Recording 12+ analog channels on a PC at 192KHz/24-bit. Is..

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

I have a friend who has a home studio. He's enlisted my help in
building a new PC to use for recording.

He needs to record 12 or more _analog_ channels simultaneously on a PC
at 192KHz/24-bit.

I've been researching the current PC based recording hardware
technology and I'm not sure that this is even possible.

12+ analog channels at 192/24 produces a huge volume of data. This
data has to come into the PC over the PCI bus, and at the same time, be
moved stored on the hard drive. It seems to me that the PCI bus and/or
the IDE bus would present an insurmountable bottleneck.

Is anyone out there doing this? If so, what exact hardware are you
using, both PC hardware and recording hardware. I'd really like to
know.

I'm confused about external A/D converter units (like the FireFace) vs.
internal units like the Hammerfall series.
Which are people using, and why?

Are people using Windows XP?

What actual recording/editing software is up to this task?

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

Sure it is certainly possible, but there are a few issues at play- first of
all, on a PC, if you are recording ASIO, you need a *really* powerful CPU.
I would recommend a P4 Extreme chip on at least a 800MHz FSB. You'll also
want a couple gigs of memory. Second, you want fast drives.. If you are
using IDE, run a RAID-0 array. If you are going SATA, any drive will likely
be fine, but the 10K RPM Raptors are pretty sweet.

The way things work, you are more likely to have issues with CPU while
recording because of ASIO's need to reserve a certain amount of CPU for
recording.

--Ben

--
Benjamin Maas
Fifth Circle Audio
Los Angeles, CA
http/www.fifthcircle.com

please remove "nospam" upon reply

"William Krick" <wkrick@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1121466399.193405.113540@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>I have a friend who has a home studio. He's enlisted my help in
> building a new PC to use for recording.
>
> He needs to record 12 or more _analog_ channels simultaneously on a PC
> at 192KHz/24-bit.
>
> I've been researching the current PC based recording hardware
> technology and I'm not sure that this is even possible.
>
> 12+ analog channels at 192/24 produces a huge volume of data. This
> data has to come into the PC over the PCI bus, and at the same time, be
> moved stored on the hard drive. It seems to me that the PCI bus and/or
> the IDE bus would present an insurmountable bottleneck.
>
> Is anyone out there doing this? If so, what exact hardware are you
> using, both PC hardware and recording hardware. I'd really like to
> know.
>
> I'm confused about external A/D converter units (like the FireFace) vs.
> internal units like the Hammerfall series.
> Which are people using, and why?
>
> Are people using Windows XP?
>
> What actual recording/editing software is up to this task?
>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

this is all about harddrive speed.

a pair of 15,000rpm scsi drives in a raid-o configuration is your best
bet. or should i say, your only hope?

help me obi-wan, you're our only hope

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

William Krick <wkrick@gmail.com> wrote:
>I have a friend who has a home studio. He's enlisted my help in
>building a new PC to use for recording.
>
>He needs to record 12 or more _analog_ channels simultaneously on a PC
>at 192KHz/24-bit.

Why? Why would he ever need that fast a sampling rate?
--scott


--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

In article <1121466399.193405.113540@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com> wkrick@gmail.com writes:

> I have a friend who has a home studio. He's enlisted my help in
> building a new PC to use for recording.
>
> He needs to record 12 or more _analog_ channels simultaneously on a PC
> at 192KHz/24-bit.

> 12+ analog channels at 192/24 produces a huge volume of data.

That's true. Is he crazy, or is he recording something other than the
kind of audio that most of us deal with here?

RME is probably the best place to look, but don't just go to their web
site, contact a knowledgable dealer or rep and ask him for a solution.
They have an 8-channel 192 kHz MADI-AES interface but it's not clear
that their MADI PC card will handle 16 channels at 192 kHz. If it
will, then perhaps a MADI card, two of those converters, and a set of
preamps with AES/EBU outputs would do the trick. But it isn't going to
be cheap.

> data has to come into the PC over the PCI bus, and at the same time, be
> moved stored on the hard drive. It seems to me that the PCI bus and/or
> the IDE bus would present an insurmountable bottleneck.

It would certainly be pushing the limits.

