[uncle duncan]

Alesis HD24 Hard disk recorder. The problem would be bouncing 24 tracks back into LE, which will only let you use 18 inputs. You could pick up a used Motu 2408 interface, which has three banks of adat lightpipe = 24 channels. But again, since you can't use all 24 channels into PTLE, it looks like PTLE would be the weak link in your chain.

So, what's more important to you, mixing in PTLE with no ADC, or getting 24 tracks in one pass into your DAW? (a DAW that would have ADC, since PTLE is the only one that doesn't.) Motu Digital performer is quite handy with audio editing. The only thing it doesn't have is Beat Detective/Elastic Audio (at least it doesn't have polyphonic elastic audio - it's had graphic time stretch/shrink for years.) But if you normally don't have to fix things with Elastic Audio, you could just port a project over to PTLE in the rare case when you did need it.

What DP does have is a graphic pitch correction window, something you'd have to pay extra for in PTLE. I use DP's pitch correction window all the time for fixing vocals and such. I actually prefer it to Autotune, since it does not alter the sound the way Autotune does.

What I like about the HD24/motu solution is the fact that while you're transferring 24 tracks into DP, you can be putting in your markers and getting your mix set up, so it's not a totally wasted hour making the transfer in realtime. Then, you can do rough mixes of each song by bouncing-to-disk in one tenth of the time it would take you to do realtime mixes in PTLE.

Of course you can always render DP files for export to PTLE, but why bother? That would be like buying a Hummer, but then never driving it, opting for your broken down Hyundai instead.

(Thank you very much. Threadjack over.)