Digital Recording

[andybutler]

How about this:-

freesound.iua.upf.edu/forum/viewtopic.php?p=10454

Thomann have it for £95

[Bob Amstadt]

andybutler said:

Well Bob, I think you're much better qualified to work that one out than me.
How much cost for two more connectors, another A/D and a cheap dual op amp?
I don't know whether the website is accurate in it's indication.

Most likely their DSP or their storage can't handle 4 tracks at once.

[andybutler]

ramstadt said:

andybutler said:

Well Bob, I think you're much better qualified to work that one out than me.
How much cost for two more connectors, another A/D and a cheap dual op amp?
I don't know whether the website is accurate in it's indication.

Most likely their DSP or their storage can't handle 4 tracks at once.

Nope, that unit has 4-track playback.

[hurricaneramon]

Hello :

I use a Digitech GNX4 . It has FX / 10 really super guitar Stomp boxes / 8 track recorder . It has USB and does record 4 tracks at once when used with a p.c.

For a guitarist it's really a great unit with guitar amp modeling and guitar speaker cabinets from the USA & UK to play around with .

One can use all the FX that the guitar has access to and use them on the one single microphone input on the unit .

It can record " dry " guitar or stereo line input as well as the microphone and then allow to " re amp " any track in the editing process where you can add reverb or delay or any FX you wish in the editing process .

It is a stand alone 2 track ( or one ) recorder with an additional CF memory card ( 2 gig max ) plugged into it giving up to 6 plus hours of recording and or looping .

It has a " Quantize " utility that allows for seem less and perfectly timed loops too .

Great midi drum machine , using the Pro Tracks software it comes with you can custom tune a varied drum pattern using more than just one pattern to a songs complexity with your p.c. It comes with 100 drum patterns .

Here's a 7.2 meg .wav , one minute and twenty five second mic'd recording of my Washburn D46SCE acoustic ( electric too but I didn't use it this time ) dreadnought guitar .

The song :

In My Life

by " The Beatles "

Look to the lower portion of the web page and clic the link that has a little red arrow pointing the way to the file .

The use of a .wav file is a means to demonstrate just how clean and transparent a recording is with out any FXs my GNX4 can reproduce . It is a more critical way to analyze the sound quality of the recording too .

< www.sendspace.com/file/u37v00 >

This web location is a free file sharing server and has pop ups that shoot out from one web surfer to another , please ignore them and get past them if one should randomly pop up .

Researched buying this unit 3 years till I finally realized it was what I needed . There are many units out there that offer the same over all performance package but only the GNX4 and the M-Audio Black Box have foot pedals to trigger the recording / editing process in a reasonable price range . This is a super plus in it's favor . I really see how easy it is to use when alone with no one to help me start and stop the recording process with out a hassle . I would have opt'd out for the M-Audio Black Box had it been released at the same time as my GNX4 since the price of the M-Audio Black Box is $299.00 and I have seen it cheaper too recently .

The GNX4 here in the USA is @ $500.00 in most places . I love my unit ,

and

Once out of warranty if it goes down , they have a flat rate repair of about $85.00 worst case scenario , you ship it to them they ship it back this way no matter how messed up it is short of it being run over by a truck Heh heh heh .


Sincerely :


Hurricane Ramon

[Stephen Scott]

Well, I finally decided to get a Boss micro BR digital recorder (£130 inc postage), and thought that I'd do a little review to share my feelings about it. All the important info can be found in the extensive manual lib.roland.co.jp/manual/en/dl_06-12733/MICRO-BR_e2.pdf so I’ll try to tailor this review from a user point of view.

First, an obvious design issue - the slot for the SD memory card is in the battery compartment, so the cover has to be removed and one of the AA batteries taken out to access it. That's just stupid, why not have the slot in the side of the casing or under a flap.

