Alesis HD24 too old for recording band rehearsal?

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coandca
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Alesis HD24 too old for recording band rehearsal?

Post by coandca » Tue Oct 13, 2020 10:56 pm

Have an opportunity to get an Alesis HD24 recorder and a mackie 24/8 mixer with meter bridge and all connecting cables for in and out to the HD24 for dirt cheap from the original owner. I know the HD24 is pretty old but for just recording my band practices to listen back to and maybe capture some good moments I think it could be worth it. Currently I am using a presonus ar16 but typically we need more channels if we want to really multi track and I also don’t have a great pc to track to. So typically we just use our phones voice memo and try to find the sweet spot in the room for placement to get our rehearsals record. The fact that I could getaway with recording up to 24 tracks without an pc handy could be nice and easy for me and we have been a crappy phone recordings to archive our practice sessions. My theory is this setup would be superior to the phone recordings. And if we decide we want to track something out one at a time I can do that with the presonus and my pc. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

coandca
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Re: Alesis HD24 too old for recording band rehearsal?

Post by coandca » Tue Oct 13, 2020 11:28 pm

I understand in order to bounce down my mix I will send my tracks from the Alesis back to the mackie and mix the recording on the board then have to record the final stereo mix onto something else (like my presonus ar16 into my mediocre pc) or back into 2 open tracks On the Alesis. I understand from what I have read transferring data from the Alesis is prolly a pain and getting all the .wav files onto a pc and into a daw could be hard. That’s why I’m thinking just recording the final mix into the presonus ar16 into my pc from the Alesis hd-24. But I guess what I’m trying to ask is this taking a step backwards and should I just save up and get a better pc and bigger interface or would this be sufficient as far as just archiving live rehearsals and being able to make adjustments to single tracks in the mix post record. From what I’ve read the hd24 is pretty solid and stable. I understand that I won’t be getting finished product results. It’s been a while since I’ve posted on the tomb and I am glad to be back. Sorry for my long posts. Please chime in on any thoughts or suggestions. The price of the Alesis hd24 and mackie 24/8 plus all cables needed to record to the hd24 and then playback on the mixer is less than $400 if that helps anyone decide if it’s worth my time or not. Cheers 🥂

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Re: Alesis HD24 too old for recording band rehearsal?

Post by numberthirty » Wed Oct 14, 2020 2:38 am

There are some "In The Year 2020..." wrinkles...

I could go into them tonight. Try to think of all of the angles.

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Rodgre
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Re: Alesis HD24 too old for recording band rehearsal?

Post by Rodgre » Wed Oct 14, 2020 4:39 am

I used an HD-24 for many years (from 2003 to 2012) in conjunction with ProTools. I would track as many takes as I needed into the HD-24 and then transfer the tracks into ProTools to mix via a hard drive hub and a piece of software I think was called HD24 Connect
(https://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/hd24tools/).
It was very easy to do and a great work around because at the time I could only do 8 tracks at a time into ProTools and the HD24 let me do 24 tracks at a time.

I thought the HD24 was a solid unit after using ADATs for years. I never had issues with it. I've even done sessions with two of them sync'd together with no issues.

The caveat would be that IDE hard drives are harder and harder to come by at this time. I'm not sure if there ever was a caddy made that allowed you to use newer drives, as I honestly haven't used the machines since 2012. I now have two of them sitting in storage with many extra caddies that I'm not sure what to do with.

If you want to treat it like a tape recorder and mix through a board, then it's a great setup. It's definitely old school at this point, but it'll work well for you.

Roger

kslight
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Re: Alesis HD24 too old for recording band rehearsal?

Post by kslight » Wed Oct 14, 2020 7:16 am

Is that the one for sale in KC by chance? Yes it’s a pretty fair deal.

To answer the question ...I used an HD24xr for many years...recorded concerts with it, etc... sometimes with a Behringer mx8000 (mackie 24.8 copy)... i think it sounds pretty decent. For a rehearsal recording, the quality of the recorder is honestly probably the least significant variable.

coandca
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Re: Alesis HD24 too old for recording band rehearsal?

Post by coandca » Wed Oct 14, 2020 1:44 pm

Thanks guys for the replies guys. Yeah kslight this is posted in kc cl. I have arranged to meet up with the guy Friday. He seems legit and I do think I will enjoy the “tape” style setup recording out of the box. I’ve seen extra drives on reverb for the hd24 fairly reasonable. Imma prolly pull the trigger cause ill be able to use the mixer for other uses too. I just figured I didn’t wanna take a step forward and two steps backward but it’s not really going to be used for anything major besides me and my buddies re-listening to our mediocre jams and tunes we have made. I like the idea of less computer stuff even tho I have had great results using in the box and plugins and all that Jazz. I appreciate any and all response and I’ll keep everyone posted if I run into any issues. In the mean time feel free to make any more suggestions. Thanks

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winky dinglehoffer
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Re: Alesis HD24 too old for recording band rehearsal?

