how much is enough?

[csogilvie]

Please help:

I'm a live-concert recording engineer, and I need a niftly computer to record to directly and eliminate my need for DAT (digital audio tape) and way-too-expensive dedicated HDR (Hard-Disc-Recording) boxes.

The audio hardware I'm looking at will probably throw out a maximum of 8 to 12 channels of audio at 96000Hz sampling rate @ 24 bits. It has a firewire output and the manufacturers are promising compatibility with both windoze XP and OSX.

I was looking at the small laptops to get the job done as I don't have the time, or the capacity to lug around a desktop to gigs. (I've got enough crap to carry already) The two machines that interested me were the 12" ibook and the 12" PB.

The primary use for this computer will be for recording live concerts. A secondary useage will be to capture digital photos while I'm on photo-gigs.

Will the ibook cut it? Or do I have to shell out the extra cash for the PB?

For those of you who want to know how much data the audio stream is here's the breakdown:
Tracks - 12; Bit Depth - 24; Sample rate - 96000 / sec

Multiply them all together and you get 27 Mbps or 3.5MB of data per second.

As I strive for fidelity, I am not interested in any compressed file formats, nor am I interested in midi. I record primarily live classical music concerts ranging from solo recitals up to orchestral concerts.

Most concerts top out in the 75-85 minute length, so that would of course require 18-25 GB of storage, so I'm sure an external HD will be required if I were to record two shows in the same day.

Thanks in advance for the help!

 

[rman]

I am not sure which would suit you better. The only thing I am wondering is how much disk space are you going to need.

 

[StarManta]

I'm sure the iBook G4 would be plenty powerful. If you need more space than you can get in an iBook, you can always buy an external Firewire drive.

 

[MAC-simus]

ger pb G4 12" with 80 gig hard drive. as you said you already have enough crap to cary. external Hard disk will be edition to the list

 

[immdb]

A BTO PowerBook would cost you $1700+, compared to the $1100 for the iBook. I would go with the iBook and an external drive. The external drive could allso be used as a backup for your iBook system. You would only have to take the iBook with you on days that you plan to tape more than one gig,

 

[katatak]

Aren't you interested in keeping the original session tapes? Tape of one sort or another is still and extremely efficent method of storing data that doesn't have to be randomly accessed. Why not keep the DAT and just dump it to a hard drive for post prodution?

Are you going to do editing and post production on the same machine? You probably need 3 or 4 times the hard drive space to finish your project

For an external drive, try the LaCie Pocket Firewire drive. At 40 Gig. it REALLY does fit in my jean jacket inside pocket.

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