Recording Live Service to HD

[plhowatt]

I am a newbie to this newsgroup and digital recording. In our Church we uas a Mackie 2404 VLZ for our house mix with almost every channel in use. Currently for recording I split the signal from the snake for all the instruments and singing vocals to a separate Yamaha MG16_6 analouge mixer the rest of the vocal tracks I send in a sub-group. This way I use the main outs to route the signal to a digidesign Mbox. The Mbox sends a signal via the USB port to Protools LE. This is a great little setup for someone needing a quick way to record live but if the same person is not mixing the live recording every time it can be disasterous for the final mix.

I need a method of recording the individual tracks to the Hard drive for latter mixing during post. I was looking at the new Oynx 1640 w/firewire but was wondering if there is something simpler since I really don't need a mixer. Is the HD192 what I am looking for?

Thanks Paul

[Larry Sheehan]

How many inputs do you want? The HD192 is 12 line in/12 out. A PCI424 can take up to 4 devices, so 48CH max of HD192. However, is can also take any 4 audiowire interface units, so 4x24i/o yields 96 inputs.

[plhowatt]

Thanks Larry for the reply, Typically between 18 an 20 channels with our current setup and of course providing my dell inspiron 1150 ( 2.4 Ghz, 512 Meg Ram) can handle that many tracks. Can I assume the HD192 uses firewire to bridge to the laptop or how does that work?

A PCI424 can take up to 4 devices, so 48CH max of HD192 ....
So these are Daisy chained ?

Thanks Paul

[LaptopPop]

The HD192 uses a custom PCI card. This card has 4 connectors on it for transmitting/receiving audio signals. The 24i/o also uses the same card, and you can mix and match units. The audio signals are sent in a custom way along a cable that is the same cable as firewire, just used differently. This makes it nice and easy to get more or different cables.

For 18-20 inputs, I'd recommend the 24i/o. I have one and it is great. I also have the Onyx 1640 with firewire. It works well, but the digitizers in the 1640 are not as good as the 24i/o. The preamps rock, however.

-lee-

[plhowatt]

Thanks Lee

For 18-20 inputs, I'd recommend the 24i/o. --- I assume it is 1/4" Balanced inputs.

Is the cabling senerio from the mackie to the box or is there a spliter required (remember I,m new and still on the milk)

BTW what kind of $$ for this setup

Paul

[LaptopPop]

The inputs and outputs of the 24i/o are all balanced 1/4" plugs.

In my case, to connect to my Onyx mixer, I use the direct outs from the Onyx to go to the 24i/o. No splitter box is required. The Onyx uses DB25 connectors for the direct outs (standard Tascam pinout). So for 16 channels, I have two snake cables running from the mixer to the 24i/o -- each one carries 8 channels.

The 24i/o gives 24 great sounding inputs and 24 outputs for about $1500.

-lee-

<small>[ May 31, 2005, 09:03 AM: Message edited by: LaptopPop ]</small>

[Weekendshooter]

Originally posted by plhowatt:


BTW what kind of $$ for this setup

Paul

$$$ to go from 2 to 20 tracks?!?!

I didn't see preamps on the 24i/o (may have missed them) nor individual direct outs on the 2404 Mackie so...

We spent about $1300 for the a/d converts, plus...

Additional preamps & DIs at the snake head -- the house mixer didn't have direct outs.

These folks didn't have the money to split with transformers and used patch panels (which have done surprisingly well).

Don't forget extra racks and power panels if you don't have the u-space now.

Mixing 18-20 tracks may need more than the 512Mb of RAM on your machine with no mention of addtional hard disk space--We got our our DAW built for a pretty good price from a local mom & pop electronics shop. I've ProTools LE & an M-Box but don't recall if it'll handle 18-20 inputs so you may want to simply buy DP 4.52?

Cables could've cost a lot more had we not built many of them ourselves.

All of the above was just for the recording.

Fun job...

YMMV,
Andy