Alesis HD24 Tips and Tricks?

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Ned Ward

Sophomore
Jan 11, 2011
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South Bay, CA
www.nedorama.com
Hi all -

We are renting an Alesis HD24 to record a show we're doing next Tuesday. Output will be from an LS9 into the HD24 for 16 tracks, and then will dump into Pro Tools for editing/mixing on a Mac.

I've downloaded the manual and read through it, and setup and recording seems fairly straightforward. We will have the unit from Friday through Monday to mess around with before the show Tuesday.

I've searched with Google Search on this unit but didn't find any tips, tricks or cautionary tales other than get a Fireport with the unit to transfer the drive contents vs. the 10MB/s ethernet FTP. If anyone has any other tips or recommendations, I'd appreciate it.

thanks.
 
Re: Alesis HD24 Tips and Tricks?

It's reasonably plug-and-play. Just remember that you have to arm the tracks you're going to record. The only tricky stuff has to do with pass-through and playback... and it sounds like you're not doing that at all anyway.

If your session is going to be very long (2 hours?), be sure to split it into multiple songs. It'll let you record really long stuff, but if your tracks end up longer than 2 GB per track you won't be able to transfer them to the PC. So you want to break before 2 hours to be safe.

I'd 2nd the suggestion of getting the Fireport. I tried the FTP method early on, and it worked but took forever. The fireport lets you pull the drive and just grab the data to your PC directly, and it's very fast.
 
Re: Alesis HD24 Tips and Tricks?

Ned;
Like Jim said, it is very much plug and play for what you are going to be doing. If you ever put in any time on ADAT machines, you will feel right at home on the HD24.

-I would bring an extra HD... always good practice when using any HD based system in a live setting. I've never had a failure with a HD24..and I will even admit to dropping one (in an SKB case...YIKES) with HD's in it!!! (This was not my unit being transported that way).
FYI- Always dismount the HD's prior to transporting the unit!! Transport them separately if possible in a appropriately padded case.

-I also tend to go though and create the "songs" in the unit prior to the gig... breaking it up into manageable sections. If it's a two hour gig, I might break it up to 4 "songs" for easier to manage file sizes on the back end. It takes a few seconds longer then I would like it to take to create a "song" if you actually want to name it, so I get it out of the way before the gig starts so I don't have to think about it.

-If you are recording 16-tracks directly from the console, use up a few more and take a L/R console feed, and if you can throw up a room mic or two it can be helpful in post. If you've got 24 tracks and a big HD, use a few more tracks, it will give you some more options when you get to post production. Getting some crowd noise inbetween songs can go a long way towards making the overall tone of the recording feel more authentic living in the space you create for it "in the box".

Have fun... and just to echo Jim...GET the Fireport for transferring.. FTP is brutal.
 
Re: Alesis HD24 Tips and Tricks?

Oh -- the one really funky thing I forgot... there is no trim control on the HD24. It's not a huge deal, since any channel too hot for the recorder is probably already too hot for the board... but it's something to be aware of. You have to handle any trim prior to sending the signal to the HD24.
 
Re: Alesis HD24 Tips and Tricks?

Thanks guys - great tips. We will have a 16 channel ADAT card for the LS9, but will use a few open OMNI outs on the LS9 to get the L/R/Sub feeds as well as open mics. Will have a big HD available to use vs. the std. 40GB caddy (bought our own caddy for $20) so that we don't have to be stingy about track count, since show may be long.

We will have plenty of time for a sound check to ensure levels in the LS9 aren't too hot, so we should be OK. Plus, we get to mess around with it from Friday through Monday to experiment, with the show on Tuesday, so hope to have figured out setting up songs, etc. well prior to showtime.
 
Re: Alesis HD24 Tips and Tricks?

There's a weird thing where it can normal inputs from just the first two, or first four, etc. inputs. I guess handy in a home studio environment, but you definitely want to make sure that it's not enabled for you.

Hold down the Input button (I think that's what it's labelled as... it's the one you use to select analog vs. digital inputs), and try pressing different track arming buttons under the meter section. Ultimately you want to hit one of the higher channel buttons (say #24) to have all the inputs be 1:1 instead of normalling lower inputs to higher channels.
 
Re: Alesis HD24 Tips and Tricks?

