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24 tracks of hardware recording


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I'm trying to spec a system for a festival that I volunteer at.

 

They want to start doing 24 track recording during the festival.

 

This is mostly for archival purposes.

 

Right now, we use a yamaha 01v to take our stage split and create a two-track master that is duped and sold during the festival.

 

The guys in charge want to be able to archive the material, and I can see some other benefits from having a multitrack recording.

 

As we're mixing through the 01v, we don't really need a DAW, and that adds another level of complexity to the situation. One of the other folks at the festival already is using a Cubase daw with a hammerfall and a ?fireface?, so technically we could just record multitrack to his DAW. But this seems more complex than we need, especially in a live environment where we are trying to get out product from the first set of the night by the time the last act goes on about four hours later. Not to mention that he is the only one there who speaks cubase, and mixing the couple of sets we did multitrack with it was was a nightmare for me.

 

We can get a card for the 01v that will allow us to send another split either as 3 adat outs or as 24 line-level, post-preamp sends.

 

I am thinking that the cheapest and easiest thing would be to find 3 ADATs and get the ADAT card for the 01v: this would let us remix stuff during downtime at the festival and let us archive the multitrack.

 

Does anyone have any input on this situation?

 

Would it be objectively better to go with some kind of hard disk recorder, and transfer/archive files through a computer? Keep in mind that when we want to remix, we can just go back through the 01v's ADAT ins, and most of this material is only for archival purposes. We just want to be able to remix a song here and there if it especially good and we want to release it on a compilation, and et the artists have the option of taking their multitrack to someone else to mix/master.

 

If ya'll have any experience with this stuff, I'd like to hear it. If there is other hardware that you'd specifically recommend, I'd like to know, but although I really like working in a DAW, here I think that hardware really would be a faster solution.

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Mackie, Tascam and Alesis all made (or still make) 24 track hardware hard disk recorders with lightpipe inputs. That would be what I'd suggest looking into.

 

 

Yes.

 

That's a pretty bulletproof solution and if you live in a music town you can rent any or all of the above if you want to "try before you buy".

 

Terry D.

 

P.S. If you're looking to save money, you can pick up a blowout on an MX2424 which is a great 24 track hard disk recorder (I own one and have been using it for years), since TASCAM has come out with an updated model.

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I have a Fostx D2424LV. It would be ready to go out of the box with all balanced 1/4" and ADAT connections. The nice thing about it aside from the fact that it's never glitched on me is that the entire face comes off as a wired remote and includes all the meters. I don't know how long it can be extended - mine is 30 feet. Could be convenient if you have to rack the machine in an inconvenient spot.

 

I believe it has an option to transfer WAV files to a computer via ethernet or SCSI port. Not sure about that though as I've never bothered to explore it. I just transfer in realtime via the ADAT outputs to my DAW.

 

They still make the D2424LV. They go for $1500 new.

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I agree with the Fostex suggestion. The new "LV" stemmed out of their "D" series recorders and I used one of those for a few years with zero issues and fed it ADAT from other converters.

 

Also, if you go Alesis just go with the lesser expensive model since you're not concerned with converter quality.

 

War

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Thanks for the replies; they have kind of set me up with some stuff to think about.

 

For the record, the festival is the Kerrville Folk Festival, so maybe I can just suggest that they rent from either their PA provider or someone in ATX.

 

Cripes, though. I dunno if I can bring myself to go back; I was pretty unhappy with the product they have been putting out, and they want to do everything in strangely cobbled together ways. Still, I'd like to see them succeed in their task, and when I send them my ideas, I'll find a good HD recorder option.

 

My main questions that remains are these:

 

which recorders are easier to transfer files out of in non-realtime? Ideally, we could just hotswap an HDD and put that into a computer and archive that on a server, but some of them (the Alesis HD24, at least) seem to write odd and propriety file formats.

 

Also, we'd be recording something like 5 - 6.5 hours of 24 track 24 bit audio. A 50min set would be around 9Gb at 24/44.1, but still that generates a bunch of really big files. So do ya'll know of the HDD or file size limitations on any of these specific machines?

