Converters question - HD24 Instead of Computer System?

[Scinx]

I have a Delta1010 which has been on my bad side ever since I got it - between customer support, upgrades not working, etc. In any case - I would like to pick up new converters. At the same time, my hard drive space is running out so I should probably get a new hard drive. While Im at it, I figure, I should quiet down the computer so that I can record in the same room. Lastly, it would be nice to record without a computer I suppose - I would be able to wheel the rig around, etc.

With all those things put together, I have been thinking if I should just spring for a HD24XR which will take care of my immediate hard drive problem, take care of the converter situation, and - with a simple fan upgrade - take care of the noise issue.

The reason Im thinking about this now is that the Firewire card comes free with the unit (via Alesis rebate). As such, I could - I surmise - just dump my tracks from the Alesis into Cubase, edit then, and send them back.

I also do VST and was wondering how that might work - for instance, I like using Cubase to record MIDI with (the chorder, and other presets come in handy). I guess that I can record tracks onto the HD, then record into Cubase the MIDI parts, and put them all together.

Now that thats all out of the way, let me summarize my questions:
1) How is outside the box mixing effects (reverb, compression, etc.) achieved with the HD? Id surmise the only method (without having tons of gear [aka: equipment for each channel] is to play it out, into the effect, and record it on another track within the unit? Yes/No? How is this usually done? Seems time intensive to have to listen to each track...
2) For Midi, is there a simple solution to be able to play into Cubase so that I can do whats discussed above (thereby allowing me to get rid of the Delta1010)
3) Does anyone know if I'd be able to take pre-existing tracks recorded on the computer and send them to the HD?
4) Am I better off just buying a clock and clocking the Delta to it?
5) How would you address the situation?

[hourglass]

Hey Scinx,

I've been playing with 2 HD24's this week for a huge-ass project.

They've got two 3hr+ church services on these things - about 160GB total.

I tried the Ethernet port for a transfer, and lemme tell ya - it blows.

I managed to find someone with a Fireport thing and that is the bomb -- It's pulling an hour and a half worth of 24 tracks over pretty much in real-time - maybe even a bit faster.

Unless you know somebody got 48 channels of ADAT in, you can't do it any faster than that.

To address some of your other questions (in no particular order):

1. If you're buying this thing thinking you can use the converters to record straight into your DAW, then stop right there. It's not like an ADAT. The lightpipe output does not mirror ANY input. The only thing going out the ADAT OUT is data from the harddisk.

2. This thing isn't a DAW-IN-A-BOX. It's more or less a tape recorder except it uses harddisks. So - you can't "do" effects with it. As in, it ain't gonna process plugins or whatever. If you wanna bump an output to something else, process it, and record to another track in realtime - JUST LIKE WITH TAPE - then you can certainly get what you're looking for.

3. You can easily take ANY PROJECT you've ever recorded (so long as you have it on a disk, that is...) and transfer it to the HD24. The Fireport is capable of transferring WAV, AIFF, SD2, and SD files. It converts them to its proprietary format on the fly. The same is true the other way - data in any of those four formats can be imported from the HD24 into your DAW.

4. Seems to me, the way you talk about putting MIDI on stuff, the way you would want to work is to track with the HD24 then dump it into your DAW to tweak stuff and then dump it back out for the mix.

I'm assuming here you have the capability of routing 24 analog inputs and outputs to and from this thing.

Actually, you only need to be able to route as many inputs as you feel you'll need at any one time. You can hook it up to an 8-Buss board and connect that to inputs 1-8. They'll then be internally normalled down the line - so buss 1 feeds tracks 1, 9, & 17, etc...

Overall, I'm very impressed with the HD24. I almost shit myself when I popped the cover off the rack and saw over 48 TRS jacks staring back at me. I guess Alesis figured if they're not in the ELCO business, why make everyone shell out tons of cash for 'em...


The only thing I find kinda clunky about it is the same thing I've always hated about their shit -- you have two buttons to enter names. Not a big deal when you're changing settings on a QS6.1, but when you're gonna be naming projects and songs and disks, the ol' alphabet scroll is gonna get old fast.


On the plus side - it takes my DAW about 10 seconds to buffer before it starts playing back the tracks I imported from the HD24. Compare this to the INSTANT playback you get when you push the PLAY button, and it's obvious why a dedicated unit is sometimes better than a "do-everything" box.

