[ardour-users] Linux Audio Pro - Studio

[Mario Torre]

Hi!

First of all, sorry for my bad english!

I'm about to start a project with some friends: a professional recording 
studio and a small indie label.

The project is in early development and probabily we will start to buy 
the hardware in the late of this year (more probabily in the first 
months of the next year - the studio will start after the label).

We have a starting budget of 18.000 euro for the studio.

I'm a working musician with 5 years of experience in studio recording 
and music production, but not as a recording engineer, but I know there 
is time to learn, this is why, in the meantime, we will use an already 
existing professional studio in our city.

This old studio must be able, in some way and at some stage in the near 
future, to exchange music with the new studio.

The "old" studio daw is a mac (really a couple) with logic 7.

Few months ago I installed and used ardour, just to see if we can use 
free/open source tools instead of commercial software, with good, but 
not perfect results (ok, ardour is still in beta, and my pc is just too 
slow for a real comparision).

I know little about logic (just what I see when I use the studio to 
record, but, as I stated, more as a supervisor).

Here is my questions:

A) provided the fact that the most of dsp processing will be done 
outside the computer (compressors and delay/reverbs will be mainly 
external processors - such as tc electronic/fatman/line 6/lexicon/...), 
do you thing that linux is ready for this prime time?

The standard work of a studio like this will be always to record demo 
for bands, this is a fact, but our "mission" is to 
prepare/record/produce/distribute complete album.

We have a good starting point with some really great artists.

This is not only a matter of money (the difference of a studio with a 
mac or linux, with the majority of dsp outside, is just 1000/1500 euro, 
and we can afford it, just because, as said, we can count on having a 
professional studio already up and running).

B) Can logic exchange files with ardour? I know not natively, but there 
is a standard file format (like aiff or waves) that support multitracks 
that can be used for that?

C) And what about the hardware (pc and sound cards)?

I would like to add a side note: if we have success in this project, we 
will actively support ardour (I think we are obliged to do so). I really 
know well the linux community as a long time linux user (hey at least 
seven years!), this is why I have strongly advocated the use of linux as 
a daw!

Many of you can think that asking these questions now, when probabily we 
have to wait another full year to just start to work is a little 
premature, but we are at a planning stage and we should know what we can 
or can't do or expect...

Thank you for your time!
Mario