Alesis HD24 Tips.

[bigtoe]

i know UTFSE...i have and am...

Anyone with one want to give some tips and or experiences? ramble on, i'm all ears. I'm getting one...probably with older software with the DA upgrade installed.

bye bye da38's...*sniff*...

MIke

[honkyjonk]

I don't know how common it is w/ HD recorders, but when it says 99 levels of undo or whatever, on the HD24(XR) you can't undo anything you've recorded or recorded over.
You can only undo stuff you've cut, copied, or pasted through the edit function.
That was kind of a bummer for me. I lost a good track a couple of times because I accidentally armed the wrong track.
I would have lost it to tape too, but you know, it's digital, I expect at the very minimum, a flux capacitor.
Other than that, this thing is pretty awesome. It sounds fantastic, and I'm very pleased w/ it.

Oh, also, don't even touch the Hard drive handle thing that is in the front, if you even look at it, the hard drive will jump right out of the machine, but that's not really a big deal so far. I havn't lost anything.

I would like to replace the fan. I'm sure you've come across that thread already. . .

[xonlocust]

mike-

i tracked one session to one (borrowed from spiral - THANKS JEF!) a couple months back - the track arming buttons are kinda small and sorta a pain in the ass to select on for my tastes. the drives are really cool though. i used it just like a tape machine though, never did any crop/edits or whatever. the lack of remote w/arming is vaguely a pain but nothing major. if you could get a remote that has an autolocator and track arming switches like a 2" machine i would absolutely love it.

one thing that annoyed me when tracking was that at each song, the machine would reset itself to all safe mode. this was a pain because when you'd go to do vocals, i constantly had to re-arm 17-19 on every song. obviously on a tape machine (what im used to) once the tracks are armed, they're armed till you consciously unarm them. i guess that's to keep you from accidentally fucking something up when you scroll to the next song, but it interrupted my flow in an annoying way.

yesterday i mixed a session off of one that a band tracked themselves to audiodesk. first i hooked it up to my computer at home and ftp'd files up to the machine - it took 2 hrs to load in 4 songs/18 min audio. get the fireport thingy if you want to do this more. once at the studio though, the thing worked awesome - i just plugged it into the patchbay and went off running.

the one i used has the fan mod and the nice converters on it - nothing to complain about really on it. really, a quite nice machine overall. i especially like the 24 analog i/o for the mixing reasons - go out to an analog console & mix to tape.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/hd24/

i think you'll like it.

[brian beattie]

I love mine. I just finished my first "start to finish" record on my hd24. I've always been an "adat" man, and the transition to the hd-24 has been fabulous. I transfer my existing adat tapes onto it for the better converters. The cut and paste stuff allows for all sorts of swell tomfoolery. I've edited entire takes (the top of take five, the back of take 6...) together inside the machine, no problem. I'll run, say the vocals through the echoplex, and then cut and paste it back to replace the entire vocal track with a primitive "analog-ized" version of itself. The safetying is nice and fast. The hard drives are dirt cheap. I couldn't be more pleased. I just treat mine like a tape machine that has a few digital features. Plus, I mix onto analog, so I get a bit of "the best of both worlds".
I bet you'll love it.
brian

[honkyjonk]

Oh,

I havn't tried it yet, but I was thinking about copying and pasting the vocal track to another track, then delaying by a few milliseconds to create a slapback.
This is probably nothing new to folks in the digital realm already, so I probaby sound like a dufus, but I gotta try that.
Anybody do delay like this?

[cgarges]

If you're used to 88s or 38s or whatever, you'll love it, because they're very similar but the HD24 doesn't have the bullshit that digital tape does. It's not as edit-friendly as other DAWs and there's no record undo (which is a bummer for me), but it's a great, very stable, very easy-to-use machine. If I hadn't gotten addicted to RADAR early on, I'd probably own an HD24 right now.

Oh, do be aware (and you probably already know this) that the analog I/Os are all 1/4" TRS connectors. There's no sort of multi-pin thing, like ELCO or D-sub, which is a real drag.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

[bigtoe]

thanks for the tips y'all...i hope to get it in jan/feb...and yeah i have decided i just want a tape machine-esque thing...but being able to loop something and trim shit here and there? whooOOO!

"then delaying by a few milliseconds to create a slapback"

no feed back but it would work i bet...i do this type of delay with guitars sometimes. anywhere from 20-100 to make it bigger or to fill out the picture by panning...no wetness...kinda a cheeseball technique but it works.

any more? let'er rip....wonder if anyone has any support horror stories...