Post by winky dinglehoffer » Wed Oct 14, 2020 1:51 pm

coandca wrote:
Wed Oct 14, 2020 1:44 pm
I’ve seen extra drives on reverb for the hd24 fairly reasonable.
I think I still have a bunch of IDE drives that I bought for my (now sold) HD24XR but never even got around to formatting. If you're interested, I could send you a few for the price of shipping.

coandca
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Re: Alesis HD24 too old for recording band rehearsal?

Post by coandca » Wed Oct 14, 2020 1:56 pm

winky dinglehoffer wrote:
Wed Oct 14, 2020 1:51 pm
coandca wrote:
Wed Oct 14, 2020 1:44 pm
I’ve seen extra drives on reverb for the hd24 fairly reasonable.
I think I still have a bunch of IDE drives that I bought for my (now sold) HD24XR but never even got around to formatting. If you're interested, I could send you a few for the price of shipping.
Hey thanks winky. I will check back with you once I pick up the unit. Many thanks.

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alexdingley
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Re: Alesis HD24 too old for recording band rehearsal?

Post by alexdingley » Wed Oct 14, 2020 6:10 pm

This doesn't sound like a totally foolish idea — it really depends on your needs. Having a dedicated hardware rig for recording practice is totally wise, if it's cheap & doesn't cause you to have to jump through too many hoops to make use of the recorded material.

You might wanna hunt for one of those "fire port" adapters (here's an old link to MusiciansFriend, just so you can see what it looks like), to go from the HD24 to Firewire (and depending on your PC/Mac rig, you might need adapters to get to firewire) but that would allow you to dump the files without having to do a realtime mix / bounce / etc.

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Re: Alesis HD24 too old for recording band rehearsal?

Post by numberthirty » Wed Oct 14, 2020 8:48 pm

Ok...

Upside:

- The enclosure is pretty "Bonehead"-proof.
- It's a fairly simple interface for the "Recording Band Practice..." set.
- If you ever do go the "Strictly Laptop..." route, it will seemingly play ball with interfaces with ADAT inputs.

Downside:

- Haven't tried to have one serviced in years. No telling how tough that is.
- When a drive won't work, it seriously will not work.
- At last glance over the "HD24" set's discussion, Alesis will be right around "Zero..." help with the thing.
- Getting tracks from a computer into a song/project? Always been a coin flip on my HD24.


On getting tracks out of a HD24 -

- Take the drive out of the caddy.
- IDE to USB cable.
- HD24 Tools.
- Put the drive back in the caddy.

Done.

Ive done it a couple of times in the past ten years.

coandca
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Re: Alesis HD24 too old for recording band rehearsal?

Post by coandca » Fri Oct 16, 2020 8:54 am

After much deliberation i feel although a great deal it would be too much extra work to get files into pc or too
Time consuming to bounce my final stereo mix into the pc so I can post it somewhere where all the fellas in the band can re listen. Soo much easier doing that with a daw or in the box so imma prolly just stick with getting a nicer PC and I’ll make due with the limited channels on my presonus ar 16. With the hd24 set up going analog to digital from digital to analog make my final mix on the board and then back to digital again, Or transferring the .wavs over a pc with the hd24 drive seems like too much work and time spent given how easy it is these days on more current gear with computers. Sorry for my bonehead question...typically you can count on me for that kinda stuff. The seller likely won’t be pleased, so in offered to send him slight compensation for his time via Venmo or cash app cause I feel bad backing out. Cheers to everyone for chiming in with your opinions. Maybe I’ll be back to the tomb in another few years to ask more “bonehead” questions. Happy Friday.

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Re: Alesis HD24 too old for recording band rehearsal?

Post by kslight » Fri Oct 16, 2020 9:16 am

The easiest way *for me* to get audio out of the HD24xr was to use an adat interface, I used a m audio lightbridge...and just record to the computer in real time. I tried some of the software tools and thought they were janky. Recording into the computer is basically foolproof and only takes as long as your recording.

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Re: Alesis HD24 too old for recording band rehearsal?

Post by A.David.MacKinnon » Fri Oct 16, 2020 10:53 am

If you're only recording rehearsals (no overdubs) one of the hard disk recorders from Cymatic Audio would be a good choice. Files are standard format (WAV, 24 bit).

I've been using this one for comedy records and live recordings and it's been easy and bullet proof. There is also a 24 channel single rack version.

https://www.long-mcquade.com/48721/Pro- ... 96-kHz.htm

It will also act as a USB interface.

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