music production for band...

hi, ive recently bought a soundcraft e12 mixing desk and want to get a mac for recording into.
now, i need help in deciding which type of mac is going to best suit me...

so: im going to be using emagic logic and want a system thats going to be able to handle at least 8 simultaneous inputs (drum kit recording with a mic set i have)..im not sure whether this is even possible from this desk (as im still waiting on delivery!!) but is it best to get a desktop or a laptop? id presume a desktop mac would be better but i have no idea why...im guessing.
anyway, in short, if anyone has any knowledge of how to go about recording from this desk into a mac id be much appreciative of ANY help.


thanks everyone!
rob

All things being equal, a desktop machine will be better for the following reasons.

- More HDD capacity (several TBs as opposed to 200GBs or so). You could always buy external HDDs for your laptop though
- Faster HDDs. Generally, desktop HDDs are faster - you can run RAID configurations for example. In terms of data transfer, a laptop cannot compete with a top end Desktop
- Larger screen. You could always hook up your laptop to a cinema display though.
- Faster and cooler. With music production, you're often using a lot of CPU cycles and I personally think desktops deal with this better and you can certainly get faster desktop computers than laptops.

Having said all that, a MacPro or even a Macbook should be able to handle 8 audio tracks quite comfortably, with a fast HDD. If portability is essential, you only have one choice and it should be good enough.

Agreed, a desktop is preferrable to a laptop (unless of course you want/need to record at a friends house, practice space, live performance or any other "mobile" recording environment). Also, I looked into the Soundcraft/Spirit E12, and I do not believe that this board will interface directly with your computer. The E12 seems to have only standard (non-computer) outs, such as XLR, 1/4", or RCA; this means it will not plug in to your computer. What you may require is a computer recording interface (of which there are many) to take the signal from your E12s outs into your computer. Now you also need to consider that many computer recording interfaces have less than the 8 tracks that you stated you would be using. For instance I use a Mackie 8 channel board to record live drums, and somtimes guitar and bass live tracks which are then sent out of the Mackie as a stereo out - the stereo out goes into the computer interface (M-Audio MobilePre), and directly into GarageBand. So it only takes up two tracks in my recording software. To gain greater control over your mixes in the computer environment you would need a computer interface that accepts the 8-12 tracks that you would be sending out of your E12. So you would have the snare on its own track, bass drum on its own, etc. This is the way to go if you have the money. If not, you can get perfectly good results by sub-mixing the drums to stereo before they hit the computer. Incidentally, I am using an older G4 Quicksilver 933mhz desktop with a 1.5 gigs of RAM and it does a solid job. These are probably pretty cheap on eBay now.

I am using my desktop to record band slive in clubs. Yes, it it a P.I.T.A. to haul it around but it works great. G-5 dual 2.5 with 5 gig ram. I am using a M.O.T.U 24 I/O which give me 24 direct inpits from my mixer (Carvin 2444) through the insert/direct outs of each channel. I also use and older 2408 I/O whicj gives me the luxury of being able to have a total of 32 inputs at the same time. So far I have never had to use more than 20. One big suggestion...Label your board and make a generic mixer in your program so the inputs match the inputs of your board. Everything plugs in the same wat everytime and go to the I/O the same way. I even labeled my snake the same way.