[sdiy] Should I repair my Fostex, or should I go HD recording?

[Rude 66]

how much tape
> hiss would of been involved trying to arrive through track bouncing to 64
> analog channels, given the fact that I could not have ever of afforded 64
> discreet channels of tape.

heh.. read the beatles' studio sessions books. sgt pepper and the white
album were made on 4 tracks (or maybe the latter with 8) and include
enormous amounts of overdubs.

>
> Secondly and even more important are it's editing capabilities.  You need
to
> move a sound over 1MS?  No problem.  You want to build complex phrases
made
> of many different sounds which were recorded at different times?  You want
> to do a few variations of those phrase? Digital audio, while admittedly a
> chunk of change, is in the long run a ton cheaper than the synthesizers
> required to do these phrases real time.

that's true. the editing capacities are where digital audio really shines.
or actually it's the time you save with digital audio where the real bonus
lies.

>
> In short, I think digital audio is the most significant innovation to
> electronic music in the last 30 years.  Much more than digital instruments
> and definitely more so than MIDI.

depends on what you do. i never really work with either automation, software
audio plugins or hardcore audio editing. however, i'd be helpless without
midi and/or midi clock.

btw if there's a choise between usb and firewire for digital audio,
definitely go for the last. only 1 or 2 boxes work at all for multiple audio
i/o with usb.. firewire has a much broader bandwidth and there are plenty of
new cards coming out with reasonable pricetags..

r./