recording 16 tracks simultaneously

[xcrazymx]

i'm having problems recording 16 tracks simultaneously...

first the set-up: mac 1.5 ghz g4 powerbook with 1.25 gb ram, running both a presonus firepod and edirol fa-101 under an "aggregate device" in mac os x. recording is going via firewire to a glyph 80gb 7200 rpm hard drive using cubase sx2.

now the problem: as the location bar progresses in real time, the audio itself gets "jumpy" and falls behind, resulting in the tracks all being different lengths with sections of audio missing at certain points. i'm recording at 44.1 with a very high buffer setting... and for the sake of troubleshooting, i dropped the bit rate down to 16, finding the same problem.

what i'm thinking: i've had similar problems before recording to the laptop's internal 5400 rpm drive which is making me think that one hard drive is two slow to record 16 tracks at once, meaning i should raid two external drives together. however, i was also told it may be the fact that i'm aggregating two different devices together.

anyone have any thoughts on the matter?

 

[MadAudio]

Normally you'd have two interfaces hooked together via wordclock to keep them in sync. I don't know if that's possible with two different brands of interfaces without some external timekeeping device.

 

[xcrazymx]

i was under the impression that the "aggreate device" feature controlled the wordclock. is this wrong?

Normally you'd have two interfaces hooked together via wordclock to keep them in sync. I don't know if that's possible with two different brands of interfaces without some external timekeeping device.

 

[MadAudio]

i was under the impression that the "aggreate device" feature controlled the wordclock. is this wrong?

I have no idea - I'm a PC guy. Either way, it seems the devices still need to talk to each other.

 

[xcrazymx]

i agree with you 100%... the question i have now is if the "aggregate device" feature does this or not... i'm not familiar with wordclock by any means.

I have no idea - I'm a PC guy. Either way, it seems the devices still need to talk to each other.

 

[cephus]

Wow. 16 tracks simultaneously using a laptop. Never knew it was possible.

 

[xcrazymx]

very much so... but only if you know how to set things up right, i guess.

Wow. 16 tracks simultaneously using a laptop. Never knew it was possible.

 

[KonradG]

getting a box that can record 16 tracks alone isnt too expensive. isnt that a hastle running two machines at once? tascam 1884 with addon as well is digi 002 with addon will get you 16 tracks running nicely on the mac.