tracktion, powerbook, uad-1, powercore?

[sbacon]

hello,

I'm using tracktion 2 on my powerbook laptop. 1.33ghz, 1.25gb ram. external 7200 rpm firewire hd for audio files.

Tracktion is great.

i'm running into a wall with my plugins bogging down my processor. i just spent time at a buddy's studio and he introduced me to the uad-1. sweet fancy moses! his mixes sound amazing, the plug ins are fantastic. And it totally cuts his plug load on his cpu.

I'd like to use this with tracktion, but i have no pci slot. i also have no mini card pci slot, 'cause it's the 12" screen powerbook.

Is there a uad-1 firewire option? are the tc powercore firewire competitors as good? i've seen one with 12 plugins for about 600 dollers. it seems like these aren't as robust as the uad-1....meaning slower cpu speeds.

also i'm wondering if adding another firewire device in the chain is a good idea. i already have 2 devices on my 400 mb/s fw buss. they are my external hard drive and my audio interface (motu traveler).

any thoughts? are there other options that aren't as expensive as the "receptor"?

thank you,

-sbacon

[pdxindy]

there are two uad firewire options... 1 is slightly less powerful than the pci card, the other much more so and more expensive... more plug-ins too

[mapper]

I was thinking along similar lines with my ibook and thought that upgrading the internal drive to a 7200 was a good option..
To have a drive,soundcard and a powercore/uad hanging off the firewire bus is going to slow it down.
Bussing effects in your mix would help alot too.
Tracking to a fast internal drive and just using one firewire for the FX card might work well.
Dunno not tried it yet.
Best of luck..i'd be interested to know how you get on.