Recording audio with NetBSD

This is a message for all you musicians out there that have already
been down this path.  I am trying to find some sort of hard disk based
digital recorder.  I had a Fostex VF-80 which did a reasonable job of
recording stereo and even let me overdub.  Problem is copying the files
to the computer.  The only digital way is through the S/PDIF I/O but
NetBSD doesn't appear to have support for that at least on any card I
have.  At this point I have to play the mixdown and capture it throu
the line in.  Even that doesn't work under NetBSD though.  I have to
switch to FreeBSD to record it and even then it drops data when the
disk happens to get busy.

I traded in the VF-80 for a Fostex MR8-HD.  Nice unit and even allows
up to 4 simultaneous inputs.  I got it because it has a USB port but as
it turns out is has two problems.  First, it just doesn't work unless
you have a specific version of Windows or Mac.  Second, even if it did
it looks like it can only transfer the stereo mixdown so I can't
restore the files later and add tracks.

At this point I am thinking that I will just return the MR8-HD for my
old VF-80 (I have 30 days to do that) but I was wondering if anyone had
a better option for me.  Is anyone actually doing this type of thing?
Please send me your hardware specs if so.

Thanks.

-- 
D'Arcy J.M. Cain <[email protected]>
http://www.NetBSD.org/