What Are The Chances Of Multitrack Recording?

[gibberish]

our band were planning to buy an 8 track to record some practices with, but it occurred to me that if pandora is powerful enough then we could just buy a (compatible) USB soundcard with 8 inputs and multitrack straight onto that (we already have a mixer we could use in conjunction)

i dont really know how much processing power is required for such a task so i guess my questions are:

1. does anyone know of any open source multi track software which could be ported to run on pandora?
2. can anybody give me an educated guess as to whether it would be powerful enough to record 8 (or more?) seperate tracks simultaneously into it?

and finally, if the answers to both the above questions are positive then what should i be looking for with regards a USB soundcard that could be compatible with the machine?

thanks

 

[mazza558]

1. does anyone know of any open source multi track software which could be ported to run on pandora?

Audacity does this quite well AFAIK

QUOTE

2. can anybody give me an educated guess as to whether it would be powerful enough to record 8 (or more?) seperate tracks simultaneously into it?



I can only guess, but the OMAP3 is a beast of a mobile processor so I would have thought so.

 

[gibberish]

1. does anyone know of any open source multi track software which could be ported to run on pandora?

Audacity does this quite well AFAIK


QUOTE
Record up to 16 channels at once (requires multi-channel hardware).


you're right, i never knew it was capable of that.
so thats that out the way, now i just need to know if pandora is powerful enough and if there is a usb soundcard which would work with it.

im assuming the soundcard driver would have to be open source and someone would need to port it, is that right?

 

[ish420]

Pandora is being praised as the do all end all portable device. We don't know that will be the case. It's all speculation at this point. Well, you'll have to wait to find out. You can buy your soundcard now and use it on a computer for now. When Pandora is released you can try it then. As for opensource software, I've used Audacity for something similar. As an alternative, you can build yourself a LAN box and have that as a portable studio. I build one for a musician friend of mine.

 

[lardman]

Things to check are the USB bandwidth (I know the spec, but does it actually manage those sorts of speeds) and the SD write speed to save whatever data you want to save.

 

[Babrios]

8 Tracks mono or stereo?

But anyway, for multitrack recording, something with a much bigger screen and bigger keys would be more desirable. Even if the Pandora turns out as powerful as many wish, for some tasks its small formfactor just makes it less suitable.

Found something to compare it with, might help getting perspective:

8 Tracks (stereo, I suppose) only just work on an eepc with an ssd, even when using the most efficient app for the purpose. (The Atom is much more powerful by the specs, and a purely assembly coded software comparable to SAWstudio does not exist in the Linux world)
See here: http://www.sawstudiouser.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7708

IMHO, U would be far better of with a second hand laptop. U can get a pretty good one for the money the Pandora costs you. Though, I suppose that's not what U want to hear.

 

[Mark1970]

our band were planning to buy an 8 track to record some practices with, but it occurred to me that if pandora is powerful enough then we could just buy a (compatible) USB soundcard with 8 inputs and multitrack straight onto that (we already have a mixer we could use in conjunction)

i dont really know how much processing power is required for such a task so i guess my questions are:

1. does anyone know of any open source multi track software which could be ported to run on pandora?
2. can anybody give me an educated guess as to whether it would be powerful enough to record 8 (or more?) seperate tracks simultaneously into it?

and finally, if the answers to both the above questions are positive then what should i be looking for with regards a USB soundcard that could be compatible with the machine?

thanks

Have you tried Garageband on the Mac?

 

[Drack]

our band were planning to buy an 8 track to record some practices with, but it occurred to me that if pandora is powerful enough then we could just buy a (compatible) USB soundcard with 8 inputs and multitrack straight onto that (we already have a mixer we could use in conjunction)

i dont really know how much processing power is required for such a task so i guess my questions are:

1. does anyone know of any open source multi track software which could be ported to run on pandora?
2. can anybody give me an educated guess as to whether it would be powerful enough to record 8 (or more?) seperate tracks simultaneously into it?

and finally, if the answers to both the above questions are positive then what should i be looking for with regards a USB soundcard that could be compatible with the machine?

thanks

Sure! You'd need a USB mixer though. Something like this: http://www.zzounds.com/item--ALEMM16USB20

 

[ish420]

Something a little different but cool
http://www.korg.com/gear/info.asp?a_prod_no=NanoSeries

 

[closetwam]

Buy a Dell laptop with a 17" screen, two Presonus Inspire audio interfaces, and install Ubuntu with a real-time kernel. Ardour FTW. Considering how much equipment a band already has to lug around, a big laptop isn't gonna be a hassle.