Hope some of that is helpful.

ryan

Oh yeah - if you didn't already do it - go to the Alesis website and check out the manual. I've never dropped major cash on shit like this without first devouring every available morsel.

[Jay Kahrs]

Hourglass, you da MAN!!! Seriously, I was thinking about doing the HD24 and DAW thing myself and you ansered a bunch of my questions. Mucho gracious!

Have you used the HD24 with the BRC? I'd love to see a dedicated remote for it but there isn't one yet.

Are there any other real gotya's or cool things about it?

[hourglass]

Jay,

Glad I'm able to help out.

As it stands, these units aren't mine. They belong to the church where the projects were recorded. I was asked to transfer them, so I did the crash-course .pdf session and a bit of hands-on testing to find the best way to transfer stuff offa these things in the most efficient manner. Not a whole lotta real quality session time, but the way these people are talking that could change soon.

As for the remote, it comes with a so-called LRC, and I believe that's how the jack is labelled in the back. I'm completely at a loss here about the BRC cuz I don't have one to try out with it. I believe the manual mentions so stuff about it, tho.

I'm kinda hoping these things stick around for a little while so I can do some actual tracking on them. Ever since I set 'em on top of my rack, I've had this serious itch to do a session without any video monitors in the room...

I'll hit a couple of other points I "discovered" while playing around:

1. Any (probably, since I tried two...) Harddisk drawer will work in this thing. I dunno what Alesis is charging for the drive caddy deals, but drop by yer local computer show and pick up a stack of drawers for $10 and you'll be set - just be sure they're ATA-66/100 compliant.

2. Speaking of this - I transferred an old project out of my system to the HD24. To do this, I dug up an old 20GB drive and tossed it in the HD24. I did the transfer and everything looked fine. I pressed PLAY and got a bunch of meter action, a few seconds of sound and then.... BLAM. it stopped. And sat there for a second and said, "UNDERFLOW ERROR. HDD TOO SLOW."

That particular drive was a first-generation UDMA-33 drive, so when Alesis says "ANY CURRENT EIDE DRIVES WORK" they really mean that it has to be current. Or at least not 3 or 4 year old technology.

I got the same error in both my regular drive carrier and the Alesis carrier. When I tried it with a newer drive everything worked fine.

3. I really wanted the FST-Connect software which comes with the Fireport thing to be able to work with any external firewire drive. I had my hopes up because Alesis doesn't offer the software for download.

However, the actual Fireport itself controls access to the FST partition on the harddisk so you gotta have the real deal...

ryan

[Scinx]

The caddys go for about $20 which is reasonable enough. To clarify my first post - I am looking at these to record onto (not as part of the computer system). My thinking follows that instead of spending a couple thousand on a high end 2 channel converter - I can get good quality plus the ability to record without the computer. There is something emotionless about recording straight onto the computer.

Thanks so much for your post though - it was a great informational read!

[David R.]

I am loving the quality of my HD24XR. Got the fireport and it is a snap to transfer to my computer. Even on a mac (OS X only for the software). You can not import directly into your daw, first have to use their program to take the files from the drive, then open your favorite program and import. I have not tried sending the files back to the HD24, have heard from the yahoo group that it can be buggy from a mac.

I spent so much energy chasing down a problem (turned out to be motu hardware) that I have not really put it to the test with the BRC. Soon as I get a new chip from motu, I will be using the HD24XR as a D/A converter, sending this massive project edited in DP3 through light pipe (via 2408 II) and 1224 for 32 channels of mixing fun.

So far, the unit has been rock solid. I encountered one bug while trying to add two bars to a song doing the edit internally, could not do all the tracks at once. I am going to update the OS and see if this goes away.

The BRC issue is a sticky one. Lots of noise on the Yahoo group. Alesis promised to release the new "Director" a while ago and is jerking everyone around with this. Another company came close to producing a full function remote and then backed off after talking with Alesis. The BRC really does a good job as a controller for all the basic functions. There are a few tricks to making it play well, recording 10 seconds of silence at the begining of a new song, external sync must be on...

Overall, I say to the HD24XR.

[Jay Kahrs]

Originally posted by David R.
I am loving the quality of my HD24XR. Got the fireport and it is a snap to transfer to my computer. Even on a mac (OS X only for the software). You can not import directly into your daw, first have to use their program to take the files from the drive, then open your favorite program and import. I have not tried sending the files back to the HD24, have heard from the yahoo group that it can be buggy from a mac.

