Anyone know how to record 16 tracks live?

[bassdr]

I have a Mac with Pro Tools and the M-box. Love the setup, easy to use etc. You can only record 2 channels at a time with it so the band can't use it for recording live.

Does anyone know of a way, either with a bus/computer/software or a stand-alone to record 16 tracks simultaneously?

A few of the stand-alones at musiciansfriend.com say that they can do 8 analog and 8 ADAT to record 16 at the same time but I don't really know what that means. I have e-mailed them a few times with no response.

What's the easiest way to record live and still go back and fix bad tracks later?

[FretNoMore]

Many high-end standalones do 16 or more simultaneous channels:

- Alesis ADAT HD24
- Mackie HDR24, MDR24, SDR24
- Roland VS-2480
- Yamaha AW4416 (which I use)

to just name a few. You can do it with PC/Mac gear as well, like ProTools.

All of the above are expensive though...

[awesome]

The ADAT, also called lightpipe, is a protocol which can send 8 channels of audio through 1 cable. This way you can add another unit with 8 A/D-converters.

[4Mal]

Link two Tascam 788's for. A boat load of channels for cheap. They'll export to wav for import to Protools. I havent actually done that yet but I will this winter for a project. '788 is a great little box for relatively low dough!

4Mal

[jasonbraatz]

it wouldn't be terribly cheap, but two aardvark q10's would give you 16 digital mic preamps.

[bassdr]

It looks like we've gotten enough funds together to get a digital board and a 24 track hard disk recorder. It's WAY more money than I expected but will give us a lot of flexibility. Thanks for the input guys!