> I'm confused about external A/D converter units (like the FireFace) vs.
> internal units like the Hammerfall series.
> Which are people using, and why?

It's a matter of choice, budget, and flexibility. You need analog
inputs, so you need to put an A/D converter somewhere. It can be as
part of the mic preamp, it can be part of the computer interface, or
it can be a stand-alone unit.

> Are people using Windows XP?

Yes. Many.

> What actual recording/editing software is up to this task?

I'd look at SADIE, but that's a pretty big task.

Does it have to be a real PC? Is is sufficient to get the audio data
on disk as files (which can be played back or processed later)? If
that approach would work, the RADAR V Digital might be a good
approach. It records up to 24 tracks at 192 kHz and has AES/EBU
inputs. If there's a "double wire 96 kHz" version of AES/EBU now (and
I'm not sure of this) you could record 12 channels with that, and
you can have your choice of many A/D converters that pump out 192 kHz.

It takes all kinds, and people have strange requirements for things
that they don't tell us about, so we think they're crazy. But for now,
I think your friend is crazy.



--
I'm really Mike Rivers (mrivers@d-and-d.com)
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me here: double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

"William Krick" <wkrick@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1121466399.193405.113540@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com

> I have a friend who has a home studio. He's enlisted my
help in
> building a new PC to use for recording.

> He needs to record 12 or more _analog_ channels
simultaneously
> on a PC at 192KHz/24-bit.

Need? More likely *wants*.

> I've been researching the current PC based recording
hardware
> technology and I'm not sure that this is even possible.

12 x 23/192 doesn't seem beyond reason. It's the same basic
problem as 48 channels of 24/48. I've done about half that
with an entirely conventional setup.

> 12+ analog channels at 192/24 produces a huge volume of
data.

I get just under 7 megabytes a second, which is not all that
much by modern standards. See below.

> This data has to come into the PC over the PCI bus, and at
the
> same time, be moved stored on the hard drive.

The common 32 bit PCI bus is easily good for at least 132
megabytes per second. 33 MHz * 4 bytes.

Modern PCs can have more than one PCI bus per motherboard,
and they put a number of what may seem to be PCI devices on
other independent data paths.

Check out the illustration of an Athlon-64 motherboard at
for example

http/techreport.com/reviews/2004q2/via-k8t800pro/index.x?pg=1

Note that the PCI bus has a private path to the south bridge
chip that is independent of the hard drives, independent of
the USB interface(s), independent of the graphics board,
independent of any PCI express devices, etc.

Now, lets talk a second about the capacity of the current
PCI bus standards:

http/www.techfest.com/hardware/bus/pci.htm

"PCI implements a 32-bit multiplexed Address and Data bus
(AD[31:0]). It architects a means of supporting a 64-bit
data bus through a longer connector slot, but most of
today's personal computers support only 32-bit data
transfers through the base 32-bit PCI connector. At 33 MHz,
a 32-bit slot supports a maximum data transfer rate of 132
MBytes/sec, and a 64-bit slot supports 264 MBytes/sec."

> It seems to me
> that the PCI bus and/or the IDE bus would present an
> insurmountable bottleneck.

As they say, do the math. ;-)

> Is anyone out there doing this? If so, what exact
hardware
> are you using, both PC hardware and recording hardware.
I'd
> really like to know.

I've done 24 channels of 24/48 with 3 M-Audio Delta 1010
cards and regular IDE drives. I did not perceive that I was
anywhere near the practical limit. I should try 24 24/96
channels with this setup some time just for grins and
giggles.

> I'm confused about external A/D converter units (like the
> FireFace) vs. internal units like the Hammerfall series.
> Which are people using, and why?

Interal A/Ds have the advantage of eliminating the cost of
another data bus. The converters have a direct path to the
PCI bus.

> Are people using Windows XP?

Sure, why not?

> What actual recording/editing software is up to this task?

I was using Audition. Audition supports streaming data to 2
logical hard drives at one time. With a simple cheap RAID
IDE subsystem (striping), there are up to 2 physical drives
implementating each logical drive, for a total of 4 drives.
That's only 1.75 megabyte per second per drive which is
almost idling for a modern hard drive.

7 megabytes per second is easily within the performance
envelope of a single larger IDE drive.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

FWIW, I've done it with the Lynx AES-16 card. Works flawlessless in Sequoia
with the setup I mentioned earlier.

