[pristineb]

Hello everyone. I am a Pro Tools HD user and have been for MANY years. The introduction of PT8 has me thinking that it's perhaps time to consider an LE rig... pay down some debt, enter the world of 32bit floating point processing, yada yada. I've been in an HD system for so long, I know little about how far an LE rig can go to achieving high end results.

I'm weighing the options. I am a professional mixer and I need certain things from an LE rig if I'm gonna move there. If I can't get what I need from an LE rig I'll just stay in HD land.

Here's some things I know about LE vs. HD. These are my issues...

- I have limited "import session data" - this is handy for my mixing. What can and can't I do?
- I don't get ADC (ATA makes this possible!!) - Sounds like a good option.
- limited track count (but it's 128 with the new LE... not bad).. I can probably deal with this... bounce a few things for MASSIVE sessions.
- Latency - how bad is it? Can a fast computer make it unnoticeable?

BIG QUESTION...

I want enough I/O to handle at least 8 channels from a summing mixer and at least another 8 channels of I/O for outboard EQ, Compression, FX. Is this possible with external converters... I'm unwilling to use the Digi converters. What's the max. # of I/O I can have with external converters????

So, give your opinions. Can I get a decent I/O going, is latency gonna kill me??

Anything else I should be considering??

Thanks in advance guys (and gals). I appreciate it!