 

[mrpham]

I think the hype for the Pandora has sent too many members here into lala-land where every fragment of their imagination of what the Pandora could do distorts the reality of things.

Having a single track, uncompressed, RAW .WAV file stream captured by the Pandora will most likely have the SD card reader struggle to keep up with the write speeds required to keep the recordings seamless. But that's not out of the realm of possibility for the Pandora though.

What is borderlining fiction, however, is the notion of simultaneously recording multiple uncompressed tracks because it has 'sufficient CPU power'. This is a task often expensively paid for by machines put into RAID arrays to obtian high disk write speeds. Now if we're talking 2-3 tracks, OK, there's bound to be somebody with time on his/her hands here to try to convince everyone that they're the wiser with theoretical figures. I'm too lazy to argue other than to say that there's going to be a few disappointed folks around here when the Pandora comes about.

 

[sindbad]

With on-the-fly encoding to flac, it might be possible. Having the encoder use the DSP would also help.

 

[cb88]

I have a friend that is into some pretty heavy duty audio recording...

he also has bought a pandora (heh... when he gets his will probably be the first i actually see LOL)

he said that even a quad core can have trouble keeping up with the latencies required for realtime recording and mixing...

IMO and im no expert the DSP might be able to encode live to flac but when you start throwing multiple simultaneous streams at it you are bound to start getting sync issues between the tracks which makes any audio editing a PITB I imagine

 

[Pleng]

Honestly, if you're a musician, get a dedicated unit. They aren't that expensive and it feels so much better working with dedicated equipment. I'm sure you'll find ways of integrating the Pandora to add extra functionality (perhaps as an effects send, or to provide a couple of additional audio tracks, or maybe to integrate a tracker/sequencer with your work) but don't rely on it as your main recording system.

Sure! You'd need a USB mixer though. Something like this: http://www.zzounds.com/item--ALEMM16USB20




That wouldn't be much good for recording multiple instruments on to separate audio tracks; it only sends the master stereo output out via usb.

 

[ish420]

Don't rely on the Pandora for something of this nature. I found a Tascam digital 8 track recorder you may be interested in. It's not too high in price.
http://pro-audio.musiciansfriend.com/produ...udio?sku=241796

 

[gibberish]

ok chaps thanks for the input, i was sceptical but i thought i'd ask. looks like its a no go so i'll find another solution.

 

[sold]

If you are just recording live jams, check this out: http://www.zoom.co.jp/english/products/h2/

There are other brands making similar devices. If something like this fits the bill, they are a good inexpensive way to capture a practice session in a rehearsal room or other small space. And then you can just dump the audio onto your pc to store, edit or mess around with it if you want. Most, if not all of them also function as usb microphones which is cool as well.

Dedicated portable multitrack recorders are mostly crappy anyway. The interfaces are annoying, and often the built in effects are crap. Better off with a laptop and a decent audio interface imo. You can always add a small mixer through one of the audio interfaces inputs to mix levels for things that require multiple microphones like drum kits or room recordings. Something usb 2.0 with 4 inputs would probably be ideal, and could work with pandora as well if it becomes possible down the track.

 

[torpor]

Don't count the Pandora out in the digital audio realm, folks. There is a lot of power in this little box that can easily be pressed into service making music.

A lot of the multitrack boxes that people are suggesting you take a look at, are in fact using processors that are much, much slower than the Cortex A8. On a highly-optimized system (as these boxes are) you don't need a lot of processing power to get the 8-track recording job done.

I, for one, am mostly getting a Pandora to address the digital-audio issue. Because of the DSP and the general architecture of the Cortex A8/TI DSP configuration, personally I see the Pandora as a synthesis/effects system development platform on which I can also run games. To this end, I will be making as much progress as I can to turn my Pandora into a portable studio with effects, recording, and synthesis capabilities, as soon as possible ..

 

[sold]

Sweet. I've had my fingers crossed since the beginning that audio apps of a pro standard would be possible. Synth samples and VST instruments and effects especially. You think it's possible?

 

[WarmFluffyUK]

he said that even a quad core can have trouble keeping up with the latencies required for realtime recording and mixing...

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. If I was running a sound blaster (LAUGH) the latency would be somewhere in the line of 70ms or more.

I think though the bottleneck here would be not only the USB but also the writing of data to and from the SD cards or external hard drive.