Preface: I currently have a Pearl Mimic + a ddti for extra inputs.
I am considering changing to a megadrum IO, Focusrite 18i20 and SD3 due to a couple of library and instrument limitations that the Mimic has (which don’t affect most people.)
My current kit has 5 toms, 1 snare (was thinking of adding a side snare), 1 – 3 zone hihat (3 cable counting pedal cable), 5 – 3 zone (2 cable cymbals), 2 – 2 zone (1 cable cymbals), a couple of Roland BT-1s, a dual cow-paddy, and a SPD-SX. I was wondering a couple of things. Do the crash cymbal recordings in SD3 and it’s expansion kits include all three zones (bell/bow/edge.) What’s the max instrument count I can use (and what level of CPU/solid state drive/etc) is needed to max that out (or is there no limit in the software and it’s simply when your system gets bogged down.) How much overhead is there to mixing multichannel outputs at the same time. I currently use an external mixer to feed back to me the SPD-SX + mimic headphone out + FOH monitor line for the rest back to in -ear monitors. I would like to also ditch this and use the inputs and outputs on the Focusrite to feed a normal mic set to a FOH, along with my personal mix back to me (including the SPDSX analog piece.) Would I need a beefier audio interface for this, or is that one sufficient (and how much extra CPU headroom would I need with that and the number of instruments I have – memory too.)
Edit: a week later – if this is dependent on OS and CPU/Memory then there should be at least a rough table for each supported OS of what level of CPU and memory is needed for each layer of this stuff (rough) as well as an idea of the latency that is induced from that particular hardware set. I am not tied to a specific OS or laptop architecture (and this stuff may matter noticeably.)
