simultaneous 8 track recording?

ok, so the newest version of garageband has been out for a while, and i am well aware that it does have the potential to record 8 audio tracks simultaneously...

however, since there is only one audio input into most computers (i have a powerbook g4, older 15 inch model), how can one go about actually recording 8 separately mixable audio tracks at once?

i experimented with one usb audio interface that allowed two tracks to be recorded at once, but i was not satisfied with it and returned it after i bought it. still, i have not seen any interface that allows for more than 2 tracks to be recorded at once. i just don't understand that if apple produces software with a specific capability, how is it possible that there is no hardware available that can be used to take advantage of garageband's functionality?

does anyone know of how to be able to actually record 8 track simultaneously with garageband? or does anyone know how to atleast record 5 at once (let's say for example, one input for guitar, one for bass, one for electric drum set, one for a midi keyboard, and one for vocals...)?

powerbook g4, Mac OS X (10.4.3), latest version of garageband

Posted on Nov 24, 2005 7:20 AM

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13 replies

Nov 24, 2005 6:06 PM in response to WAH1040

You are going to have to spend several hundred dollars on a FireWire multichannel audio interface. Presonus, Edirol, M-Audio, and many others make these.

Go to a music store web site such as Musician's Friend and do a search on recording interfaces. Just make sure to restrict yourself to FireWire interfaces and ignore the USB interfaces. USB interfaces can only handle 2 or 4 tracks at a time, while FireWire can go beyond that.

Nov 27, 2005 10:51 AM in response to Christoph Drösser

So here's my first report of the aggregation experiment: It worked flawlessly. I plugged in a Firewire device (Presonus Expire) and a USB device (Emagic). Since the Emagic has no pre-amp, we routed its four channels through a mixer. After downloading and installing the Emagic driver (the Presonus doesn't need any), it was seen by my system and I could open the device editor in the Audio-Midi Configuration and build my aggregate device adding the two. After a restart of GB, I could select the aggregate device as audio in and out and suddenly had 10 in channels and 6 out channels. I only had to figure out which of the channels belonged to which device. We started a trial recording with 3 tracks which worked fine.

Core Audio even reconciles the latencies of the devices by "waiting for the last one". So the Firewire box adjusted itself to the USB thing.

All in all, it was a piece of cake, and I'm looking forward to the real recordings.

Nov 27, 2005 12:00 PM in response to Christoph Drösser

So, if I get Tiger, and maybe something like the VOX ToneLab to use in place of my amp and a mic (which I'd rather do than use the amp sims), I could plug guitar and bass through my US-122, and mic up a drum kit in stereo through an 8 channel mixer and get a fairly good live recording. Cool. I may just have to look into that in the near future.

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simultaneous 8 track recording?

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