Hard disk recorder for 13 hour recording

[omegaomega]

Hello everyone!

I need to get a recorder that is able to record 10-12 tracks in 24bit/48khz, for 13 hours non-stop, or more.

I'm considering the HD24XR. Has anyone used that recorder to record for so long with no pauses and do you know what is the maximum time it can record at this sampling rate? Do I need to get a new hard disk for it or you think the supplied one would be enough?

I'm considering to get that recorder and the firewire case for the drive to transfer the files to Logic, as it seems the ethernet connection it has on the back is too slow.
Do you know if the files are readable by Logic straight away, or I need special software to convert or transfer them to the mac?


Thank you all

[CaseSilver]

Based on a really rough calculation you'd be talking about total file size of just over a terabyte - so as long as your disk was large enough (1.5TB?) and compatible (older systems especially may have problems addressing larger drives) with your recording hardware . . . . . Don't know enough about the HD24XR to comment further . . . ~Case

[oretez]

10 tracks, 13 hours, no pause is certainly a direct 'in your face' challenge for Murphy's law

if I had to I'd probably suggest Alesis HD24 variation & ethernet is far to slow for transfer so firewire option is a must

even with firewire the chances of something going wrong with files of that size is still a significant variable . . .

good luck and report back on choices and how it turned out

[ohmoka]

That sounds like the most stressful 13 hours of your life!

Do not rely on just one recorder. I would suggest to use two recorders (recording exactly the same signals) and every hour press stop and record in one of the recorders (Yes, you will miss a couple of seconds on one machine) so if the thing fails on the 12th hour you will only lose the last hour instead of the last 12th hours.
Once you have the audio (from the two recorders) on the computer you can synchronise them very accurate in order to create a continuous block.

[huub]

Been there, done that Stupid DJs and their lame DVD's..
8 hours of 48 tracks and 10 hours of 36 tracks was fine recording Bwav to pyramix, but I think many DAWs are fine doing this..
It's just 78 GB for 12 tracks..
Check that your software records the new WAV files (riff or whatever, so no 4 or 8 GB single filesize limit)
And that your software can go over 00.00 hours in the timeline..
My personal experience is with pyramix and reaper, both are fine with the right settings, and i would trust these way more then a hardware HD recorder..
Do not record to external fw drive.....

[HughH]

Hello,
X-48 will do that just fine. Run a backup.
Hugh

[mpdonahue]

We've done test recordings with 64 tracks of 96k up to the limit of a 2 TB drive ( I forget how long it is, Somewhere north of 30 hours) with out any issues in Pyramix. I have the sneaking suspicion that none of the standalone hard drive recorders are going to do exactly what you want.

All the best,
-mark

[talbe1019]

HD24XR will do it with the proper size hard drive. I think a 160 gig hard drive will do almost 12 hours at 24/48 for 24 tracks.

[TC Custom Audio]

Originally Posted by CaseSilver

Based on a really rough calculation you'd be talking about total file size of just over a terabyte - so as long as your disk was large enough (1.5TB?) and compatible (older systems especially may have problems addressing larger drives) with your recording hardware . . . . . Don't know enough about the HD24XR to comment further . . . ~Case

CaseSilver,

Recording 12 tracks of 24bit 48khz audio for 13 hours will consume about 75.44 binary gigabytes of storage space.

[CaseSilver]

Yep - using a better quality envelope in the cold light of morning I'd make it 77ish Gb too - (measure twice- cut once etc) ~Case

[muziekschuur]

Done that. The HD24 will do that just fine.

You could record 12 hours of nothing and record over that. That way the disc is striped. And once the recorder drops out of record because of a powerfailiure or something alike, the recorder will not looze the data.

Make sure you have two of those so you can start in another file.

Usually you do not need 12 hours of non stop recording. There is loads of time to stop during a change on stage, a speech or some other break.

Cheers,


Muziekschuur

[huub]

Originally Posted by HughH

Hello,
X-48 will do that just fine. Run a backup.
Hugh

But doesn't the x48 stop at 00:00? Or is this solved in a new software version?

[LX3]

X48 only drops out of rec when locked to ext timecode and it crosses 00.00 (I think)

Might be fixed with new OS... If it ever gets released.

Have done 10hrs on an HD24XR ok.

[mpdonahue]

How does the X48 deal with long files? does it break them up or does it use RIFF64?
All the best,
-mark

[omegaomega]

Thank you all for your comments and experience-sharing. I thought the HD24XR would be ok for the job, I will probably run a secondary, backup system with Logic and Fireface 400, but I really need to know if the Alesis is alright as I don't trust computers at all.

Also, a question for the HD24XR owners, the second hard disk candy can be used automatically by the recorder to continue recording when the first drive is full ( without stopping the recording) or is it there to copy the contents of the first candy while the recorder is not in recording mode?
Do you know if the files are readable by Logic straight away, or I need special software to convert or transfer them to the mac?

huub;
Why shouldn't I record on an external hard drive for so long? Any experience you would like to share?

