So this guy wants to start up a studio. He has the Sony console, the Tascam recorders, the Neve pre's, a few outboard units (TC verb, etc...), and money for the location/DAW/extra equipment/a few months rent. He wants my acquaintence to run this run/engineer/produce/get coffee? at the completed studio dependably and full-time for a 50/50 sort of deal profitwise. My friend (we'll call him Chris) wants to use a DAW for the bulk of the editing/recording/etc...but these hardwares seem to be making the whole thing either overly complex, or simply not possible.

To give you an idea of what we're going for ideally, um...well here-

1) Use the console for live tracking and linking outboard effects.
2) Run all channels (separately) into the DAW at 24/96
3) Be able to run all channels (separately) out of DAW for external summing, etc...
4) USE the Tascam 2424's. (This seems unnecessary, since they only record 24 tracks at 24/96 for 50 minutes or so, but he already has two of them, and wants them to be utilized with or without a DAW.)

Chris and I figured it could be too complicated to have audio going in and out of the mixer, compy, and recorders. We would have to somehow sync it all up so that Cubase is recording every channel separately and writing/reading files to/from the Tascams, the Tascams are getting the pre-summing, post-fader/eq/inserts/DAW signal from the Sony or the computer, and the Sony is somehow contolling the transport, virtual faders, and (did I miss anything?).

The main idea here is an organized and relatively simple signal path with the ability to patch outboard processors quickly and creatively, a way to route audio tracks out and back into Cubase separately (is realtime asking too much?), and the ability to change projects quickly back and forth between clients without losing motivation ("hang on another 30 while I climb under the desk") or song data ("sorry I have a 2 o'clock, we'll have to delete your 2 hrs. of spoken word.").

So far I have mics> preamps(etc...)> mixer> DAW> mixer&recorders> monitors&mastering processors, repectively. But this does not seem to work very logically.

Aside from the awesomeness of this opportunity, it is a trifle frustrating, and a workable Cubased setup is a must for the simple fact that Chris is a master at Cubase, but not PT nor Logic nor 2-inch tape. Besides, this guy has a really nice Lexicon reverb unit and not much else (I think) in terms of effects. Plus, I am wary of a digital console of that caliber having been discontinued without the USB ever being activated or the glitches worked out. Digital mixers just scream "WARNING: technical support or user-serviceable parts!"

I'm not sure if there is a question there, but.