Loss Of Faith, tepid digital waters Options

[jesse]

I am feeling rather defeated. last year i purchased an imac 800mgz, 256, and I have yet to match the stability of my fostex fourtrack. the consept of latency is entirely new to me. So I ask myself, and all of you, why would anyone purchase a 2500$ (canadian) machine then purchase 150 dollars worth of software (tracktion) and another 250 on a decent usb interface. currently i am using imic (60$) and i hate it. Back in the good old days, when a fourtrack cost 300 bucks (1994) there was no such animal as "latency". why then ten years and 3000 dollars later do i find myself in a less productive and more expencive situation? And all for a marginal increase in sound quality. My question is this: how much more do I have to spend to be able to find a program and input/output device that is comperable to the fostex cassette machine i had (still do) ten years ago? Have I gone through all this just eliminate the dreaded tape hiss?! Does anyone else feel like they have been hoodwinked by the glitz and gloss of a sleaker digital future?
I am only twenty-seven and already the future looks dimmer than the past.
...triing hard not to become a luddite...

[sethjacquay]

Garageband will let you do that?
Right?

How much do you think it should cost?
How much did it cost les paul?
It used to cost you $300 on a 4 track, but
the quality sucked and was it easy to mix
and edit? Also are you limited to the number
of tracks you can record?

I after reading some mastering literature
syncing audio in the studio has not always been
perfect because adding processes like reverb,
EQ, and compression can effect the timing.

I agree with you to some extent, syncing shouldn't be
a problem, but it is. How can we correct it?
Wait for more powerful processors to become cheaper?
If you don't care about the quality of the recording
go back to tape!

All jabbing aside, syncing up
your tracks has become a lot easier lately.
Just by nudging the track a 1/32 or 1/16 to the
right or left usually does the trick.
If you have hardware monitoring you can record
properly in time with the software returns and
then slightly adjust the tracks afterwards.