I'm moving to a new practice space and losing the computer we used to use in my old band to record all our practices and do song arrangements. We had a G3 with a DIGI001, which was easy to use.

I'm looking to have some sort of digital recording, 8 inputs. The computer I have to do this with is a 1.8ghz single processor G5 running the latest version of OSX Tiger. It's got PCI slots, USB and FireWire (IEEE 1394).

Buying a DIGI002 would be great, but it costs about $800 right now. I'd like to spend less than that. Any suggestions on hardware/software recording packages?

So you're still wanting to record with a DAW?

skatingbasser wrote:So you're still wanting to record with a DAW?

Yes, for practices and arrangements. I want to be able to take the digital files and edit them in a software program. I don't really care so much about sound quality.

Well, there are many of the standalone digital recorders that have been phased out with the popularity of the DAW. They can be had used for a couple hundred, then you'd record on that and transfer them to your computer to edit/mix. Whenever I record and need a lot of inputs I'll sync up two units and do this.

I know about standalone digital interfaces. I would like a computer interface.

firepod?

If you can find one, you might like the rack version of the tascam fw 1804. Probably not the greatest thing in the world, but I got mine for less than 300 bucks right before they were discontinued. The presonus firepod is ok too, I think they're discontinued as well, but they're prolly all on ebay. I took the tascam over the presonus because i needed something to transfer my adats (gasp!) and it has the adat optical input. But the firepod has 8 mic pre's vs the trashcam's 4, which would cut down on the amount of gear you have cluttering up yr practice space. As far as software goes, I think the presonus comes with cubase or something, which is ok. I didn't bother installing whatever came with the tascam. Software wise, why not stick with garage band? If it's just for practices and arrangement experiments, it should be more than adequate.

As long as Garageband works with the hardware, I don't see an issue with using it.

The Firepod looks like the right one. Comes with Cubase, too. Only $400. That's about as much as I wanted to spend.

If you're familiar with Protools then why not look at Protools M-Powered, you should be able to get a cheaper M-Audio 8 channel interface than a digi002. Like a Delta 1010 PCI.

Oh, I didn't see your last post, Firepod's probably the way to go then.