputs (that fan out of the back) or saving up to get an actual digital board, which would allow each seperate track recorded to maintain a track on the software, thus being able to be mixed at a later time.
I do have a computer strong enough to handle the PCI option but was seeing if there was a downfall to that because it is so much cheaper (it sounds too good to be true). Possibly it is hard to find software to record that many simultaneous tracks.
Any help or insight would be great.
Thank You
Zach

 

[dgatwood]

I recently had the chance to join forces with a few people I met in my area to start up a project studio. It is nothing all that special but it will at least be "ours" and we can do what we will with it. I have experience for smaller sessions but can only record up to four tracks at the same time. Basically we would like to go more towards live recordings but was rather stumped on which way to go. There seem to be two choices, one being a PCI card with 10 or 12 inputs (that fan out of the back) or saving up to get an actual digital board, which would allow each seperate track recorded to maintain a track on the software, thus being able to be mixed at a later time.

Most analog boards can be used with multichannel interfaces in the same way. You just hook the audio interface's input to the output side of a channel insert/direct out instead of to the mixer's main output.

I do have a computer strong enough to handle the PCI option but was seeing if there was a downfall to that because it is so much cheaper (it sounds too good to be true). Possibly it is hard to find software to record that many simultaneous tracks.

PCI is cheap because it is an outdated standard that is being phased out. The manufacturers are dumping their PCI gear at low prices to get rid of it. The more modern PCI Express standard is not compatible with existing PCI cards, so the long-term prospects for a PCI card aren't good.

For that reason, you're better off getting a FireWire-based audio interface instead. If your computer doesn't have FireWire ports, those cards are relatively cheap, so at least you aren't throwing a way a big investment when you eventually get a machine that won't support PCI.