Otherwise, it feels quite nice, the buttons are numerous enough and large enough to allow ease of use, and the whole things feels solid enough. I'm not fussy about the silver finish, but that's largely irrelevant. Typically of all these cheaper devices, most I/Os are on 1/8” jack sockets (headphones/line out, line in/ext mic in), although the dedicated guitar IP uses a ¼” jack.

It’s pretty easy to use. I’ve managed to figure out all the functions in a few hours with the manual in front of me, although I only had to refer to the manual for some of the more esoteric functions. Anyone who tells you that it’s really hard to use (as in some of the reviews I’ve read) I expect would have difficulty turning the TV on.

To use as stereo digital recorder, choose the input (guitar, mic, line in or ext mic – you can also select IP sensitivity here), adjust the input level dial while watching the meters, then press record. You will then be asked to choose file type (44.1kHz MP3 at 192, 128 or 64 kbps, or 16-bit 44.1KHz wav file), then recording will start. You can see the time counting up (or counting down available time if you’d prefer), plus there’s a little recording symbol to let you know recording is in progress. So, largely idiot proof. There’s a re-assuring delay when you press stop as it writes data to the memory card. Recording quality sounds as good as expected from the figures.

It’s also simple to use as a 4-track (32 ‘virtual’ tracks) recorder (I won’t go into the details, see the manual for this), although accessing some of the editing functions requires some deeper delving. Roland use their own proprietary format when using the multitrack recorder, but quality sounds fine. The final mix can be converted to MP3 or Wav format using inbuilt tools in the recorder, or with some free Roland software. This sw also enables you to extract and convert any or all of the 32 virtual tracks for using in other software packages – this could be handy.

I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of the built-in COSM amplifier models. There are some basic effects too (modulations, compression / limiting, delays, reverb) most of which are reasonable (except the reverb paradigms – avoid at all cost). Another surprise in such a basic device was that it’s possible to record, say, a guitar part dry, but still monitor the COSM and effect. This would make ‘reamping’ possible, although you’d need to mute all the other tracks and do it via the line out jack, that’s a faff. One thing I couldn’t do was to take a mono track and pass it through an inbuilt stereo effect to ‘stereoify’ it on the bounce down or final mix. I don’t know why this isn’t possible. When doing the final mix, a range of ‘mastering tools’ (comp / eq mostly) are available which can jolly up the mix if you want.

The inbuilt (mono) microphone is not bad, and I’ve recorded some quite lively sounding acoustic guitar through this. A socket is provided to allow use of an external stereo mic. As has already been noted in other posts, it’s only possible to record on 1 or 2 tracks at a time, so there’s no way of recording a stereo mic plus a stereo line in at the same time.

Finally, there’s a drum machine in it (it works, but I will never need to use it), and you can use it as an MP3 player (sounds good, but I understand it doesn’t support VBR).

Battery life is dire, only a few hours per set, so you’ll need to use a PSU. It seems a bit fussy about power requirements, and I had to try about 5 different 9V adapters before I found one that worked (rather than shell out another £25 for a Roland PSA).

It’s a good stereo recorder, and I can recommend it for this alone (provided you’re OK with 1/8” jacks). While there are limitations for it’s use as a multitrack recorder, it works well at least as a ‘musical sketchpad’, and it’s also quite capable of producing more polished results if you’re prepared to work at it.

[Stephen Scott]

Slightly OT I guess, but anyway,

Does anyone have experience of using Audacity? I know it's free and pretty basic, but it covers most of my editing needs, EXCEPT: I can't work out how to copy a bit of audio and paste that OVER (or REPLACE) another section. When I try, the cut section is INSERTED into the new section, with the result that the whole track is lengthened. With Goldwave, I have the option of 'Mix pasting', which is one way of doing it, but with Audacity, I can't even get it to do this.

I've tried checking out the FAQs and the tutorials, but no joy.