MIke

PS- re: editing features from chris- i'm thinking alesis will be doing a major upgrade to these soon... and the masterlink...it would make sense...i hope it's upgradeable to the old ones...

Mike

[joeysimms]

Nothing to add, other than I will likely end up with something like this HD24 before i actaully get a computer recording program ala protools.

[cgarges]

thanks for the tips y'all...i hope to get it in jan/feb...and yeah i have decided i just want a tape machine-esque thing...but being able to loop something and trim shit here and there? whooOOO!

I could see creating loops being a real pain on this thing. I haven't done it and there may be some tricks to it, but it seems like it would be more difficult on this machine than on just about anything else short of digital tape or cassette.

PS- re: editing features from chris- i'm thinking alesis will be doing a major upgrade to these soon... and the masterlink...it would make sense...i hope it's upgradeable to the old ones...

I've been thinking that about the Masterlink for about five years. I think since Alesis was bought out by the guy who owns Numark, all R&D on previous products has stopped. The Masterlink, while a beautiful piece of equipment (I just ordered a second one, which should be here tomorrow), has some serious flaws that definitely should have been addressed in a newer version by now. Alesis has also been promising a bigger, more flexible and functional remote for the HD24 since before shipping began three years ago. If you're buying with the expectation of having these upgrades occur in the near future, I would be surprised if you're in for a BIG disappointment.

If the new Tascam 2-track had some kind of internal memory, there's no way I would have bothered getting a second Masterlink.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

[bigtoe]

'If you're buying with the expectation of having these upgrades occur in the near future, I would be surprised if you're in for a BIG disappointment.'

nah...by the time i buy something like this it's waaaay out of date anyway!

it'd be a bonus to see a video interface...but not necessary...buying somethign alesis is just kinda scary for me...but shite these things are going so cheap...which is why i think they are gonna upgrade...hmm....

"I could see creating loops being a real pain on this thing."

shh...don't tell the folks i record! they'll never know the difference!

wish i had a radar. those things look and sound amazing.

thanks chris,

Mike

[joelpatterson]

The one thing I would DEARLY love on my HD-24 would be a jog and shuttle wheel. I end up with concert recordings 2 hours long, or more, and it makes me sit there and hold the fast forward button while we advance to where I want to go. It knows we're not "fast forwarding" through anything, I know it, and yet we still have to go through this charade.

But talk about measly little quibbles... the thing is fantastic. I sync it to Digital Performer and we go back and forth, bouncing tracks, bringing in analog tracks from the MOTU 2408... I love how it's all an environment where anything goes anywhere.

[Rodgre]

I went from a three-ADAT setup with a BRC, interfaced with ProTools 001 rig, to an HD-24 sync'd to PT. I love it. it perfectly interfaces with the BRC, it's been very reliable. Drives are cheap, so backups are easier.

I haven't ever used the editing capabilities on it, as I still bounce back and forth into PT for that sort of thing, but I'm loving mixing and tracking with it. Sounds similar to a RADAR to me, but maybe not exactly as 'tapey".

I use the BRC, and with that, you can create record-ready groups so if you're tracking to certain tracks for every song, you can program that and hit one button to stay in record mode on those tracks. One button to arm as many tracks as you wish.

Roger

[cgarges]

Sounds similar to a RADAR to me, but maybe not exactly as 'tapey".

I agree with the "not exactly as 'tapey'" bit, but I think there's a pretty noticeable difference. (I'm a gear snob, though, and yes, the HD24 does sound good.)

The thing that I LOVE about the RADAR is that you don't have to fly anything to anywhere else in order to edit. You can splice and unsplice and move things and copy things and comp and whatever while a player is taking a break, practicing a part, or tuning up. The version 3.1 software, which allows for gain changes, is really phenomenal. The unfortunate thing is that I've really gotten used to this manner of working, which is really fast and efficient. Anything else seems like an impediment to me, but that's just because I've gotten used to working on RADAR.

Like I said earlier, if you're going from just tape-based to the HD24, you'll love it.

Chris

[kayagum]

So far so good with my unit... I have a pretty serious theater sound design gig coming up in 2005, so I will be able to put it through its paces.

I've also been thinking, since I don't need 24 tracks for most of my stuff, that I can do the "compress the hell out of a duplicate track" trick pretty quickly.

Thanks for setting up this topic

[bigtoe]

"Thanks for setting up this topic"

Thanks to all for responding to it! I dig this place highly. I learn a ton to try out. No way to repay but with thanks and blabs...

Later,

Mike