 

Surely, there are other problems in recording really long groups of large numbers of tracks, so feel free to offer opinions about what I am missing.

 

Thanks for the input so far.

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Also, we'd be recording something like 5 - 6.5 hours of 24 track 24 bit audio. A 50min set would be around 9Gb at 24/44.1, but still that generates a bunch of really big files. So do ya'll know of the HDD or file size limitations on any of these specific machines?

 

The Alesis can handle that no problem -- it can hotswap standard, low-cost IDE computer drives. :thu:

 

(@ 96kHz you can only do 12 tracks)

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As a thought you might want to Hire someone reputable to do it who has the equipment. Along with the recorder is mikes, cables, Setting up, breaking down, mike positioning and monitoring the levels just to name a few items.

You can have them provide raw wave tracks on a hard drive and do all the mixing/mastering and production yourself. This way you have controll over the project without all the cost.

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For the record, the festival is the Kerrville Folk Festival

 

That's a HUGE festival - IIRC, the largest Folk Festival in the USA. One of my friends / clients won the songwriting contest there a few years ago...

 

I would imagine they have the budget for the gear, or to hire someone to record... :idk: I would also imagine they have multiple stages going simultaneously. Are you planning on only recording things going on at the main stage, or on the smaller stages too?

 

I believe the Fostex and Alesis models use a proprietary disk format, so they might not be the hardware HDRs of choice if you want to just swap the drives into a computer in order to get the tracks into Pro Tools. I don't recall which one it was, but I believe either the Mackie or Tascam unit had drive swap to a computer capability. Normally I'd go with the suggestion Chris made and just transfer the tracks over in real time over ADAT lightpipe... but if you're recording multiple sets over multiple days, and possibly from multiple stages, then you'd be there for a while, so I can understand the desire for direct HDD swapping.

 

I wouldn't run those units at anything higher than 24 / 44.1 kHz... in a live festival environment, I wouldn't think there would be much benefit to higher sample rates.

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The Alesis does have the Fireport.

 

The Tascam MX (linked earlier in this thread) can interface directly with a computer and you can move files back and forth quickly. A good friend of mine relies on one still in his studio and gets good use out of it (using SSL converters).

 

War

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For the record, the festival is the Kerrville Folk Festival


That's a HUGE festival - IIRC, the largest Folk Festival in the USA. One of my friends / clients won the songwriting contest there a few years ago...


I would imagine they have the budget for the gear, or to hire someone to record...
:idk:
I would also imagine they have multiple stages going simultaneously. Are you planning on only recording things going on at the main stage, or on the smaller stages too?

 

Well, the fact that they don't pay (in addition to the strange ways they have about cobbling together systems) is one of the reasons that I am probably not going back. It is an awesome party for about three weeks, but it makes it hard to do good work if you're there to see your family and play around campfires instead of there to work.

 

And they have the money, though I am beginning to wonder how much revenue is actually being generated by this project for the festival and the artists. But they have a really odd idea about how to do things, because so many of the deeply involved folks see it more as a kind of lifestyle thing than a concert (Chupa Unity).

 

The last two gatherings I went to had a stage split (just a three way Y, no transformers because of loading problems in his old box), and the PA guy has the right equipment, so the recordings -can- sound really nice. But we have been doing two track recording and turning out CD product from the first set by the time the last set goes on. Which is kind of neat (though I don't think it is as high a quality as it could be). Folks can get a recording of something they heard that night or the night before.

 

It is a fun volunteer project, and I got to mix some recordings of the Lost Gonzo Band (Lloyd Maines is dreamy:love:) and listen to Peter Yarrow's annoying, 4 hour long sound check...

 

:blah:

 

But anyhow, I just want them to get the tasks they want to get done done.

 

It looks like the Mackie HD2496 is the right tool for their job, and it is what I am going to recommend. It looks like the HDD is limited to 32 GB, but that can be worked around.

 

thanks for the help guys.

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