--Ben

--
Benjamin Maas
Fifth Circle Audio
Los Angeles, CA
http/www.fifthcircle.com

please remove "nospam" upon reply
"Mike Rivers" <mrivers@d-and-d.com> wrote in message
news:znr1121470711k@trad...
>
> In article <1121466399.193405.113540@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>
> wkrick@gmail.com writes:
>
>> I have a friend who has a home studio. He's enlisted my help in
>> building a new PC to use for recording.
>>
>> He needs to record 12 or more _analog_ channels simultaneously on a PC
>> at 192KHz/24-bit.
>
>> 12+ analog channels at 192/24 produces a huge volume of data.
>
> That's true. Is he crazy, or is he recording something other than the
> kind of audio that most of us deal with here?
>
> RME is probably the best place to look, but don't just go to their web
> site, contact a knowledgable dealer or rep and ask him for a solution.
> They have an 8-channel 192 kHz MADI-AES interface but it's not clear
> that their MADI PC card will handle 16 channels at 192 kHz. If it
> will, then perhaps a MADI card, two of those converters, and a set of
> preamps with AES/EBU outputs would do the trick. But it isn't going to
> be cheap.
>
>> data has to come into the PC over the PCI bus, and at the same time, be
>> moved stored on the hard drive. It seems to me that the PCI bus and/or
>> the IDE bus would present an insurmountable bottleneck.
>
> It would certainly be pushing the limits.
>
>> I'm confused about external A/D converter units (like the FireFace) vs.
>> internal units like the Hammerfall series.
>> Which are people using, and why?
>
> It's a matter of choice, budget, and flexibility. You need analog
> inputs, so you need to put an A/D converter somewhere. It can be as
> part of the mic preamp, it can be part of the computer interface, or
> it can be a stand-alone unit.
>
>> Are people using Windows XP?
>
> Yes. Many.
>
>> What actual recording/editing software is up to this task?
>
> I'd look at SADIE, but that's a pretty big task.
>
> Does it have to be a real PC? Is is sufficient to get the audio data
> on disk as files (which can be played back or processed later)? If
> that approach would work, the RADAR V Digital might be a good
> approach. It records up to 24 tracks at 192 kHz and has AES/EBU
> inputs. If there's a "double wire 96 kHz" version of AES/EBU now (and
> I'm not sure of this) you could record 12 channels with that, and
> you can have your choice of many A/D converters that pump out 192 kHz.
>
> It takes all kinds, and people have strange requirements for things
> that they don't tell us about, so we think they're crazy. But for now,
> I think your friend is crazy.
>
>
>
> --
> I'm really Mike Rivers (mrivers@d-and-d.com)
> However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
> lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
> you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
> and reach me here: double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

"Scott Dorsey" <kludge@panix.com> wrote in message news:db9jab$52v$1@panix2.panix.com...
> William Krick <wkrick@gmail.com> wrote:
> >I have a friend who has a home studio. He's enlisted my help in
> >building a new PC to use for recording.
> >
> >He needs to record 12 or more _analog_ channels simultaneously on a PC
> >at 192KHz/24-bit.
>
> Why? Why would he ever need that fast a sampling rate?
> --scott


He doesn't really "need" to, he just *wants* to. ;-)

DM

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

Maybe he hears the holes in the swiss cheese ........ I know I do.

I was just transfering some more vinyl and even through the benchmark
the mids and imaging are just not there on the playback compared to the
source. It's better at 96 but still not quite right.

Can't fault him for wanting better quality........ Well then again I
sure was kicked in the teeth for that.