One little gotcha is that it can't take a mixture of analogue and digital inputs or at least if it does someone please tell me how, also try and keep it away from heavy vibrations some of them don't like it and stop recording others dont seem to mind, I think its to do with the way the caddies slot into the machine if it's anolder unit them it seems the coneectors or wahtever holds the caddy gets loose and it is possible for it to loosen and stop the recording. G
 
Re: Alesis HD24 Tips and Tricks?

gordon mcgregor said:
One little gotcha is that it can't take a mixture of analogue and digital inputs or at least if it does someone please tell me how, also try and keep it away from heavy vibrations some of them don't like it and stop recording others dont seem to mind, I think its to do with the way the caddies slot into the machine if it's anolder unit them it seems the coneectors or wahtever holds the caddy gets loose and it is possible for it to loosen and stop the recording. G
Click to expand...

What stops them is the vibration from HEAVY BASS. It will vibrate the hard drive and cause ERR7 readings and it will stop. We solved it with a foam lined case and more foam to set the case on. It only happened while placing it near a really big system with lot's of 5 string bass. It was discussed on the various forums and for those that work in bass heavy rooms the fix is easy - foam.
 
Re: Alesis HD24 Tips and Tricks?

gordon mcgregor said:
One little gotcha is that it can't take a mixture of analogue and digital inputs or at least if it does someone please tell me how, also try and keep it away from heavy vibrations some of them don't like it and stop recording others dont seem to mind, I think its to do with the way the caddies slot into the machine if it's anolder unit them it seems the coneectors or wahtever holds the caddy gets loose and it is possible for it to loosen and stop the recording. G
Click to expand...

so long as the unit has a reasonably late version of the firmware installed, you can mix and match analog and digital inputs in groups of two. you can set it up in the utility setting. and the loud noise issue usually has more to do with using very large hard drives than any other single issue. using a drive that is large enough but not ridiculously large is the way to go. say 80 gig versus 500 gig. older, smaller drives are a bit more stable...

when you want to transfer the tracks using your fireport, check out hd24tools, a utility written by an hd24 enthusiast. the utility provided by alesis was largely abandoned a few years ago and so if you're using anything newer than windows xp or a mac, you're gonna have an easier time with hd24tools. if you get jammed up on anything, a trip to the hd24 forum should sort you out. great group. hugely helpful folks...

lastly, at end of show BACKUP your drive to another drive before you even leave the venue. you'll be glad you did.

good luck.

brian
 
Re: Alesis HD24 Tips and Tricks?

Brian thanks for that bit about the mixing of digital and analogue I'll try that out later, As far as the noise thing is concerned we have one older machine which is worse than the other regardless of drive size in both caddy slots which is why I wrote what I did, HD24 tools is very good and does a good job of file recovery too if something screws up like a power failure during recording etc. The one thing I love about HD24s though is the bang for buck still one of the cheapest ways into multitrack recording that is reliable enough for practical live work though computers are starting to catch up quickly.G
 
Re: Alesis HD24 Tips and Tricks?

I hope that you have an ADAT card for your LS9 or you are going to find that you'll be submixing a ton. The LS9-32 has 16 outputs and if you are using this console for FOH as well than you have just eaten 2 and one more for every monitor mix you need to do. The ADAT card will give you an additional 16 outs that you can run digitally directly to the HD24.

I tour with a LS9-16 which only has 8 outs but built an expansion rack with Focusrite Octopre MKII units that act as an AD and DA simultaneously. You can route the inputs to the LS9 and directly to the HD24 as long as you are 48k or below. Of course it all comes down to the MY16 Adat Card.
 
Re: Alesis HD24 Tips and Tricks?

4th post in the thread. . .

Ned Ward said:
Thanks guys - great tips. We will have a 16 channel ADAT card for the LS9, but will use a few open OMNI outs on the LS9 to get the L/R/Sub feeds as well as open mics. Will have a big HD available to use vs. the std. 40GB caddy (bought our own caddy for $20) so that we don't have to be stingy about track count, since show may be long.
Click to expand...

