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[bigwhig]

I am very interested in purchasing a motu 828 for use with my new ibook 500, but am curious about performance issues.. Will there be limitations compared to a G4 powerbook (such as multitrack use) because of the limited bus speed (66mhz) on the ibook as well as the 4200 Rpm hard drive and 256k on board cache (instead of the powerbooks 1mb on board)..
I know I can compensate somewhat with lots of Ram...but Basically I want to know if its wise to use the motu 828 with an ibook?
Thank you for your advice in this matter..

[DigitMus]

I'm using the 828 with my iBook and it seems to be just fine. I suppose the limitations would depend on what you want to do with it. If you plan on doing 32+ channels of audio with lots of plug-ins and edits, the Ti Powerbook might serve you better. Don't forget you can always bounce multiple tracks with all the edits & plugs to stereo then keep adding tracks. Also, a firewire HD with a passthrough port will give you better disk performance (it's always better to record audio to a different drive than the one running your system). According to Roger Nichols & others on the pro recording forums, a fast firewire HD with the Oxford chipset pairs up very nicely with the 828.

Scott

[symota]

if you're plugging your motu 828 through the firewire....how do you plug in a fire wire HD?

[bigwhig]

Good ? Sym.. DIgibus answer PLZ.. By the way I bought a powerbook so no issues now , but I'd like to know how daisy chaining a hard drive off the motu will work..
bigwhig

[DigitMus]

RE: How do you plug the HD in? Easy, plug the HD into the iBook & the 828 into the HD (all the Firewire drives I've seen or used have 2 ports). OR get a Firewire hub & plug both into it.
>bigwhig : Doesn't the TiPowerbook have 2 firewire ports? At any rate, just make sure to get a fast (7200RPM) Firewire drive with an extra (pass through) port & make sure it uses the Oxford chipset.
Scott

[kishori]

I am using an ibook for recording, but I'm always on the road. I can't use the motu 828 'cause it's too big. Is there anything smaller that uses firewire? Also, are there any pocket hard drives which have a higher speed than 5400rpm? What is the best out there? I also read that the transfer speed is not dependent on the speed of the drive but on the firewire bridge speed which won't be as fast as the ibook's internal hard drive speed. Please clarify this for me. Thanks.

[melta]

I have an 828 and G4 laptop and I too am anoyed at the size of the soundcard, it makes a rediculous bundle. Check out the 'USBpre' (search) 2 channel card, its for the film industry, so its only 2 channel, but its XLR, phantom and has MS too and it's bus powered. Its looks ideal for porta-recording. But its about £500..
Also emagic do a 4 channel (I think) bus powered sound card, which is cheaper(but no XLR's).
As for HD speeds, as far as I know, the Firewire bridge becomes an issue with HD's that are not true Firewire, but they use an inbuilt converter/bridge which is slow. So you need to look into the details of the HD in question.
Hope thats of help.

[symota]

Actually, I just saw in my Musician's Friend catalog, that DigiDesign and Foscrite (Sp?) have teamed up and put out a two channel USB devise that has NO latency problems! And I think it runs somewhere around $300 or $400. Looks pretty sweet to me. XLR and 1/4' inputs, monitor outs, headphone outs...etc. And it has Foscrite pre-amps!!! That makes it worth it's weight in gold. Anyways...I forget the name of it...so if anyone finds it on the web, let me know the link.

[kishori]

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[melta]

Had a look into this area, some lists of soundcards available :
http://www.pcrecording.com/soundtable.htm
http://www.emt.net.au/audio_interfaces.htm
And that digidesign card sounds interesting, but the info on it is so poncy, its hard to just suss out the basics of it, its $500 or £500. (UK prices suck.):
http://www.digitalvillage.co.uk/aproduct.a...?ProductID=2743