VB

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

If no one has mentioned it yet check out the combination of a Lynx Aurora 16
and Lynx AES16 card.
http/www.lynxstudio.com/aurora/index.html

--
John L Rice
Drummer@ImJohn.com

"William Krick" <wkrick@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1121466399.193405.113540@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>I have a friend who has a home studio. He's enlisted my help in
> building a new PC to use for recording.
>
> He needs to record 12 or more _analog_ channels simultaneously on a PC
> at 192KHz/24-bit.
>
> I've been researching the current PC based recording hardware
> technology and I'm not sure that this is even possible.
>
> 12+ analog channels at 192/24 produces a huge volume of data. This
> data has to come into the PC over the PCI bus, and at the same time, be
> moved stored on the hard drive. It seems to me that the PCI bus and/or
> the IDE bus would present an insurmountable bottleneck.
>
> Is anyone out there doing this? If so, what exact hardware are you
> using, both PC hardware and recording hardware. I'd really like to
> know.
>
> I'm confused about external A/D converter units (like the FireFace) vs.
> internal units like the Hammerfall series.
> Which are people using, and why?
>
> Are people using Windows XP?
>
> What actual recording/editing software is up to this task?
>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

Just FYI and FWIW :

My newest DAW is :
WinXP Pro SP2
ASUS NCCH-DL motherboard with two 2.8 GHz 800 Mhz FSB Xeon procs
1 gig ECC RAM
UAD-1 and AES16 cards on the 32 bit PCI buss
Adaptec 29160 SCSI card on the 64 bit PCI buss
lots of SCSI drives.
Cubase SX3

My fastest setup is two IBM 10k RPM drives in a software RAID 0. On these
drives I was able to record and playback 56 tracks with out drop outs etc.

Keep in mind I only had 8 channels of converters at the time so the PCI buss
activity was a lot less when recording then it would of been if I had 56
channels of inputs ( 7 times the data streaming into the PC ) I would think
that more actual inputs would reduce the amount of tracks I can do at least
a little but on this motherboard i have my digital audio I/O card and hard
drive interface card on separate busses so it might not make a huge
difference.

--
John L Rice
Drummer@ImJohn.com

"William Krick" <wkrick@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1121466399.193405.113540@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>I have a friend who has a home studio. He's enlisted my help in
> building a new PC to use for recording.
>
> He needs to record 12 or more _analog_ channels simultaneously on a PC
> at 192KHz/24-bit.
>
> I've been researching the current PC based recording hardware
> technology and I'm not sure that this is even possible.
>
> 12+ analog channels at 192/24 produces a huge volume of data. This
> data has to come into the PC over the PCI bus, and at the same time, be
> moved stored on the hard drive. It seems to me that the PCI bus and/or
> the IDE bus would present an insurmountable bottleneck.
>
> Is anyone out there doing this? If so, what exact hardware are you
> using, both PC hardware and recording hardware. I'd really like to
> know.
>
> I'm confused about external A/D converter units (like the FireFace) vs.
> internal units like the Hammerfall series.
> Which are people using, and why?
>
> Are people using Windows XP?
>
> What actual recording/editing software is up to this task?
>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

In article <gtSdnf3-v5pBC0XfRVn-sw@comcast.com> benmaas@fifthnospamcircle.com writes:

> FWIW, I've done it with the Lynx AES-16 card. Works flawlessless in Sequoia
> with the setup I mentioned earlier.

Good thought. For 192 kHz, you'd need to run it "double wide" for two
channel pairs rather than four pairs on each connector, so I guess it
would require two AES-16 cards. I supppose that would work.

My L22 card does 192 kHz, as does my Mackie Onyx 800R preamp. I
should try it some time, but I don't think I have any software loaded
on that computer (the famous Win98 PII box) that knows about 192 kHz.



--
I'm really Mike Rivers (mrivers@d-and-d.com)
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me here: double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

 

[electro]

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

Use Steinbergs Nuendo3 which supports 192Khz sampling rate. You want a
dual CPU AMD Opteron system and two super fast 10,000 RPM SATAII hard
drives (you should easily be able to record 6 192Khz tracks per hard
drive) (Nuendo lets you select a unique hard drive directory for each
audio track! RME brand ASIO cards that support 192Khz are the Firewire
interface called Fireface and the PCI interface called HDSP-9632. This
will do the trick at low latency and shouldn't even be that CPU
intensive if you don't have alot of native FX running.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

"Mike Rivers" <mrivers@d-and-d.com> wrote in message
news:znr1121516502k@trad...
>
> In article <gtSdnf3-v5pBC0XfRVn-sw@comcast.com>
> benmaas@fifthnospamcircle.com writes:
>
>> FWIW, I've done it with the Lynx AES-16 card. Works flawlessless in
>> Sequoia
>> with the setup I mentioned earlier.
>
> Good thought. For 192 kHz, you'd need to run it "double wide" for two
> channel pairs rather than four pairs on each connector, so I guess it
> would require two AES-16 cards. I supppose that would work.
>
> My L22 card does 192 kHz, as does my Mackie Onyx 800R preamp. I
> should try it some time, but I don't think I have any software loaded
> on that computer (the famous Win98 PII box) that knows about 192 kHz.
>
>

