Recording to external questions

[tojo]

Hey guys,

just got an external hard drive from owc. specs: 3.5", 500 gb, firewire 400/usb 2.0...7200 rpm. Here's my question:

I record mostly track by track stuff, (stereo aco gtr, vox, midi etc) and haven't had much experience multitracking drums with a firewire audio interface at all. Do you suggest that I record what I do with my macbook straight to my external and load projects from it? or should I record to my internal hard drive on my macbook and then back it up on the hard drive?

thanks

 

[jeremyball]

It's better to record your sessions to the external hard drive. With a firewire connection, you will be ok as far as speed goes.

I (and probably everyone else on here) have been guilty one time or the other of recording on to the computer, and not to an external hard drive. But it's really not the best way to do it. Consider this....

If the computer crashes for whatever reason, your session goes too and it could potentially cause you tons of heartache. It sucks, especially if you are recording for someone else. I would at least back your sessions up on the external or perhaps to an other medium. Plus, depending on the sample rate and bit depth you use, you will eat up tons of space your computer's hard drive.

I recently took my session files from my computer and moved them to the external. The projects run perfectly fine, and I saved about 20 gigs of space.