Hi Tony

I know a drummer out here (Southern California) named Tony Moore...are you him? Maybe you guys come in six-packs (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy reference)

What kind of track count are you currently getting? If you're just recording for CD release, you could cut your sample rate/bit depth down to 16/44, that should give you some overhead for more tracks.

Another trick is you can strip silence out of audio tracks so a track that isn't playing anything doesn't take up processor overhead.

hey nate,

nope, i'm a lowly bassist. just as bad, eh? ;) but i did reside in southern california until migrating back east last year.

i can record 8 simultaneous and mix 10-14 withplug-insusing the internal hard drive. i'm planning on getting an external firewire harddrive. is there anything i can do to the settings to tweak more out of it? i haven't done anything yet other than partition the harddrive.

great advice on stripping the silence! i've been combining tracks (filling in the blanks) when possible and that certainly helps as well...

thanks!

tony

Hi Tony

Faster drives will give you better performance. Notebook drives are usually slower, 4200 or 5400 rpm drive. If you can get a 7200 rpm drive, that will help. Also, an ATA 100 or 133 drive will give you good performance.

I have an ATA 100, 7200 RPM drive that I can get into the mid 30s track count with at 16/44.

thanks nate. i think i'm going to buy one of those firewire hard drive boxes so i can swap drives if needed.

what's your take on these hard drives that are marketed for audio? ie, glyph and pacific pro audio. is there really a difference between them and the normal hard drives i can buy from my local computer store? note, i'm talking 7200 ide drives that i'll put into an external firewire box.

thanks!

tony

Hi Tony

I've always just bought raw drives ( [[url=http://[/URL]="http://dealmac.com"]DealMac[/]="http://dealmac.com"]DealMac[/] is a good source) and put them in enclosures with the Oxford 911 chipset. You don't get quite the performance of an internal drive but its quite acceptable.

wow nate, i need to guy you a beer or something! :)

last q, i promise... i went to dealmac and found some great stuff. i was under the impression i needed to buy a box that had 2 firewire ports so i could daisychain it with my ibook and the motu. is this correct?

there is a cool dual box that has 2 ports, but i assume each port is for each drive. it's here: [[url=http://[/URL]="http://www.superpcp…"]dual firewire box from dealmac[/]="http://www.superpcp…"]dual firewire box from dealmac[/]

thanks for everything!

tony

Hi Tony

Firewire is a daisy chain sort of thing but as long as you have two firewire ports anywhere, you'll be able to connect stuff together. I think the 896 has two ports so you'll be good to go even if you get an enclosure with a single port.