Possible portable setup for live recording of rock bands

[no-xplode]

Hi there,

I was thinking of this setup for mobile recording of live gigs and some studio use. Typical rock bands. Max 16 ch. for now. The list follows:


Latest Macbook Pro 17"
Logic 8
Lynx LT-FW + Aurora 16 (main interface)
Sonnet Tempo™ SATA ExpressCard/34 + suitable large capacity fast-rpm e-SATA drive for recording audio
Suitable preamps
Suitable mic splitters (etc PA stuff)

Apogee Duet (only for the studio) running Firewire

Can this setup be consinder stable? Is the e-SATA way a reliable way to record 16 channel at the same time, say 48KHz/24bit into Logic? Are there any possible back-up methods with this setup? Is there any gear missing from the list?

I was thinking of going with an Apogee Symphony setup but its too many $$ for me now.

Thank you

[Jimbo]

Just so you know, you don't need eSATA. At 44/48 you could easily do 16, and many more, tracks to an external FW400 drive.

Additionally, you don't need much computing power to get those tracks to disk. I record 16 tracks at 44/48 with my old G4 iBook, to an external FW400 drive without problems.

The reason I mention this stuff is that unless you want the Macbook Pro for use outside of audio, or plan to use it to mix tracks, you can easily get away with using a regular Macbook and FW400/800.

I hope this helps.

[no-xplode]

I am also going to mix the recorded tracks as you said, which means lots of Vst's, for sure drumagog's etc. Thanks for your reply

[valleysound]

I have a G4 Powerbook and can easily record 24+ tracks onto a firewire 400, 7200 rpm hard-drive, so you can save money on the e-Sata system. And to save more money for your bckup recorder, look into the Metric Halo interfaces.