I have two Presonus FP10’s and am able to record 16 tracks into a XP laptop. Occasionally there is a slight hesitation in the recorded tracks which I believe is due to the 5400 rpm laptop hard drive.
Would a 7200 USB2 external hard drive be able to transport enough data to record 16 tracks and play back while recording a few more?
Is there a way to monitor the hard drive to see if it is getting bogged down, like the cpu percent indicator in ntrack does for the processing power?
Thanks
Joseph
Quote: (Joseph @ Jan. 21 2010, 7:19 PM)
I have two Presonus FP10's and am able to record 16 tracks into a XP laptop.
Occasionally there is a slight hesitation in the recorded tracks which I believe is due to the 5400 rpm laptop hard drive.
Would a 7200 USB2 external hard drive be able to transport enough data to record 16 tracks and play back while recording a few more?
Is there a way to monitor the hard drive to see if it is getting bogged down, like the cpu percent indicator in ntrack does for the processing power?
Thanks
Joseph
If you don't mind us asking what type of laptop are you using?
I don't think an external USB hardrive is going to playback and be able to handle 16 tracks at the same time...although a lot of that would have to do with the laptop itself and the processor, and other settings.
Since the signal would still be going through that same system, same firewire input, same processor, you may end up with WORSE lag....adding the USB device....especially since you are wanting to play back (monitor) and record.
I have a laptop, and 7200rpm external USB and a ONYX 1620 that does 16 tracks at once...If I have time I will give it a try tomorrow and let you know how it turns out, but to be honest I already get pop outs and possibly lag on the laptop due to using a PCMCIA
firewire card instead of an integrated 6 pin firewire built into the laptop (the laptop only has 4 pin integrated)
IF you have a laptop with integrated firewire (6 pin) and a fast processor you may be better of installing a better hardrive that runs at 7200rmp, it is not that difficult and they even make drives that include packages that transfer all your data onto the new drive.
Like I said I will try it and let you know, but keep in mind my laptop may not yield the same results as yours.
In addition, if you have a dual processor or better and 6 pin integrated firewire there may be something else causing the delay....the word delay is not that specific, you could mean delay in your monitoring...delay (or better termed LAG) in the finished tracks when compared to previous tracks or a click track....which could be caused by various timing settings...for example you may need to use internal clock, wav. clock, or the clocks in the presonus', or that may need to be set to external...a few things to look into there....
keep shinin
jerm
If you are mot processing the sound ( adding effects real0time - I’m pretty sure a 7200 USB will work. If you want to process effects you might have better luck with a Firewire 7200 drive. I don’t think it is going to matter much as the hard drive is just playing/sending the save files to the computer and it is handling the 16 track plus whatever effects you had. I don’t know the engineering on this, but I can definitely record more tracks using my usb 7200 speed hard drive then I can using the laptops 5400 disk speed. I use mine to do upto 8 track (as many as I want to control at one time. Once recorded, I can mix more tracks but I never counted them.
Get the drive - if noting else you will have a good backup for your music
Bax
Here’s a program that can monitor your disk read/write speed.
You may be able to use it to compare 5400rpm vs. usb drive
Screen shot
(NOTE: requires NET 3.5)
Download http://www.softpedia.com/progDow…70.html
Ooh! Cheers 7
Thanks All,
I picked up a Seagate 7200rpm 1 terabyte USB2 drive this evening while out of town.
I.
will test it out on Sunday and let you know how it goes.
I expect it to do ok recording but I figure it might
have trouble playing back and recording overdubs.
I figure to do that I would do a mix down to stereo and just play that back while recording lead guitar or vocals or what ever.
That will be the real test if everything stays in sync.
Incidently the Presonus FP10’s are Firewire and the computer has the Firewire port built in. while recording the processor was only running at about 3.7%. I would not be doing any effects while recording or overdubbing. I add them when mixing.
I will look into replacing the laptop hard drive with a 7200 rpm drive but I am not so technically confident to go in a new computer and not mess things up.
Will report back on Sunday.
How is that going?
keep shinin
jerm
Quote: (Joseph @ Jan. 22 2010, 9:49 PM)
...I figure to do that I would do a mix down to stereo and just play that back while recording lead guitar or vocals or what ever.
Hard drive capabilities notwithstanding, I think this is a good tactic for tracking.
I like to create a new .sng file with just a stereo mix as a basis for tracking guitars & vocals in particular, since I always record a gazillion takes. SongXGuitar.sng, SongXLeadVox.sng etc...
Then I comp my takes within the sub .sng, delete all leftovers and bring the result back into the main .sng.
Maybe it's just me that's messy but I think it's much easier to keep things tidy this way
