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[Kevin Conlon]

I need to record all 32 tracks of an event. I have never used a computer to record. I have Studio One 4 on my computer but no demo track to find any limits, also have Reaper, seems to need less power. Just need to record, all final mixing will be done on an x32. How much CPU and memory is needed to get this done? As a newbie to comp. recording i do not know where my current laptop or desk top fit in. Can anyone who knows get me up to date? I can subgroup things to use 24 channels if needed. Inspire me please!   Thanks for any help.  Kevin.

[William Schnake]

Kevin, I use Cubase 10 Pro.  I can easily do 32 tracks from and X32.  I have a Windows 10, with a 2.6 gHz I5 processor and 4 gig of memory.  It works out great.  I generally set my record time to 1.5 hours.  The band that I mainly work with does a 75 minute set.

Bill

[Luke Geis]

Not much. I use Reaper to capture everything and has been flawless in probably 50+ live recording situations. To give you an idea of how little it takes, I have a 2008 HP G62 series with a Dual Core processor running at about 2.3ghz with 4gigs of RAM. I did put an SSD in it, but all the recording is done to an external drive. It doesn't even break a sweat to record 32 channels. I can also do on the spot mixing with the laptop and still not a single hiccup.

I would go with at least the minimum specs of the most labor intensive part of your system. I think any modern i5 processor running at 2ghz with 4 gigs of RAM will have no issues at all. If it were me I would go with an i7 @ 2ghz or faster with 16gigs of RAM and an SSD just to be a little more future proofed. Reaper can run off of a Pentium 4 jalopy and be fine.

[Kevin Conlon]

Kevin, I use Cubase 10 Pro.  I can easily do 32 tracks from and X32.  I have a Windows 10, with a 2.6 gHz I5 processor and 4 gig of memory.  It works out great.  I generally set my record time to 1.5 hours.  The band that I mainly work with does a 75 minute set.

Bill

Thanks. I forgot about cubebase, i remember looking at it once. It's the processor i think i am short on. Thanks, and how is your shoulder? I have win 7 and a dual core processor.

[Kevin Conlon]

Not much. I use Reaper to capture everything and has been flawless in probably 50+ live recording situations. To give you an idea of how little it takes, I have a 2008 HP G62 series with a Dual Core processor running at about 2.3ghz with 4gigs of RAM. I did put an SSD in it, but all the recording is done to an external drive. It doesn't even break a sweat to record 32 channels. I can also do on the spot mixing with the laptop and still not a single hiccup.

I would go with at least the minimum specs of the most labor intensive part of your system. I think any modern i5 processor running at 2ghz with 4 gigs of RAM will have no issues at all. If it were me I would go with an i7 @ 2ghz or faster with 16gigs of RAM and an SSD just to be a little more future proofed. Reaper can run off of a Pentium 4 jalopy and be fine.

I probably have a jalopy. I am not in a spot to buy anything for this show. A friend has suggested i use his i8 or something like that, sounds like plenty of machine for this. I will look into these suggestions. Thanks.

[Justice C. Bigler]

HI Kevin, I think any modern computer with at least 8GB of RAM and a dual or quad-core CPU will do fine recording your tracks.

The thing that will aid you the most in recording stability is the specs of your storage system, i.e. hard drive. The recording best practice is to always record to a separate drive than your operating system is installed on. This puts less strain on your computer as it can concentrate on writing the audio files to one disk, while using the other disk for normal operating system tasks. If you are using a hard disc drive (HDD), you want it to be at least 7200RPMs, and a USB3.0 or above level hard drive. A solid state drive (SSD) will offer even better disc writing performance as you will not get close to maxing out the write speed of the SSD.

Also, make sure that you have a drive that is big enough for your intended use. 32 channels, at 24-bit/48kHz audio files will fill up about 15.8GB per hour. That is approximately 4.4MB per second that the drive is writing to the disc.

I recommend a laptop with USB 3.0/3.1 gen 2 or Thunderbolt 2/3, a quad core Intel CPU, and at least 16GB of RAM for the most stability. Also make sure to shut down any WIFI networking, and other background processes that might disturb the recording process.

My recording laptop is a Lenovo P50, running Windows 10, with quad-core Intel i7-6820HQ CPU, 64GB of DDR4 RAM, and 2TB of SSDs as storage on the computer. I record with Protools and have not had a single hiccup.

[brian maddox]

I probably have a jalopy. I am not in a spot to buy anything for this show. A friend has suggested i use his i8 or something like that, sounds like plenty of machine for this. I will look into these suggestions. Thanks.

I'M going to second Reaper for it's ability to maximize minimal computer resources. I routinely recorded 48 tracks [from a pair of X32s] for hours using a PowerMac G5 from 2004.  4Gigs of ram i think?  Internal Hard Drive.  Solid as a rock.

[Ed Hall]

Has anyone recorded to a USB Flash Drive. Do they have enough bandwidth to handle 32 tracks?

[brian maddox]

Has anyone recorded to a USB Flash Drive. Do they have enough bandwidth to handle 32 tracks?

The answer is "it depends".  Not all USB Flash drives are created equal as the chips inside of them often have widely varying speeds of read/write. SD cards have their speed written right on them, but most USB flash drives don't. The USB 2.0 standard interface speed will do it, but you're probably going to need a USB 3.0 flash drive to get write speeds fast enough and even then it's a bit of a crap shoot. 

I'm also not aware of a device that will record 32 audio tracks directly to a USB flash drive.  But i'm not all knowing so someone may chime in ....

[Justice C. Bigler]

Has anyone recorded to a USB Flash Drive. Do they have enough bandwidth to handle 32 tracks?

In general, USB flash drives do not have a fast enough write speed to support recording more than a few tracks at a time, unless you are recording as .mp3 format. 


A USB hard drive or portable SSD drive will support a much higher track count and higher sample rate.


The RME Fireface UFX series includes a USB-A port which you can connect a hard drive or portable SSD drive and record straight from the interface to the drive without going through a computer first. Great for auto backups while also recording to a DAW.

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