Ableton Forum

Hey there,

I am looking at upgrading to a 24 input audio interface and will be utilizing almost all of the ins for my synthesizers. My question is what sort of resource strain am I going to get if I am monitoring all 24 inputs at once, and how about recording? Is it feasible that I can play live with minimal latency while recording 24 separate inputs or is that crazy?

It will largely depend on the drivers for the sound card you buy in my experience. Cheaper soundcard drivers not that well optimized are going to give you more of a CPU hit.

If you're computer is not 20 years old, it should be doable...
but you didn't give any detail about your setup.

If you use a Mac M1 with a Thunderbolt interface that is very fast, you surely do not encounter any problem....... On the other hand , like said above, an old PC or Mac might strugle to do the job with a lousy interface.

Gotcha, I'm looking at a presonus 24R rackmount mixer from their series 3 line. I'm ultimately hoping to run my Elektron synths through it and into Ableton for manipulation before sending everything back out to the synths for a final analog processing. Right now I'm using Elektron's overbridge plugin which introduces some significant latency so I'm hoping to swap out to a standard audio interface. The 24R also functions as an Ipad controlled mixer so I'm hoping that I can have the option of working inside or outside the box so to speak.

I’m currently running a comparable setup with 18 audio sources and Live acting as a live mixer and Midi sequencer for all the sources, without any issue. It’s fun !
I also gave up with Elektron Overbridge. It has way too much latency (and not the same as the sound card) and is not reliable unfortunately, so using it as a way to automate parameters only is not even an option.