Suggestions on testing new recording h/w

LarryP wrote on 9/7/2003, 8:32 PM
I am about to replace my Gadget Labs (R.I.P.)  98SE system with something newer.  I do some live recording of 12-16 tracks at a time so reliability is tantamount.  My question for the collective wisdom is this.  Once I buy the h/w how do I test for:

No dropouts, Sample accurate sync if I use 2 X 8 interfaces, Anything else you can think of that is important

The recordings are typically 12 tracks for an hour continuous (it was a knuckle biter with 98SE) so I really don't want to sit around for 12 hours listening for dropouts.

Any ideas - wild or otherwise?

Thanks.

Larry

Comments

Cold wrote on 9/9/2003, 6:16 PM
For sync, try recording 16 tracks from a single source, pol reverse random tracks and listen for issues at different points in the recording. Or play it back for the whole hour while you do something quiet, like read forums. If you do this right it should be dead quiet unless you have an issue. My 2 cents.
Steve S.
LarryP wrote on 9/10/2003, 10:39 PM
Good 2 cents. Might work. BTW nice to see somebody talking correctly about reversing polarity instead of reversing phase.

Thanks.

Larry
Cold wrote on 9/15/2003, 11:06 AM

still catch myself saying phase reverse once in a while.... old habits die hard.
Steve S.
pwppch wrote on 9/15/2003, 6:53 PM
Just curious, but what are you recording that has 12 different sources and can run for an hour continiously?

Peter
LarryP wrote on 9/15/2003, 7:49 PM
These were live concerts here locally done as a fund raiser for the American Cancer Society here in Gurnee IL organized by a group from the high school. There were 2 hour segments with a break in between. Each segment was a little over an hour. It's pretty hectic as I am also doing the live sound but a whole lot of fun. We have done 3 so far and have another scheduled for March. I take a feed from the inserts of the console.

A local artist, Matt Wessel, composes the songs and performs them with assorted instruments and backing vocals. Not all instruments and mics are used all the time but is much easier to record everything and then cut and paste the songs into another instance of Vegas.

The effort as raised about $15,000 to date and I have also recorded 3 CD's for the artist in a studio setting. Hope I didn't take up too much bandwidth.

Larry
zemlin wrote on 9/21/2003, 5:32 PM
I also record live concerts so I know where you're coming from.

I test by recording 24 tracks (just to push things as hard as I can). Most of the tracks empty, but I use the metronome and patch it into as many inputs as I can - usually 6, and then I sometimes loop a midi player to provide some never-ending audio just so I can have something else to confirm proper operation.

I don't do multiple tracks from the same input just in case it impacts PCI bandwith or who knows what else. I record each mono input to a mono track. I like to test for at least 60 minutes - it runs longer sometimes.

By using the metronome and setting the time scale to measures/beats it is easy to confirm perfect sync. If all the ticks line up with the beat/measure bars from start to end we have a winner. Zoom WAY in on the waveform displays and you can pick a zero crossing to make sure things are in perfect sync right down to a single sample if you like.

I listen to the standard audio track for a while to make sure that sounds normal.