Hi Mike,

I'm 'pretty sure' that the Lynx AES16 can do 16 channels of 192kHz on a
single card in single wire mode but I haven't tried it or researched it in
particular. more info at :
http/www.lynxstudio.com/aes16specifications.html

--
John L Rice
Drummer@ImJohn.com

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

In article <1121532146.839433.132810@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com> electro77@hotmail.com writes:

> Use Steinbergs Nuendo3 which supports 192Khz sampling rate. You want a
> dual CPU AMD Opteron system and two super fast 10,000 RPM SATAII hard
> drives (you should easily be able to record 6 192Khz tracks per hard
> drive)

The "should be" is a bit suspicious. You have this setup and are
recording 12+ tracks at 192 kHz right now, right? So that's how you
know?

I'd be mighty disappointed if I spent all of that money to find out
that it doesn't work. Probably the original poster's friend would,
too.


--
I'm really Mike Rivers (mrivers@d-and-d.com)
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me here: double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

In article <11dii0dm64h2c0a@corp.supernews.com> Drummer@ImJohn.com writes:

> I'm 'pretty sure' that the Lynx AES16 can do 16 channels of 192kHz on a
> single card in single wire mode

I wasn't aware that there was any hardware yet that supported
single-wire 192 kHz, but it seems that the Lynx Aurora does. So I
guess the simple answer to the original poster's question is the
combination of a Lynx Aurora 16 A/D/A converter and AES-16 coputer
interface card. But before I plunked down my money, I'd look the
dealer (or Mr. Lynx) in the eye and say "Can I really run 16 channels
at 192 kHz with this system?"




--
I'm really Mike Rivers (mrivers@d-and-d.com)
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me here: double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

GPS for bats?

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

"Mike Rivers" <mrivers@d-and-d.com> wrote in message...

> But before I plunked down my money, I'd look the
> dealer (or Mr. Lynx) in the eye and say "Can I really run 16 channels
> at 192 kHz with this system?"


I'm still wondering why *anyone* would want to record at 192K. (?)

Even after finally getting into ProFools, everyone I know with concern
about their product, runs at 24 bit 44.1. (Plus, they're almost all being
fed by 192 interfaces).


DM

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

On Sat, 16 Jul 2005 00:26:39 +0200, William Krick wrote:
> He needs to record 12 or more _analog_ channels simultaneously on a PC
> at 192KHz/24-bit.

Before finding technical solutions: WHY What benefits he is expecting to
make the extra storage space, processing time etc. worthwile.

> 12+ analog channels at 192/24 produces a huge volume of data. This data
> has to come into the PC over the PCI bus, and at the same time, be moved
> stored on the hard drive. It seems to me that the PCI bus and/or the
> IDE bus would present an insurmountable bottleneck.

12 channels 192/24 produce about 7MByte/sec if stored as 24 bit,
9.5MByte/sec if stored as 32bit float. This amount is no problem for
modern (BIG) IDE drives. Even the slowest version (33Mhz/32bit) of the PCI
bus can handle it blindfolded.

> Is anyone out there doing this? If so, what exact hardware are you
> using, both PC hardware and recording hardware. I'd really like to
> know.

I'm not in for 192/24, but the timing of my last backup from IDE to an
external firewire disk was better than 20MByte/sec

I do think there is no technical problem in the datarate, but I would
strongly advice not to try it.

--
Chel van Gennip
Visit Serg van Gennip's site http/www.serg.vangennip.com

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

In article <YaeCe.2412$2h1.1053@trnddc05> mams@NOSPAm-a-m-s.com writes:

> I'm still wondering why *anyone* would want to record at 192K. (?)

Yes, after all this razzing, the original poster has been silent.
Maybe he's trying to find out what his buddy is really after?


--
I'm really Mike Rivers (mrivers@d-and-d.com)
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me here: double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo