What Are The Chances Of Multitrack Recording?

[gibberish]

Sorry I don't believe that for a second, I have an old AthlonXP running at 2Ghz. Audo software is Sonar and that runs fantastic with all sorts of VST Plugins and virtual instruments running and it has a latency of 5ms. This has more to do with the sound card which is an M-Audio Audiophile 2496.

you're talking about something different. you cant record 8 audio tracks simultaneously with an audiophile 2496. you're talking about having a combination of 8 vsti/audio/midi channels playing simultaneously, whilst perhaps recording one more live - which requires a lot less power.

 

[tazg]

why is everyone so skeptical of the handheld being powerful enough for this? If you're using an external sound card, how would it be so taxing on the computer? what am I missing? I thought you'd just need fast enough storage to take in the stream.

 

[cb88]

could be the lack of VST support on linux .... don't those only work on windows?

why am i skeptical linux is designed for high throughput not low latency (although there are low latency patches none i've ever heard of reach the same latencies as even windows)... and also the SD write speed would be an issue since there isn't really enough ram to cache all that much

 

[WarmFluffyUK]

you're talking about something different. you cant record 8 audio tracks simultaneously with an audiophile 2496. you're talking about having a combination of 8 vsti/audio/midi channels playing simultaneously, whilst perhaps recording one more live - which requires a lot less power.

Ah yes, you're correct

 

[Pleng]

why is everyone so skeptical of the handheld being powerful enough for this? If you're using an external sound card, how would it be so taxing on the computer? what am I missing? I thought you'd just need fast enough storage to take in the stream.

I think people are more weary of advising 'yes, the Pandora will definitely be able to do this', that skeptical of the Pandora actually being able to do the job.

There's a big difference between being able to do a job, and actually doing it. Then, of course, your faced with the task of doing it well. Or at least well enough to make it a viable alternative to something like the dedicated devices such as Korg's D-Series, the Boss BR range, the Zoom MRS units, or those on offer from Tascam and Fostex.

 

[conso]

could be the lack of VST support on linux .... don't those only work on windows?

why am i skeptical linux is designed for high throughput not low latency (although there are low latency patches none i've ever heard of reach the same latencies as even windows)... and also the SD write speed would be an issue since there isn't really enough ram to cache all that much

archlinux + rt-kernel + lmms

 

[torpor]

USB 1 can already do 8 channels (mono) of audio. No sweat there. As long as the machine can drive it, USB can easily do multitrack audio. And this machine can drive it.

Just wait for the apps to trickle out .. I know a few music-app writing guys who are into this box in a big way ..

 

[closetwam]

All i can tell you is that my 2.0ghz pentium 4 with 1gb ram has no trouble recording 8 tracks simultaneously to my 300GB USB2 LaCie drive. This is because the CPU does NOT handle the encoding and decoding of the audio. This is handled by my M-Audio Delta 1010LT audio interface. Jack over ALSA reports 0 xruns, latency is under 7ms with a realtime kernel. So how much RAW audio information is the processor supposed to move from the audioe interface to the hard drive?

8channels x 48,000hz x 24bits = 9,216,000bits/8=1,152,000bytes/1,048,576=1.0986328125Mebibytes/s

That's within the USB 1.0 specification of 1.5 MB/s and well within the USB 2.0 spec of 60 MB/s

I'm sticking my neck out and saying that I don't think the Pandora will have any trouble keeping up, as long as the software is available.

 

[Mjlink]

OOTB I see 44.1 Stereo recording being the norm, this isn't pro tools.

8 track with such little RAM? Not sure how sweet the software is, but it could muddle down the CPUs. lots of data being thrown around uncompressed and overwhelming.

I am not a musician or techy, I just bootleg with binaural mics & minidisc for the last ten years.

I'll be shocked if the Pandora can handle this. I recommend the Tascam 8 track.

 

[torpor]

The Pandora is going to be able to handle this, easily. Lesser machines have been able to do so for years, and they're still kicking it in the studios.

Don't let your PC-metrics derived opinion lead you to make wrong conclusions. 8 channels of mono Audio @ 44.1khz is *easily* do'able with the specs of the Pandora. *Easy*.