Can 744T record and playback simultaneously?

[dominicperry]

Hi,

Can anyone please tell me if the Sound Devices 744T can record and playback siultaneously? I can't work it out from the manual. I want to use it as a hgh quality 4 track , 4in 4 out multitrack, just like the old reel to reels. Modern 4 to 8 track machines are really limited in this respect and have poor mic pres and mixers and no way of getting all channels in and out.

Thanks

[Tim Halligan]

AFAIK.....no.


Dkatz, who posts around here has one and will probably give you the definitive answer.

The 744, Cantar, Portadrive, Deva, and all of the other machines of their like are primarily about aquisition...not overdubbing.

From what it appears you are trying to achieve, perhaps you would be better off looking at something like a Genex.


Cheers,
Tim

[dominicperry]

Thanks Tim. I have a Mackie MDR which does a smiliar job to the Genex but it's just too big. Thanks for your answer anyway.

Dominic

[dkatz42]

Originally Posted by dominicperry

Hi,

Can anyone please tell me if the Sound Devices 744T can record and playback siultaneously? I can't work it out from the manual. I want to use it as a hgh quality 4 track , 4in 4 out multitrack, just like the old reel to reels. Modern 4 to 8 track machines are really limited in this respect and have poor mic pres and mixers and no way of getting all channels in and out.

Thanks

Nope, no simultaneous record and playback.

The prime directive of this box is Do Not Lose Anything; it is impossible to record over anything (in fact, you can't even delete files on the thing, except via a computer or by reformatting the media.)

If you press the Record button while playing back (or virtually anything else) it will immediately jump into record, and records up to ten seconds of preroll prior to the time you hit the button (no worries about missing anything.)

It's designed for situations where you lose your job if you don't get the audio (like film/video work) and is really good at that. (The last firmware update had a nice fix along those lines; it used to be that if you hit the front panel "input" button it would sequence through the various internal patching options, but it was too easy to hit it by mistake. Now it requires that you press and hold the stop button before the input button does anything. So there is basically no way to accidentally screw up the configuration of the box.)

It doesn't use a tape paradigm; rather, whenever you press record it starts a new set of files, with both a wall clock timestamp and a timecode timestamp. There's no concept of "media position" other than whatever timecode is used.

It's really focused on the capture side of the process; you can't do much of anything on the box once you've recorded it. The idea is that you'll pull it off into a computer and finish the job there. I expect that one of these days they'll put CD/DVD burn support in there through the firewire port (along with external hard drive support); right now it's strictly a computer interface. It will be sexy to be able to make safety copies onto an iPod and not have to haul a laptop into the field.

You can gang up to 127 of them together and have sample-accurate sync across the tracks--it would make a heck of a portable multitrack machine.

I guess it's obvious that I like this product a lot...

[dominicperry]

Thanks dkatz42. At least I know for sure now. I'll have to resort to some huge and/or flimsy set up until someone makes a 4/8 track like the old reel to reels.

Cheers

Dominic