How many channels can firewire run?

[ExistanceMusic]

Hey kids, long time no see, been away for a little while travelling around aus, back in melbourne again, doing a-lot of live work still.

the question I'm asking here, I've been looking at alot of firewire interfaces for my laptop, and they only seem to offer a max of 18 tracks, if you use ADAT and S/PDIF into whatever the interface already has.
I am working with several huge latin bands right now (one 16pc, the other 18pc) which include alot of percussion that will need to be tracked.
Are there any interfaces out there that can be linked together to provide a larger number of tracks?
I'm only just missing out, I could probably get away with 24 tracks for either band, but there is nothing that I can find that can deal with it, and lugging a desctop computer around isn't a preferred option!

Is the track count limited by the firewire interface itself, or is there just not enough demand for it at the moment? I guess most rock stuff could easily get away with 18 in at once, but not me

[Dr. Cuso]

I highly recomend RME products, their drivers are simply the best, very trustable

Fireface 800 is the new product of the family

PCMCIA Multiface is excellent too.

Take few minutes and read this link from the SAWStudio forum, it will help you a lot.

Alex

[studjo]

just recorded 18 tracks in punch mode into a FW drive - I think I could go way over 24 channels punch mode

Jo

[JonCraig]

i believe mlan can theoretically handle some 100+ tracks, though that's in theory, and we all know how that goes. answers should be available @ www.mlancentral.com

--jon

[ExistanceMusic]

Sweet, that Fireface looks exactly what I'm after, plus a cool, cool unit to boot, unfortunatly, it looks like the drivers are only available for PC, which doesn't help me out, my mac is a G4 iBook maxed out. I have emailed RME for clarification, but this does seem to be the case.
The fact of it's existance does answer my question though, as it will run up to 28 discrete tracks in at once, very, very cool indeed. Wonder if it's available over here yet.....

[Trp]

I was told by RME that the Mac driver will be out late September (instead of mid august, as announced earlier).

Pretty annoying for me, because I have my fireface sitting in my rack ready to be hooked up to my G5 and my outboard gear

[ExistanceMusic]

does anyone know the approximate retail of the fireface compares to, say, a MOTU 2408 or a digi002R? Any currency will do, I just want to see how it compares.

[ExistanceMusic]

actually, ignore that, I just called the aussie distributor, apparently this beast is going for around $2999AU, rrp, so I'm imagining it could be had for $2699 without too much haggling....only $500 more than a 002-R, and 10x more usefull besides.
As for OSX support, the developer of the drivers was at a trade show with our distributer on the weekend, and he apparently was saying the drivers a only a week away at most....so great news there!

I'll be saving my pennies for this one I think, it seems to be the only interface on the market right now that will do what I need, plus it's a fair price to boot.
Just have to figure out what program to use with it, I'm kind of attached to PT but sick of being held back by their hardware.