| Thanks for the responses. I learned some things from both of you.
I've hauled out the Protools rig too, it was a lot of work to set up and the workflow did not seem good for live recording. Protools is my DAW of choice in the studio, it just seemed cumbersome live. A dedicated hardware interface would make it a lot easier but would drive the cost up to where I could not make a profit in my market.
When Motu came out with their first Firewire audio interface I bought one and tried using it to record a friends band with a laptop. I had a freshly formatted external Mac Firewire hard disk and spent an entire day testing things in the studio. Everything worked perfect, then I took it to the club where the band was playing and it bombed miserably, locking up, the laptop was crashing, it was like a whole different system than the one I worked with all day. That was back around version 4.xx of Digital Performer but I never want another night like that.
The market for self contained, multi-track digital recording machines must be really small. There are a lot of things I wish were different on the Alesis machines but for now I am thankful that they exist. Back around 1972 I bought a Teac reel to reel (3340). It was noisy, it didn't sound that great but it was multi-track. Before that, all I had was a Viking 2-track. The HD24xr is smaller, oh so much lighter, virtually silent signal to noise, unmearsurable wow and flutter and packs 24 tracks into only three rack spaces. I appreciate it so much because I grew up with only crap gear as a reference. I remember the first time I heard a Studer 16 track two inch machine, it was this giant mechanical tape beast and it sounded SO GOOD.
Last year I was working in a big local studio which has great sounding rooms, we were recording drums for a loop library using their Protools HD system at 96k with Apogee converters. I also recorded to an HD24xr for backup and to have something to take home at night. To me, it was an eye opener how good the Alesis sounded when we A-B compared the recordings. I'd say the Apogee sounded better but not by much and that was on stunning monitors in a fantastic control room. The Alesis cost around $1700, the Protools rig was well over $15,000, a huge difference in hardware cost for not much difference in sound. One system sang "ahhh" and the other sang "eeee". Both had clarity, width, depth and realism.
What really blew my mind was how the tracks recorded with the Alesis A-D sounded when we Firewired them over to the Protools HD system and played them through the Apogee converters. I bought another pair of HD24xr after I got paid for that job.
It's a shame Mackie did not continue and innovate more with their recorders, I think they confused the market with too many models.
Hopefully others will chime in with what is working well for them. I was expecting more "Radar Love" with this thread.
I am wishing you guys all the best with your recording endeavors.
Mark |