soundcard question.

R

-ryan-

New member
got a question. How would one get 24 simultanious i/o's on a sound card. I want to build a home studio, and have determined I will need at least 24 available tracks. I was going to get a firewire board, but I would like to be able to mix "out of the box" as I prefer mixing hands on.

I have seen cards that are like 8, 10, or 12 i/o's but not higher. I assume there has to be a way to record more tracks simultaniously, as people do it all the time, but have not found the answer.

any suggestions? I would really appreciate any input.

thanks,
Ryan
 
Im still a little ew to the game, but if you are looking for 24 i/o's this might be something like what you are looking for:
MOTU 24I/O

You can also buy a firewire audio interface with an ADAT optical i/o and hook it up to any mixer with an ADAT optical i/o connection. As far as details go, im not certain, but im sure the number of inputs you can add depends on how much you interface can handle. I ordered a Tascam FW-1082 interface and I plan to upgrade my inputs the same way in the future if necessary with a Behringer ADA8000. Hope that helps????
 
-ryan- said:
got a question. How would one get 24 simultanious i/o's on a sound card.
Click to expand...

Buy soundcards with 24 inputs.

Some soundcards can be daisy-chained. I use a firewire Motu828mkII and you can daisy-chain a maximum of 3 of them together to get 60 inputs.
 
Personally, I would look into something like an Alesis HD24 and combine it with an RME Hammerfall card as an interface. For the money spent you will get much better conversion, and the flexibility to be more portable.
 
dig. thanks. Are there 24 channel sound cards, or do you have to use multiple ones.

and am I correct that with firewire you can only send/receive up to 18 tracks simultanious? (meaning that meaning you could only physically mix 9 tracks on a board real time)
 
-ryan- said:
got a question. How would one get 24 simultanious i/o's on a sound card. I want to build a home studio, and have determined I will need at least 24 available tracks. I was going to get a firewire board, but I would like to be able to mix "out of the box" as I prefer mixing hands on.

I have seen cards that are like 8, 10, or 12 i/o's but not higher. I assume there has to be a way to record more tracks simultaniously, as people do it all the time, but have not found the answer.

any suggestions? I would really appreciate any input.

thanks,
Ryan
Click to expand...
You are going to need to record 24 inputs simultaneously in a HOME STUDIO??? 24 tracks I can see, but 24 mic/DIs? Must be one helluva big home!
 
-ryan- said:
dig. thanks. Are there 24 channel sound cards, or do you have to use multiple ones.
Click to expand...

There are many. Too many to list. I will second the RME Hammerfall cards though. They are incredible and quite inexpensive ($600)

-ryan- said:
and am I correct that with firewire you can only send/receive up to 18 tracks simultanious? (meaning that meaning you could only physically mix 9 tracks on a board real time)
Click to expand...

You can send much more than 18 simultaneous tracks via firewire. The 18 track limit you might be thinking of is software related with regard to ProTools M-Powered. Most software will allow for 48 or more simultaneous inputs (depending on your hardware of course) and as many tracks as you can stack. I know people who record 24 tracks at once while playing back a hundred. They're crazy, but they do it.
 
24 is the most I would need. Realistically I would be using about 16-18 inputs simultaniously. I was thinking about getting the Mackie ONYX with 16 tracks, but read that it can only send 16, not send and return 16 tracks, meaning I would have to mix in the box. I think it would be ideal to have a physical slider dedicated to each track. I dont like the "point and click" sliders that are in the programs.

my band alone would have 3 vocal tracks (at least) 3 guitar tracks (probably more at times) Bass, and 7-9 mics on the drums plus other percussion instruments we add. We are an experimental lot, who knows what we will add. we're a little nutty.


cheers!
 
-ryan- said:
24 is the most I would need. Realistically I would be using about 16-18 inputs simultaniously. I was thinking about getting the Mackie ONYX with 16 tracks, but read that it can only send 16, not send and return 16 tracks, meaning I would have to mix in the box. I think it would be ideal to have a physical slider dedicated to each track. I dont like the "point and click" sliders that are in the programs.

my band alone would have 3 vocal tracks (at least) 3 guitar tracks (probably more at times) Bass, and 7-9 mics on the drums plus other percussion instruments we add. We are an experimental lot, who knows what we will add. we're a little nutty.


cheers!
Click to expand...
But do you need to record all those things at once? The only real difference between different soundcards in this realm is the number of simultaneous channels it can record. You can mix n number of tracks on your pc if you lay them track by track.
 
Most Studios (Home and Pro) don"t record all the Instruments at once...Generally Drums and Bass are recorded first and then Guitar and Keys and Vocals are added later so I doubt that you will need 24 Tracks at once, Probably at most 12 Tracks at once (10 for Drums if you have a Huge Kit and 1 or 2 for Bass) and after that you would probably record One track at a Time so I think 24 Tracks will be over Kill......

You could go the affordable route and get something like a Delta 1010LT and a ADA8000 and be able to record 16 Tracks at once and Midi for under $500 but there are also many other routes you can take....


Cheers
 
Have you thought about anything like the Alesis ADAT HD24? It's a 24 track Hard Disk Recorder you could hook up to a mixer. I've used a few of them, they're pretty slick.

http://www.alesis.com/products/hd24/

Or if you really wanna cover your basis, check out the Tascam X-48. It's the upgrade to the MX2424, which I have used. The X-48 is a 28 channel hybrid hardisk workstation. Basically it's a 48 channel hard disk recorder, but it has a software front end.

http://www.tascam.com/Products/x48.html

The old MX2424 also had a software front end, called MixView, but it was never supported past OS9 (the company went out of business or something like that).
 
Minion said:
Most Studios (Home and Pro) don"t record all the Instruments at once...
Click to expand...

Actually, Lots of places need a high simultaneous track count. I constantly start projects out using between 18 and 24 tracks. It is a very common thing to do. Of those tracks, the drums may be the only ones to make it as a keeper, but I am a believer in recording everything as well as you can. You never know when that "scratch track" may turn out to be the golden take.
 
-ryan- said:
and am I correct that with firewire you can only send/receive up to 18 tracks simultanious? (meaning that meaning you could only physically mix 9 tracks on a board real time)
Click to expand...

Only if it is a limit in your software, your OS, or the device itself (or the speed of your hard drive). FireWire running flat out with 96kHz/24-bit, I calculated 138 simultaneous streams (69 in both directions).
 
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