So when you open up Cubase or DP or whatever, it looks through the Fireport and sees the HD24 as another hard drive? What kind of bugs have come up from sending the files back? That's a big issue for me, I want to be able to track on the HD24, fly it over to a DAW to edit, then fly it back to the HD so I can mix from there on my console.

[jabney]

hi ryan,

While it may be possible to use non-Alesis caddies in the HD24, I would not do so. Reason: the Alesis caddy has a grounding 'finger' on each side connected to the hard drive by a mounting screw. Maybe that won't matter most of the time, but wouldn't you hate to lose a multitrack recording for the sake of saving ten bucks on a caddy?

[David R.]

Jay, it does not see it as another drive, would be great if it did. You have to download all files/tracks to your computer hard drive. Let's say you put them on your desktop. Unplug the fireport, you are done with it. Then, open Cubase/DP/what ever and import the audio files from the desktop.

I have not tried going back to the HD24. Don't know what the bugs are exactly, but a quick search on the yahoo group should find it.

The project I am working on now was started 4 years ago on Adats. I transfered all the tapes to the HD24. We were running out of tracks and still had the vocals to do, so I started to sync the HD24 to my mac (using the BRC) to get extra tracks. The sync is a million times better than with adats. I was using a 1224 to go in and out of the mac. Too many edits to do on the vocal to deal with sync'ing, so I got the idea to pick up a used 2408 II, import all the files/tracks to DP, and use the HD24 as a converter. All tracks that were on the HD24 are now in DP, I can choose the output (which bank of lightpipe - A, B, or C, and the 1224) and the HD24 does the conversion and goes analog out to my board.

That gives me 32 channels of good sounding ins and outs. (I still think the 1224 sounds great)

Hope this was not too confusing.

[Scinx]

I think, correct me if Im wrong, but say you have TrackA on the HD24, youd then transfer it via Firewire using the Alesis program. This makes TrackA.wav on the harddrive. You then, from Cubase, import the wave file, and suck it in. I dont think its as simplified as opening cubase and seeing all the tracks on HD24 - that would be nice though.

I would also like to know the answers to the other questions Jay has - as far as problems encountered sending back to the HD, etc.

As for caddies - you (Jabney) bring up a good point - however I think Ryan wasnt aware that Alesis caddies were only $20. Excellent point though.

Keep the posts coming!!

[hourglass]

Jay,

I believe David R. said the problems are with transferring to Macs - if I remember correctly you said yer sticking with PC's.

Which is also true for the work I'm doing, and I've had no problems.

I'll see if I can rundown a more detailed look at the process:

1. First step would be to record all your tracks to the HD24. Nice and easy, just like working with any tape-based machine.

2. You take the harddisk out of the HD24 and plug it into the Fireport.

3. You fire up the Fireport/FST software and it shows you the contents of the HD24 drive. You don't "see" the drive show up with your other in "My Computer" or whatever...

4. You select the project (disks contain multiple projects, projects contain multiple songs) and the song you want to transfer.

5. The right-hand window shows you your tracks. All tracks are the same length and all tracks are the same size. When you initialize the "song" in the HD24 you tell it how many tracks you are going to use - so there will always be 24 tracks if you told it 24. 16 if you told it 16. You may have only recorded to 14, but they're all still there, and they're all taking up physical space on the drive.

6. You select the tracks you want to transfer (basic windows commands here - CTRL+Click to get various tracks, Click Track1 and SHIFT-Click track24 to select the full range of tracks. Selected tracks are highlighted...

7. Select your format via radio button. Wav, AIFF, SD2, PT/SD

8. Select the destination - like D:\HD24-Disk1

9. Export. Wait for it to finish. You will end up with your files in the folder selected. The files are all called "TrackXX.wav" or "TrackXX.aiff" with the XX of course corresponding to the track number.

10. Now you need to go thru whatever steps it takes to import all your tracks into your DAW. Make sure they all butt up against the left-hand wall so they all maintain the same start time if your DAW doesn't import and sequence the tracks.

11. Process. Overdub. Record new tracks, etc. in your DAW.

12. Now you have to EXPORT the tracks from the DAW. For me, I go to my Track Bouncing function and select "Multitrack Bounce" in the options and select "Mono Wav Files" in the output options. Also, Samplitude appends "TrackXX" onto the end of my file names automatically, so I would just leave the destination filename blank and they'll all end up as they need to be.

