Apple Logic Pro /LogicExpress Discussion

Hey,

      I've been having some odd gear kind of fall in my lap lately.   I stumbled upon a 
Yamaha 01v digital mixer, with ADAT output for $300, and I realized that if I could get an 
audio interface that had ADAT input I could quickly have a LOT of inputs into Logic.

      I opted to try out the MOTU 8 Pre, because given what I already had in the studio (8 
channels of ADAT optical from the Yamaha), I could double the 8 Pre's inputs for a total of 
16 channels going into Logic.

      I spent about a half day today wrestling with drivers, hard drive connections, and the 
like trying to get everything working.

      My MacBook (not pro) got it going fine.  The only problem is that I had to try to use my 
external drive via USB 2.0 since the MOTU is a firewire interface and my MacBook only has 
one firewire connection.  I found out that Logic would NOT work if I tried to store/play 
audio off of the external hard drive!  If I used the built in harddrive, all was fine and dandy.   
I can record 8 channels of up to 96K, or 16 channels of 44.1K!  

      My dual G4 didn't fare as well, I couldn't get beyond some clock problems that caused 
some nasty clicks and static.  That problem on the MacBook was solved by recording to 
the internal hard drive, but I don't want to go there with the G4.  

      On one level it is fun to wrestle with these devices and to try to get them to work 
together.  But on the other hand I find myself thinking "hey, didn't I get this stuff to record 
music?"  I'm spending all my time making stuff work and no time recording stuff.   Makes 
you think!

       In summary, the 8 Pre might be a great solution for me to use my laptop for the 
occasional multitrack recording session.   But for day in and day out (MIDI intensive) 
recording and production .... the jury is still out.

        Pete