Multitrack live recording. What are some options?

K

kristianjohnsen

Senior
Mar 13, 2011
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Lillehammer, Norway
www.partyfabrikken.no
Hello all.

Looking to start multitracking some shows. 24 a minimum, 32 or 48 would be super nice.

Here are my requirements:

Need to be able to accept the direct channel outputs on both ADAT and line level analogue. Preamps are not needed.

Whatever interface is used must be able to play back all the channels simulatanously on ADAT and preferally on analogue line level as well, allthough the latter is not needed.

Audio quality requirements: Not super-picky here. Non-mission-critical application. This goes for reliability, also.

These seem to be my favourite options so far, all very different:

JoeCo Black Box BBR1A: 24 channels in on ADAT and analog. 24 channels out on ADAT. Records on whatever USB medium you stick in the port.
http://www.joeco.co.uk/main/BBR_models.html#bbr1a

Alesis ADAT 24 channel: 24 channels in and out on both ADAT and analog line level. Records on internal hard drives using Alesis format.
http://www.alesis.com/hd24#0

M Audio Profire Lightbridge : 32 channel in and out, but ADAT only. Converts to Firewire for storage and playback from a computer.
http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/ProFireLightbridge.html

Focusrite RedNet 3: 32 channels in and out, but only ADAT. Converts to Dante network protocol for piping via CAT5 into computer for storage and playback.
http://www.focusrite.com/products/audio_interfaces/rednet_3/

RME Fireface 800: Basically the same as M Audio Profire Lightbridge, but includes a few preamps, more connectivity and a lot more channels. Still not enough analog I/O to do full channel cout recording and playback.
http://www.rme-audio.de/en_products_fireface_800.php


Suggestions welcome, also very different from the products I have mentioned so far.

Thanks in advance,

best regards,

Kristian Johnsen
 
Re: Multitrack live recording. What are some options?

Kristian,

I've had an Alesis HD24 for the last 4-5 years (maybe even 6?) and it's been pretty bullet proof. One downside is that it uses Parallel ATA (IDE) drives that are now becoming hard to find items. I would recommend that if you do get an Alesis HD24, get like 10 to 20 drives. Store the drives in a cool environment and spin them up every few months to keep the lubricant viable.

We have a mix of 40 and 80 GB drives which provide like 3.5 and 7 hours of recording time for 24 tracks at 48 kHz, respectively. I believe the Alesis unit will only format up to like ~140GB due to some older drive geometry limitation (someone else can check me on that). None-the-less I think you can use bigger drives, you'll just get limited capacity from them.

There are some folks working on PATA to SATA adapters for the HD24 with mixed success. There is a very active Yahoo group for the HD24 with lots of information on aftermarket products and drive compatibility.

Overall I'd highly recommend the unit, but sourcing drives for it is becoming more difficult.
 
Re: Multitrack live recording. What are some options?

Ryan Lantzy said:
Kristian,

I've had an Alesis HD24 for the last 4-5 years (maybe even 6?) and it's been pretty bullet proof. One downside is that it uses Parallel ATA (IDE) drives that are now becoming hard to find items. I would recommend that if you do get an Alesis HD24, get like 10 to 20 drives. Store the drives in a cool environment and spin them up every few months to keep the lubricant viable.

We have a mix of 40 and 80 GB drives which provide like 3.5 and 7 hours of recording time for 24 tracks at 48 kHz, respectively. I believe the Alesis unit will only format up to like ~140GB due to some older drive geometry limitation (someone else can check me on that). None-the-less I think you can use bigger drives, you'll just get limited capacity from them.

There are some folks working on PATA to SATA adapters for the HD24 with mixed success. There is a very active Yahoo group for the HD24 with lots of information on aftermarket products and drive compatibility.

Overall I'd highly recommend the unit, but sourcing drives for it is becoming more difficult.
Click to expand...
I had an HD24 for a long time. The deck is a decent ADAT replacement, but there are two issues: the hard drive replacement you mention, and the PITA it is to get data off it. The onboard ethernet interface is beyond useless being 10/100, which leaves you with the firewire option, or I think some kind of PC software to read the drives directly.

I wish Alesis and a few other companies would join the current decade and release products that don't depend on obsolete tech like PATA drives and Fast Ethernet. That JoeCo box looks cool - I hadn't seen that before.
 
Re: Multitrack live recording. What are some options?

It looks like analog/ADAT is your main limitation. If you can use MADI/ES/Dante/etc the options open up.
 
Re: Multitrack live recording. What are some options?

kristianjohnsen said:
RME Fireface 800: Basically the same as M Audio Profire Lightbridge, but includes a few preamps, more connectivity and a lot more channels. Still not enough analog I/O to do full channel cout recording and playback.
http://www.rme-audio.de/en_products_fireface_800.php
Click to expand...

The RME UFX is also supposedly able to record to directly attached USB storage (like the JoeCo). I've used FF800 interfaces from RME and they have always been ROCK SOLID. I can only assume that the FF UFX lives up to the same reputation.

Jeff
 
Re: Multitrack live recording. What are some options?

I have the lightbridge and it works great if you only need 32x32. I use presonus preamps to get in/out racked up in a 6 space rack with power/light and the lightbridge.

I also have my16at cards that work great with the yami desks and the lightbridge, and hopefully a few Dante cards soon as I'm quite limited with the 34x34 the lightbridge (I do use the spdif with AES I/O on the desk), and I'm not a fan of all the toslink cables everywhere in the doghouse.
 
Re: Multitrack live recording. What are some options?

Rob Spence said:
I have Dante cards in my LS9 so I can record direct to a laptop. I plan to replace the current laptop with a MacBook Pro.
I sure would like to see some affordable preamps with Dante.
Click to expand...

It's not quite 'affordable', but an A&H iDR is basically a nice big remote controlled preamp with Dante or ______ output.

I noticed the JoeCo recorder has double the channel count via MADI vs Dante.
 
Re: Multitrack live recording. What are some options?

Ryan Lantzy said:
Kristian,

I've had an Alesis HD24 for the last 4-5 years (maybe even 6?) and it's been pretty bullet proof. One downside is that it uses Parallel ATA (IDE) drives that are now becoming hard to find items. I would recommend that if you do get an Alesis HD24, get like 10 to 20 drives. Store the drives in a cool environment and spin them up every few months to keep the lubricant viable.
Click to expand...

I've got around the whole parallel ATA/IDE becoming extinct issue by fitting IDE->CF card adaptors (cost <$10) to my Masterlinks and other devices that use that format. 32GB CF cards are cheap and pull less juice so things run cooler. More tricky was the Instant Replay, which uses 50 pin SCSI (even rarer than 40 pin IDE these days), so it ended up with a SCSI->IDE adaptor and an IDE->CF adaptor. Unfortunately the SCSI->IDE adaptors are not cheap.
M
 
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