13. Export all of these to a directory on your harddisk - maybe use the same one if you're low on space, maybe make a new one... In any case, the files HAVE TO BE CALLED "TrackXX.xxx" in order for the HD24 to recognize them.

14. Now you fire up the FST Connect software and reverse the process. Select the files you exported from the DAW and put them in the song on the HD24. If you don't want to overwrite the old song, you have to have a new empty session already created on thd HD24. It will not create a "song" on the fly.

15. Push the import. If your song-length changed, the HD24 will make the necessary adjustments before pulling the files down - this is a certainty if you created an empty song session and are putting a 5-minute song there. Wait a few minutes and you'll be ready to rock the HD24 with your edited tracks.


To me, it's a fairly simple process. Just a bit tedious to document. Like I said before, I didn't have any problem getting an old session into the HD24.

ryan

[hourglass]

Originally posted by jabney
hi ryan,

While it may be possible to use non-Alesis caddies in the HD24, I would not do so. Reason: the Alesis caddy has a grounding 'finger' on each side connected to the hard drive by a mounting screw. Maybe that won't matter most of the time, but wouldn't you hate to lose a multitrack recording for the sake of saving ten bucks on a caddy?

That's cool - I didn't think they'd be goin' for that cheap. On the other hand - they'll still probably require some forethought, cuz I doubt yer local GC is gonna carry them as a regular stock item...

ryan

[David R.]

Originally posted by Scinx
I think, correct me if Im wrong, but say you have TrackA on the HD24, youd then transfer it via Firewire using the Alesis program. This makes TrackA.wav on the harddrive. You then, from Cubase, import the wave file, and suck it in. I dont think its as simplified as opening cubase and seeing all the tracks on HD24 - that would be nice though.

Correct.

Don't think of the fireport as an interface or the HD24 as a drive. You take the hard drive out of the HD24, plug it into the fireport, Alesis software recognizes the drive and lets you transfer selected tracks or songs to your drive. Then you have a bunch of sound files on your drive to do whatever you want with.

Again, I have not tried transfering files back to the HD24. It may work perfectly. I have heard there may be problems on the mac side. This is unconfirmed by me and I don't know what those problems might be.

Your best bet is to join the HD24 group on Yahoo and read from those who have done it.

[David R.]

Didn't see Ryan's post because I was buisy posting myself.

What he said.

[jabney]

hi ryan,

Actually, I did buy my most recent pair of Alesis caddies at Guitar Center :-) Unlike the caddies that came with the HD24, the additional ones came in a plastic (dust-proof perhaps?) case.

As for the various ways of moving tracks to the computer, the fastest and easiest method I've tried is to record via LightPipe into the CreamWare Scope's VDAT set at 24 bits and the appropriate kHz. As long as the HD24 and computer are both set to sync to external wordclock, it works in exactly real time with no glitches.

Advantage: record multiple acts at a festival without worrying about starting a new song for each act. Instead of then having to transfer 12 or 14 hours worth of data to one file per track, create VDAT files (24 bit .wavs + a small CreamWare-specific editable text file) up to two hours in length for each set. Then mix or write individual .wav files to DVD+/-R without having to split a file (splitting files is a pain - especially if you can't remember where you put the software to join them back again :-)

[Tim L]

Don't mean to hijack the thread but I thought this might interest some fellow HD24 users... I don't have any info on the when, where, what, and how of this thing other than a rumoured release of after the holiday's. I'll believe it when I see it... I did happen to notice the thing isn't even on...

-This from the HD24 users group-

[Scinx]

Very Interesting. I wonder if its filled with sand . Thanks everyone who has posted thus far - very very informative!

[subspace]

I've got almost the same set-up as you David R. MOTU 2408 + 1224 on a Mac running sample-accurately sync'd to a Mackie SDR 24/96. Really cool having the two systems sync'd up and being able to choose which format to record to at any given time. I like to track on the SDR for monitoring ease during punches etc., then record into the DAW as we listen back. I use the SDR as a 22 channel D/A during mixdown as well, plus the 10 channels from the 1224 for 32 outs total. Record the mix back onto the last two channels of the SDR.
Don't believe the MOTU hardware's adat sync ports work on PC though...
The Mackie is cool for transfers because it records directly to time-stamped WAVs on a plain FAT32 drive. Just pull the HD tray out, slide it into a firewire carrier, and play the files directly off the drive in their proper sample position, no render step required. Too bad Mackie dumped Sydec, the actual designers, and discontinued the damn thing...