Recording HD24 tracks paralell to a DAW

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absent
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Recording HD24 tracks paralell to a DAW

Post by absent » Thu Jul 23, 2020 10:17 am

I'm getting ready to start using my Alesis HD24 as 8 channels for a Focusrite 18i20, which I will be using under Reaper.
I'd like to track on the 16 remaining ADAT channels at the same time and import those tracks to the DAW .
Can the imported waves line up at 00:00:00 sample-accurate without tweaking
?


I'll already need to use the ADAT as the master clock for the interface. It seems like I ought to be able to start and stop forward recording from the ADAT remote. My transport options will probably be extremely limited, but I'll take what I can get.



Primarily, I want to track several individual outputs of my drum machine live and only import them into the DAW if I think it's necessary after the fact. And I don't like those extra channels going to waste!

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Nick Sevilla
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Re: Recording HD24 tracks paralell to a DAW

Post by Nick Sevilla » Thu Jul 23, 2020 9:45 pm

Sure,

As long as you synch both the ADAT and the Reaper DAW with timecode, and wordclock.

You could use MIDI Timecode, the HR24 has MIDI IO, and your interface does as well.

Read the manual on the HR24 to see if it generates or just reads MIDI timecode, or MTC for short.

Reaper should be able to synch to MTC, read its manual as well.

Then decide who should be the master.

IMHO and experience, DAWs do better when chasing a hardware unit master.
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kslight
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Re: Recording HD24 tracks paralell to a DAW

Post by kslight » Fri Jul 24, 2020 6:01 am

I’ve never worked exactly as you suggest but my advise if you don’t know this already would be to keep the HD24 at 48khz, 44.1 is wonky on that machine.

Otherwise it ought to be easy to line up - even if you had to do it manually you could just print a sync drum hit across every channel at a certain time marker and line up to that.

numberthirty
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Re: Recording HD24 tracks paralell to a DAW

Post by numberthirty » Fri Jul 24, 2020 10:50 pm

Just out of curiosity...

Is there a reason not to just track everything on the HD24, and transfer all of those tracks to a computer after the fact? What you laid out just feels like it could be an extra lair of complication for no really good reason.

absent
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Re: Recording HD24 tracks paralell to a DAW

Post by absent » Thu Jul 30, 2020 12:13 pm

Numberthirty:

Managing all of my tracking on the HD24 would be a pain for a few different reasons. Transferring tracks is a tedious process involving removing the ancient hard drive caddy from the machine and then connecting it to the "Alesis FirePort" Firewire adapter box.
You can transfer tracks via 10base T ethernet if you have a few months to wait for the FTP transfer to complete... if it does.

It'd just be nice to have those extra individual drum voices available *should I want them*. I don't mind transferring the occasional set of tracks out. And it would be nice to have the occasional set of extra tracks available should I need them. Mostly, I just hate the idea of 16 extra tracks sitting there unavailable.

And I hate wondering about it!

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Re: Recording HD24 tracks paralell to a DAW

Post by absent » Thu Jul 30, 2020 12:24 pm

KSlite;

Thanks for the good advice. Some searching definitely confirms that people are reporting that experience. I'm OK with 48k. I'm going to do 192 for smaller projects, but anything that uses my ADAT is going to require 48k. Such is life.

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Re: Recording HD24 tracks paralell to a DAW

Post by absent » Thu Jul 30, 2020 12:26 pm

KSlite;

Thanks for the good advice. Some searching definitely confirms that people are reporting that experience. I'm OK with 48k. I'm going to do 192 for smaller projects, but anything that uses my ADAT is going to require 48k. Such is life.

Fortunately, I have no further need of 44.1 for any reason beyond DAW playback of tracks I recorded on tiny hard drives in the 90's.

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