8 Track Laptop Recording

Sneddy wrote on 10/23/2007, 2:17 PM
Yesterday, I did an 8 track recording with my laptop (Core2 Duo, 2.16GHZ, 2 GB Ram, C Drive spinning at 7200rpm, XP Pro SP2 running Vegas 8a with a PreSonus FireStudio 44,100 16bit. I had no problems and was pleased with the results (jazz quartet including tenor and soprano sax). This was at a musicians home - very relaxed environemnt and nice quiet ambience. I stopped at the end of each tune and saved it. This took about 45 seconds. I have a live recording gig at at a jazz club in a week or so and would like opinions on whether its safe to record an hour and a half of music without stopping. I plan on backing up to ADAT (the FireBox passes audio even if the computer crashes). I have talked to the client and she is willing to let me save
three songs a file (probably 15-20 minutes of music). The drive I am saving the music to is a Maxtor USB2 spinning at 7200. I have esata drive capability
but don't own a esata drive. Would this make recording longer files safer if I used an esata drive. I noticed the waveforms stop showing on the monitor after a minute or so. Is that a settings issue or is this designed not to stress the cpu? Thank you in advance for any thoughts. Bob K.

Comments

RickZ wrote on 10/24/2007, 8:37 AM
Hi Bob,

I've been recording 6 channels at 96/24 with RME Multiface, with Vegas, to a Firewire drive, on a notebook PC, for several years with no problem. I'd be a little leery of USB connection, even though USB2 is much faster than original. I suspect that you'd have a more solid system with eSata, but that's a guess.

Best regards,
Rick Z
Sneddy wrote on 10/24/2007, 3:33 PM
Hi Rick,

Thanks for your input. I should probably get the esata drive - there is little downside. Thanks again, Bob K.