Kip Conner said:
I hope that you have an ADAT card for your LS9 or you are going to find that you'll be submixing a ton. The LS9-32 has 16 outputs and if you are using this console for FOH as well than you have just eaten 2 and one more for every monitor mix you need to do. The ADAT card will give you an additional 16 outs that you can run digitally directly to the HD24.

I tour with a LS9-16 which only has 8 outs but built an expansion rack with Focusrite Octopre MKII units that act as an AD and DA simultaneously. You can route the inputs to the LS9 and directly to the HD24 as long as you are 48k or below. Of course it all comes down to the MY16 Adat Card.
Click to expand...
 
Re: Alesis HD24 Tips and Tricks?

Steve - good catch.

All - thanks for all the tips.

The AV team had a guy who had used an HD24 before so he was well acquainted with it. LS9-32 had a MY16-AT card for the first 16 channels, and then they used a Digi 003 for the last 4 channels as a converter – it automatically passed through the mic pre channels to the ADAT lightpipe for a total of 20 tracks.

Recorded at 24/48K for the whole show with one stop – we recorded a set of songs before the show (no audience) and then recorded the entire show, which had 2 songs, with a lot of instrumental walk-on music (a la Paul Schaeffer). Fun time had by all.

Overall, great, and love the flexibility of being able to tweak EQ/dynamics and pan/volume after the fact. Out of 9 songs, we have 3 keepers that with minimal cleanup will serve us fine for a demo for a competition we’re entering.

For next time:
As much as I tried to buss 4 tom mics to 2 channels based on panning, the main AV guy is a drummer and used 4 individual direct outs for the toms. I’d want to ensure the vocals (3) got direct MY16-AT channels before extra tom mics.

I will bring my MY8-AT card next time as a "just in case" vs. the 003 thing. I'm guessing it would have sounded better, particularly on vocal channels.

Crowd mic was excellent idea and will ensure we use it again from now on if we have spare channels.

Glad I didn’t buy or rent a Fireport, since Alesis’ software for it only works on OS 10.5 or lower; luckily our AV group had a lower OS mac and transferred it for me. Also, the rental of the HD24 came with a Fireport.

Need to spend more time marking the sweet spot on my Bandmaster for the mic; sounded good onstage, but from playback it could have been 1” or so down, closer to the middle of the speaker. Nothing a little parametric EQ can’t fix, but would rather capture it good as is.

We need to bring our own condenser mics for Hihat and OH; my Pro37’s sound better than the ones that come in the Audix drum kick package.

Our drummer needs: better high hat cymbals, more moongel or parts of Aquarian rings to dampen ring, and a cost-effective way to haul his DW hardware around. His hardware feels like it’s made from depleted uranium, and we have to load it on a dolly gingerly. If anyone has a suggestions on a good cost-effective case for standard DW hardware, less than a full ATA case, either fibreboard or sKB it would be great.

Thanks again to everyone for all of their suggestions and recommendations – made this truly a successful show recording for us.
 
Re: Alesis HD24 Tips and Tricks?

FYI after listening to the vocal tracks that went through the 003, it's not a converter - only places I have digital hash/dropouts is on those tracks. Will now ensure vocals are in the MY16-AT card directs and extras, like toms (plenty of toms in all the other drum mics) and house mix are on whatever else we have.
 
Re: Alesis HD24 Tips and Tricks?

if additional/larger IDE drives are needed the Western Digital Blue drives are not supported by Alesis. AFAIK every other drive should work just fine.
 
Re: Alesis HD24 Tips and Tricks?

I've only used an SDR24, but it's a similar idea. Once, I forgot to arm the tracks and I didn't record the entire show.

Another major problem I've had is clock sync over ADAT. I, for the life of me, cannot get a reliable recording when using ADAT for audio and sync. Word clock is the way to go for sync, let ADAT do the audio.
 
Re: Alesis HD24 Tips and Tricks?

Tim Kartes said:
if additional/larger IDE drives are needed the Western Digital Blue drives are not supported by Alesis. AFAIK every other drive should work just fine.
Click to expand...

Tim - I lucked out with a fresh pull used Seagate 120GB drive for $30 off eBay, so no more IDE drives for me. There's some guy on the HD24 Yahoo Forums that sells a SATA caddy, but it's $80. I'm good for now.

Silas - thanks for that. Will let our AV guys know next time we rent an HD24 with the LS9.
 
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