Mbox Vs. The Rest Of The Usb World, guidance for powerbook recording set up Options

[tgwj]

I have a g4 powerbook 867 Mhz, 384 mb RAM, running 10.2.8. After some investigation, I've narrowed my choices down to two, for money, quality and reliability: getting an M-Audio Duo and Logic Audio Big Box or getting the Digidesign M-box. (roughly $500 for either) I'm wondering if there's any major differences between the two set-ups (hardware or software advantages, etc.) and also if anyone has any recommendations or warnings for me on my set up in general.

I'll be doing some recording with a mixer probably or just using the 2 inputs for mics, etc. I recognize the limitations of USB but I need good software more than inputs/outputs right now. Maybe I'll upgrade to FireWire sometime. Thanks for your advice!

[rickenbacker]

Yes, because the original file you capture at 24-bit will have substantially more sonic detail than if you'd captured it at 16-bit. Those additional 8 bits REALLY account for a lot of extra audio info.

If the recording program you were using did a really poor job of dithering from 24 to 16 bits, you might be degrading your signal by changing bit depths anyway, so you could argue for staying in 16-bit all the way through from tracking to mixdown.

I would still record in 24-bit. Sequencers today do a good enough job of dithering for most people (I only know SX and Logic and both seem OK to my ears), so it's worth eating up the extra disk space by recording at as high a bit rate as your hardware allows.