Anyone know about a virtual hard disk recorder?

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chucklesmcfarland
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Post by chucklesmcfarland » Wed Sep 14, 2011 9:04 pm

playinbass wrote:It's not as small as a laptop by any means, but you might like an AKAI DPS 24.
Since continued, but they pop up for sale every now and then.
Once you figure it out, it's basically like a digital tape machine. Sounds pretty good too!

http://www.akaipro.com/dps24mk2/?tt=5

Irony, I just sold mine. It is a spectacular machine as it is.

Why? Because you can't mix it through a console like an HDR, that's the main reason I am looking for just this thing (the virtual HDR).

I too would like a RADAR, but I can't afford one.

I've spent time with about 20-30 different DAWs and it's kind of absurd how they all are trying to be the same thing to everyone. Everything.

I would be happy with individual pieces that did one or two simple things really well, then hook them together.

It does seem rather absurd that something like this doesn't exist, but I'll watch this thread and see what we come up with.

I really like the ADAT plugin as it uses the BRC.

Is it that important to have a physical red button rather than arm with the mouse?
For god's sake yes. Get the pc and keyboard and mouse and monitor (!) out of the control room and put the PC in a closet where it can do math and store data.

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Snarl 12/8
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Post by Snarl 12/8 » Thu Sep 15, 2011 12:46 am

I still think about this almost daily. The thing is, I can't figure out how to start. I think there's something a bit wrong with my brain when it comes to stuff like this. I bog down under detail complexity or two many variables or something. If someone could tell me what IDE, programming language and audio I/O library AND which programming books or manuals to read, I'd still like to figure this out. But I can't seem to get advice that specific.
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Post by The Scum » Thu Sep 15, 2011 8:44 am

What platform are you on?

If you're on Windows, then my last post still stands:

(a disclaimer - if I were tasked with what you're talking about, this would be my first approach. It's not necessarily the only approach. Other tools, languages, books, etc are possibly similarly valid. PCs are fast enough that you might even be able to pull it off in Java...)

Visual Studio for the IDE.
C++ for the programming language.
Steinberg's ASIO for the I/O library.

Get the open source version of VSTHost and start reading the sources, particularly the I/O handling & file recording parts.

As for books, I don't know of any specific audio programming books for windows.

If you need to learn C & C++, get some books about them. I always have K&R and Stroustrup close to my desk. I've also been using cplusplus.com as a reference more frequently. Learn to write small programs, and grow from there.

To really understand how to design applications in C++ (as opposed to just writing C++ code), a Design Patterns book would probably be useful. The Head First Design Patterns book is popular at my day gig.

Once you're comfortable with C++, get some sort of Windows programming guide - a "Teach yourself .Net in 21 days" kinda title. I learned MFC from one ages ago, and haven't had much personal call for .net.

I use MSDN.net a a reference for Win-related questions.

You'll also need to learn about multi-threading and synchronization, and I'm not sure of a good modern reference for that. There might be some MSDN articles. I had a copy of the Silberschatz & Galvin OS design book when starting there, but it's more conceptual - most of the hands on programming stuff was from the prof.
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Snarl 12/8
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Post by Snarl 12/8 » Thu Sep 15, 2011 12:48 pm

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

I don't know why you call yourself "The Scum." Perhaps it stands for "The Super Considerate Uber Mench." Am I right?
Carl Keil

Almost forgot: Please steal my drum tracks. and more.

chucklesmcfarland
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Post by chucklesmcfarland » Thu Sep 15, 2011 1:08 pm

So nobody's torn down a HDR/MDR to try and reverse engineered one yet?
It's not a proprietary motherboard is it?

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Snarl 12/8
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Post by Snarl 12/8 » Thu Sep 15, 2011 1:24 pm

chucklesmcfarland wrote:So nobody's torn down a HDR/MDR to try and reverse engineered one yet?
It's not a proprietary motherboard is it?
Where would that get you if the software isn't open source?
Carl Keil

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Post by Cyan421 » Thu Sep 15, 2011 1:31 pm

Have any of you guys looked into mods for Reaper. It seems to have a decent community for modders. There are mod packs recommended by the author and in his download pages.

It seems like it might be easier to make a mod of reaper that is just the mix window. It still wouldn't be as simple as the idea of a virtual HDR, but I think with little work it would FEEL like that.
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Snarl 12/8
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Post by Snarl 12/8 » Thu Sep 15, 2011 2:03 pm

Cyan421 wrote:Have any of you guys looked into mods for Reaper. It seems to have a decent community for modders. There are mod packs recommended by the author and in his download pages.

It seems like it might be easier to make a mod of reaper that is just the mix window. It still wouldn't be as simple as the idea of a virtual HDR, but I think with little work it would FEEL like that.

I looked into that (very briefly) and only found skins and themes that made it look different, but nothing to strip away functionality from the interface, which is what I want.
Carl Keil

Almost forgot: Please steal my drum tracks. and more.

chucklesmcfarland
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Post by chucklesmcfarland » Thu Sep 15, 2011 5:40 pm

Snarl 12/8 wrote:
chucklesmcfarland wrote:So nobody's torn down a HDR/MDR to try and reverse engineered one yet?
It's not a proprietary motherboard is it?
Where would that get you if the software isn't open source?

It might help assess the best direction to go with the hardware.
Just askin'

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Snarl 12/8
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Post by Snarl 12/8 » Thu Sep 15, 2011 6:03 pm

I was just asking too. I am curious about what's really in those things.
Carl Keil

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chucklesmcfarland
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Post by chucklesmcfarland » Fri Sep 16, 2011 12:36 pm

Snarl 12/8 wrote:I was just asking too. I am curious about what's really in those things.
http://www.itox.com/pages/products/moth ... 0BXBIG.jpg

This comes up if you search for HDR or SDR.

Hey, did you know that the SDR is built from Soundscape technology?

Seem to use the same board though.

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Post by The Scum » Sat Sep 17, 2011 12:38 am

Am I right?
Not quite.

It was an in joke in 8th grade. I picked it up again a bit later, when I started writing for zines, in the pre-web days...funny that you're in Portland...they guy who coined it moved to Eugene for 9th grade...
I am curious about what's really in those things.
Probably a bunch of "good enough" AD/DA conversion, on PCI cards, that can barf the converted samples to the CPU as they come in, using DMA over the PCI bus. And a hard disk controller that's fast enough to subsequently write them all to a disk. Supported by a software driver for whatever embedded operating system (RTOS) they're running.

...And that's a paragraph that will lead to a good morning at wikipedia.

It's something at ASIO wraps up very elegantly, across many different vendors, and on several different architectures..

If you use off-the-shelf hardware, this is probably a master's-degree-level software project. If you want to roll your own hardware too, this becomes a million-dollar commercial pursuit.
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chucklesmcfarland
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Post by chucklesmcfarland » Tue Sep 20, 2011 3:05 pm

I like this simple program

http://www.multitrackstudio.com/

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Post by KoffeeKommando » Wed Sep 21, 2011 12:49 pm

chucklesmcfarland wrote:I like this simple program

http://www.multitrackstudio.com/
Very cool!....that's pretty close. At least the main interface if you don't open edit windows. Records MIDI too.

It has full WinXp/Win 7 touchscreen support. You can grab knobs and push buttons. All faders and knobs can be automated.

$119 for full pro version. 64 bit ver. coming soon per the author.

Have to investigate this one!

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