Originally Posted by muziekschuur

Done that. The HD24 will do that just fine.

You could record 12 hours of nothing and record over that. That way the disc is striped. And once the recorder drops out of record because of a powerfailiure or something alike, the recorder will not looze the data.

Make sure you have two of those so you can start in another file.

Usually you do not need 12 hours of non stop recording. There is loads of time to stop during a change on stage, a speech or some other break.

Cheers,


Muziekschuur

Actually I do need to record non-stop... Possibly for up to 14 hours! The recordings I'm going to be doing with this recorder, are location monastery-festive chants and they can take up to 14 hours, non-stop in some of the older historical monasteries! But most of them are 10-12 hours non-stop.

Thank you all again for all your comments, please keep them coming!

[huub]

I just don't trust FW or USB drives personally...
Also, reording to an internal drive means that you always have a safety copy after copying to FW drive.. Copying 77GB to an external drive only takes about 45 minutes or so.. possibly less..

recording with Logic prob. is not a good idea, it has a limited amount of bars (musical bars) and even if you set the musical tempo to 2 Bpm or so, I highly doubt a logic song can be 12 or 13 hours.
Reaper for mac might be a good idea.

[HughH]

Hello,
The X-48 doesn't like to go past 23:59:... tc but neither do vtrs, meaning if you're chasing code and expect to go past midnight then whoever is manning your code source will set the code so it won't go that far. My point is that you safely have 24 hours of recording on an X-48.

12 tracks at 48k/24bit x 13 hours is a little over 77GB as someone else noted. The x-48 does quite well with high-quality fw interfaces but if you're concerned about using an external drive then find two units with larger internal drives. We've changed our drives to 1TB units for the very rare case that we don't have an external drive. However we've had very good luck with the high-quality drives like Avastor, Rocstor, GDrive, etc.

The X-48 breaks the files before the 2GB size limit. It starts a little over 1.9GB with track one, closes that file, starts another track one, then moves to track two. It reaches track forty-eight before 2 GB. That saves the system strain of closing and opening multiple tracks at a time. It can confuse post folks because the files are all different lengths, but post folks are often confused. (humor, calm down, I do post too)

Something we've done a couple of times because post houses want smaller files - we'll make sure one machine is happily humming along, stop the other machine, wait for the files to redraw, save the project, and start recording again. Give it a minute or two to be sure it's good then do the same on the backup. This leaves you without a backup for a minute or two, potentially three if the machine isn't happy, but we're nice guys and take the risk. Reminiscent of the staggered 2-inch days.

Always run a backup of any live, non-repeatable performance. No exceptions.

My opinions only.
Hugh

[Ozpeter]

Reaper (and no doubt other DAWS) will file-split without data loss at file sizes of your choosing. In the case of Reaper it can be set to stagger the file changeover across tracks so that the operation isn't happening on multiple tracks at once. You can also set it up to file-split at points of your choosing on the fly by a single keystroke.

[(un)reason]

Originally Posted by huub

recording with Logic prob. is not a good idea, it has a limited amount of bars (musical bars) and even if you set the musical tempo to 2 Bpm or so, I highly doubt a logic song can be 12 or 13 hours.
Reaper for mac might be a good idea.

Weirdly enough I tested this out recently. Logic 8 goes to exactly 12 hours before crapping out, regardless of BPM, which is a substantial improvement on 7. Even odder, Garageband can go to 13 hours 30 mins (if you set it slow enough) before weird stuff starts happening with the timeline. I'm not sure what happens if you then convert that file to a Logic one, as I didn't fill want to waste memory filling the whole thing with spurious audio just to test it.

[Ozpeter]

I think it's relevant in this thread to mention that in this week's version of Reaper, they've added provision to set each track to write to a primary location, or to a secondary location, or to both primary and secondary. So you can have half your tracks writing to one drive and half to another (so for a long recording using many tracks you'd run out of disk space less quickly), or you could have all of them writing to two separate drives for media redundancy.

And of course you can record to something like wavpack lossless compressed format to halve the amount of drive space required anyway. I've not recorded to wave format for years! I only uncompress at the CD burning stage.

(Detail for current users -

In the project settings, audio settings tab, there's a new browsable box entitled

"Secondary recording path (blank for none, can be enabled per-track)"

Having set the secondary path there for the current project, you must right click on the track's record button or meter, choose "Track recording settings", and make an appropriate choice in the box at the bottom of the dialog you'll then see - "primary only", "secondary only", or "primary and secondary".

As far as I can see there's no default other than to "Primary Only" so you have to use some sort of template or track copy method if you want to have all tracks writing to the secondary location).

[huub]

brilliant...

[jabney]

Originally Posted by omegaomega

Thank you all for your comments and experience-sharing. I thought the HD24XR would be ok for the job, I will probably run a secondary, backup system with Logic and Fireface 400, but I really need to know if the Alesis is alright as I don't trust computers at all.

