portable recorders
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Posted on May 27, 2002 07:26 pm
chris
Member Since: May 24, 2002
OK. i need a recommendation. i regularly record bands in their own studios or jam-spaces. since travel is essential to my business, i find my portable, hard-disk digital recorder (Roland) very convenient. however, i want to start dumping my recorded tracks onto my computer when i get home. it seems that most portable, digital recorders are only compatable with their own computer programs. what i want is to purchase a portable recorder that will transfer all of its information directly to a universal program like cubase or pro-tools, with all of the tracks intact and separated, ready to be mixed further. do you know of anything like this that exists?
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WaltChief Cook and Bottle WasherMember
Since: May 10, 2002
May 27, 2002 07:46 pm Alesis HD24 has an ethernet port on the back that will transport via FPT software to any PC or MAC. All tracks are seperate wav or aif files and are in perfect sync. Will import directly into any program to include Cubase. Very good A to D converters as well.
chrisMember
Since: May 24, 2002
May 27, 2002 07:52 pm cool, i kinda figured that the Alesis was the way to go. will it work for pro-tools as well?
thanx for the info.
Noize2uCzar of MidiAdministrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002
May 27, 2002 10:21 pm Well, you need to go to Roland and download the program (I forget the name) they have which convert's the track's in the VS to .WAV format to be used in any PC app. It will also send them back to the VS if you so desire. The track's can be exported individually or as a mass file. I have spoken with several people who are using it and they say it is a bit slow, but it does work.
WaltChief Cook and Bottle WasherMember
Since: May 10, 2002
May 28, 2002 12:10 am I work with cubase, so I could not garentee that it will work, but I can not see why not. It works on a very simple premis. If you tell it that the song you will be recording has for example 16 channels of audio, it creates 16 blank wav and aif files. All starting at the same moment and with a minimal length. When you record it lengthens all of the 16 wave files regardless of content to exactly the same length. You simply download your choice of files to your hard drive over an ethernet link (sorry but 10T right now) and import the files into your program. In as much as .wav is universal for PC and .aif is universal for MAC any program should work fine. I have used the files in Cool Edit, Cubase, Adobe studio flawlessly. I too do on site recordings and I have it in a rack with a compressor, active DI, power filter, and small mixer. The system really works well. I come home plug into my home network download the files and walla! I am mixing and burning! I also love the pull out hard drives. A 5400 rpm will hold a days worth of music at 24 channels. The other thing I like is that it is very simple! Not a lot of frills and "features" to confuse a hectic session or gig. It records, punches in and out. All of the "features" are duplicated in the mix down software anyway and are obviously easier to utilize there. I could really ramble about this machine for a long time. It is simply a rack mounted computer that is specifically dedicated to getting audio files on a hard drive. Also with this set up you don't need to have mega imput channels on your mixdown computer. In fact you don't need any! Just enough playback channels to cover whatever format of mix you are doing! It is definately less expensive than buying 24 channels of A/D input into your mixing computer!
I'll quit now. Maybe I'll be discovered and Alesis will hire me to market this machine!
chrisMember
Since: May 24, 2002
May 28, 2002 06:26 pm thanx, Walt. all of the info. is much appreciated. just one more question...does the hd24 have any built-in effects?
WaltChief Cook and Bottle WasherMember
Since: May 10, 2002
May 28, 2002 06:33 pm My pleasure entirely!
Zero effects. It has some cut, paste, copy, and undo's. Simple editing. It is dedicated to recording.
