Macbook Air 4200 as a recording device?

[matthewHUB]

Hi all,

Just wondering if the 4200 HD in the macbook air is fast enough to record audio in real time using a usb audio interface, like a tascam US-122?

I want to know whether it would be possible for 24-bit recording. Using this very portable machine to replace endless pounds worth of powerbook/power adapter etc will just make my live a whole lot easier. Can the 4200 do it? or do you need SD?

M

 

[ethernet76]

I think it depends on how many tracks you plan to record at the same time.

 

[matthewHUB]

just stereo, with 2 phantom mics.

 

[boyhandsome]

Yes，can somebody please advise which one the HDD or SS, is better; the price is not my concern; my cocern is to balance the disk space and speed. Thanks.

 

[ethernet76]

just stereo, with 2 phantom mics.

You should be fine. Through put on two tracks is like at most 5 mb/s.

 

[ethernet76]

Yes，can somebody please advise which one the HDD or SS, is better; the price is not my concern; my cocern is to balance the disk space and speed. Thanks.

The SSD is faster in all respect I believe. The on area HDDs have over SSD is sustained write/read. However that's against decent 10k or 7200 drives. The 4200 drive is rather crappy.

 

[matthewHUB]

You should be fine. Through put on two tracks is like at most 5 mb/s.

How can it be at most 5 mb/s? If a cd is 16bit and is 780 mb for 72 mins (near enough), then that equates to 11mb/s. 24 bit is obviously going to be more than that.

It's nice because you can still get great USB audio interfaces, so the lack of firewire is not a problem.

 

[dcr]

How can it be at most 5 mb/s? If a cd is 16bit and is 780 mb for 72 mins (near enough), then that equates to 11mb/s. 24 bit is obviously going to be more than that..

You're off by a factor of 60 or so -- check your units.

780MB/72min ~= 11MB/min.
11MB/min * 1 min / 60s = 0.183 MB/s

The actual red-book CD datarate (650MB for 74min) is ~ 150KB/s.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CD

 

[riyadc2]

The SSD is faster in all respect I believe. The on area HDDs have over SSD is sustained write/read. However that's against decent 10k or 7200 drives. The 4200 drive is rather crappy.

Actually Harddrives write faster then SSDs. SSDs can read much faster though, especially non sequential reads.

 

[Crossbone]

Go for it!