Also, a question for the HD24XR owners, the second hard disk candy can be used automatically by the recorder to continue recording when the first drive is full ( without stopping the recording) or is it there to copy the contents of the first candy while the recorder is not in recording mode?
Do you know if the files are readable by Logic straight away, or I need special software to convert or transfer them to the mac?

huub;
Why shouldn't I record on an external hard drive for so long? Any experience you would like to share?



Actually I do need to record non-stop... Possibly for up to 14 hours! The recordings I'm going to be doing with this recorder, are location monastery-festive chants and they can take up to 14 hours, non-stop in some of the older historical monasteries! But most of them are 10-12 hours non-stop.

Thank you all again for all your comments, please keep them coming!

There are no guaranteed paths to do what you are asking. Full redundancy going all the way back to separate transformers on the power pole still won't do it.

However, practical solutions can get you pretty close. Depending on the budget, here would be my choices:

1. A second HD24 slaved to the first one using ADAT lightpipe cables - short ones if possible. Both machines 'striped' in advance is safer (if you don't mind dealing with - potentially - lots of blank space at the end of the files). A UPS for each machine.

2. A Zoom and lots of batteries. Record the ambient space with the the Zoom and use it to patch any missed spots if you need to stop and restart the HD24. Practice stopping and re-starting the HD24 until you get to the point that you can do it in about the length of time it takes for an audience member to cough.

3. Pray. The location should be conducive for that activity.

Or you could do all three.

best,

john

[Remoteness]

Originally Posted by talbe1019

HD24XR will do it with the proper size hard drive. I think a 160 gig hard drive will do almost 12 hours at 24/48 for 24 tracks.

I have found the same here.
I did a test running two HD24XRs for over 18 hours.
I wanted to see how long it would run without failure.
It was impressive.

[J D'Uva]

I've run a 12 hour test on my JoeCo blackbox (24 tracks at 96K) without any problems. There is a parameter to automatically split the files at the 1,2 or 4 gig limit. If the record button is pressed again during recording the files will be manually split at that point.

[Marlan]

I don't know for sure, but I think you can go as long as you need to with the MIO Console software with Metric Halo's gear. You just need big enough drives. Even is you set a max file size in the record panel, it should automatically continue to the next sample accurate file without a hiccup. The record panel is rock solid.

Pyramix is without a doubt awesome. Even my almost 10 year old custom turnkey system, spins like a new Mercedes, but I've been using the ULN 8 on a bunch of gigs and it is wicked stable. Can someone else chime in as to the length of record time available in the Metric Halo record software?

[mh_bj]

The Record Panel will record unlimited size files with formats that support it (CAF, SD2), but there are not many apps that will be happy to work with such files.

The Record panel can also be set to automatically split files at a user definable specific size. All files are split at the exact same point, and it is a seamless split (no samples are lost). The files can also be timestamped (if you use BWAV) so you can easily spot the files lined up. You can also manually split while the recording is happening by clicking the record button again.

So, with the RP, your record time is just limited by the size of the HD.

Best regards,

B.J. Buchalter
Metric Halo

[Marlan]

And yet another reason to love this company.

[JEGG]

Originally Posted by J D'Uva

I've run a 12 hour test on my JoeCo blackbox (24 tracks at 96K) without any problems.

Good to hear!!

Originally Posted by J D'Uva

There is a parameter to automatically split the files at the 1,2 or 4 gig limit. If the record button is pressed again during recording the files will be manually split at that point.

I was wondering about file size limits in the discussion re: HD24 above-I don't think anyone mentioned it. Probably the Alesis intelligently closes and opens new files as the workable file limit or the user configurable limit approaches? Alesis folks?

[MichaelPatrick]

Originally Posted by omegaomega

a question for the HD24XR owners, the second hard disk candy can be used automatically by the recorder to continue recording when the first drive is full ( without stopping the recording) or is it there to copy the contents of the first candy while the recorder is not in recording mode?
Do you know if the files are readable by Logic straight away, or I need special software to convert or transfer them to the mac?

Only one drive/caddy can be mounted at a time, and changing from one to the other requires that you press a button. During the change from one drive to the other audio will not be recorded.

Alesis uses a proprietary on-disk format that's very robust for long files. You'll need their software to copy the files off the drive, and it converts them to WAVs while copying. Alternative (better) software is HD24Tools, free software you can download.

[RobAnderson]

While there is technically no size limit on the HD24's, I did have problems trying to export files to my computer using the Fireport that were in the realm of 12 hrs long.

This is rather embarrassing to say, but it was a long time ago and I don't really remember exactly what the problem was. Fortunately, I was running a Pro Tools backup at the time, so it was no big deal - I think I just used the Pro Tools session instead - but it could have been a problem if I was simply running two ADAT's.

YMMV