[nick robinson]

I use Adobe audition - does 90% of what I need...

ps. still not hard-wired the cycloops ;(

[andybutler]

Yep, Audition is excellent.
Can't imagine what the 10% it doesn't do for Nick would be.
Stephen, does Audacity have a Multitracking page?
It's possible to do those sorts of edits with a single file editor, but much easier to do it by putting the single file into a multitrack session, then chopping it up and moving bits about over 2 or more tracks. Well, that's what I do in Audition, can't remember if Audacity has that.

[Stephen Scott]

andybutler said:

Yep, Audition is excellent.
Can't imagine what the 10% it doesn't do for Nick would be.
Stephen, does Audacity have a Multitracking page?
It's possible to do those sorts of edits with a single file editor, but much easier to do it by putting the single file into a multitrack session, then chopping it up and moving bits about over 2 or more tracks. Well, that's what I do in Audition, can't remember if Audacity has that.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by a multitracking page, but I'm using it to edit multitrack recordings; you can have as many tracks open as you need (eg, the 32 virtual tracks of my new toy). I've been doing what you do in Audition (copying sections to new tracks etc). I've just DL'd the latest beta version and this seems to have improved editing tasks considerably. I've also DLd trial of Audition at Nick's recommendation, but haven't installed it yet.

[nick robinson]

andybutler said:

Yep, Audition is excellent.
Can't imagine what the 10% it doesn't do for Nick would be.

It's when I need to use VST - I love the way ableton allows you to draw in envelopes to control almost every facet of an effect. That said, I use audition to edit wavs from ableton. I also like the way it will allow different mp3 formats so I can drastically reduce file size without huge loss of quality. I teach a guitar class and let them download mp3s of the songs we do. Not strictly legal but...

Most serious omission for me is the lack of realaudio export from Audition.

[andybutler]

I did some research, as I thought ( or knew already) that Audition actually has some of that 10%
Audition 2 gives you envelopes for every parameter of a vst effect.
All versions of Audition give you more different mp3 formats than you'll ever need.
...but no real audio...
Actually I have Audition 2, but always use Audition 1 because it loads faster and runs ok with the low latency settings I use for Bidule.

....4% then ? ;-)

I never really checked out Ableton, always thought it was locked into that grid based thing.

ps. Nick..I'll put a link on my site th here on next website update.

[nick robinson]

andybutler said:

ps. Nick..I'll put a link on my site th here on next website update.

'preciated - I think we just need another 10 or so users and we'll have enough momentum to make it worth calling by every other day, if not more often ;D

[Bob Amstadt]

admin said:

andybutler said:

ps. Nick..I'll put a link on my site th here on next website update.

'preciated - I think we just need another 10 or so users and we'll have enough momentum to make it worth calling by every other day, if not more often ;D

If you'd like to send me flyers to distribute in my NAMM booth in January, I'd be happy to do it for you.

I like the forum format much better than the mailing list. I created a mail address that I only gave to looper's delight mailing list and it is already receiving spam. I'd like to get away from the email mailing lists completely.

[nick robinson]

ramstadt said:

If you'd like to send me flyers to distribute in my NAMM booth in January, I'd be happy to do it for you.

That's kind of you, probably I could do a small poster and email it?

ramstadt said:

I like the forum format much better than the mailing list.

Me too - whilst I wouldn't give up on the LD list, I've just never felt quite at home with the format. Plus, lists by their nature are a tiny bit "cliquey", whereas anyone can check out a forum before signing up.

I need to think of keeping threads in the right place now - if you (or anyone else) can think of suitable new categories, just ask.

[ikeaboy321]

Oct 31, 2007 19:28:37 GMT Stephen Scott said:

andybutler said:

I don't know about the Boss unit Stephen mentions, but the Roland web page for it has got "don't buy this, it's a toy for idiots" written in big letters.

Right, that settles it, I've definitely gotta have one

Amem,amen and pass the ammunition! Count me in gear that I can understand and remember how to use! maybe?