Multitrack recording skipping

[Mike StormParticipant]

I seem to remember the Seagate Free Agent is on Joeco’s recorder black list. Perhaps some kind of energy saving feature that kicks in?

[DavecParticipant]

For some reason I’d thought it was a WD passport. Might switch to one of them.

Why isn’t the qu drive USB 3.0? Surely that would solve the problems.

[DavecParticipant]

I’m getting frustrated with this skipping. We had a four-hour gig on Sunday. You can actually see it playing up on the time read-out, after the 2nd set it was skipping on a WD passport. I re-started it and it pretty much skips through the rest of the gig.

So how am I going to record the 10 hour show that’s coming up?

[DMAudioParticipant]

Use a laptop?

[DavecParticipant]

I was trying to avoid that. One of the reasons for buying a qu-16.

And my Dell ain’t up to it, it’s got a common problem with the battery monitor software or something that causes – wait for it – skipping when recording stuff.

I’ll get a new HD on the list, put it on foam, and record our entire rehearsal this week, see if that works.

[ThunzieParticipant]

Davec, I wouldn’t just put in on foam, but also IN something. I plan to insulate my HD inside of a foam lined box which I plan to make before my next gig with the QU16, to completely ensure it’s as well protected against vibrations as possible. By the way are you using the 1.4 firmware?

[DavecParticipant]

Do the hard-drives need ventilation?

Yes it’s 1.4. Weird, because I’ve always had good recordings, some with earlier firmware. It’s only just stared to happen.

[ThunzieParticipant]

They can handle a bit of heat but I wouldn’t pack one tight in foam. Mine will be in something like the size of a shoebox lined with foam.

[robbocurryParticipant]

FYI, just did a rehearsal today recording on 18 channels to a Sandisk Extreme USB 3 pen drive. It works flawlessly, and much faster to arm than my USB 3 hdd.

[DavecParticipant]

A couple more questions: would a 3 1/2 in powered hard drive be more reliable? And, why does it record 18 tracks whether they’re being used or not? Surely if we could set the number of tracks down it would help.

[ThunzieParticipant]

Robocurry, glad to hear you had a successful recording without skipping. How many of the 18 channels were actually in use? All 18 are being recorded whether they’re in use or not as we know but I’m curious to know how many actually had sound going to them during your rehearsal. As I’m thinking if more channels are busy the more data is being written to the disk, am I right?

[TomParticipant]

Like Robbocurry, I’ve been having good luck recording to a 64GB Sandisk Extreme USB 3 drive. My tests have included 16 active channels. So far the recordings have only been 15 to 20 minutes long. I’ll be doing some longer recordings on Wednesday. I’ll report back the results.

[robbocurryParticipant]

All 18 tracks were being recorded Thunzie – Not exactly sure of the tech behind it, but I was thinking it’s a fixed bit rate and sample frequency, so it might be using the same amount of space either way?!?

[ThunzieParticipant]

Robocurry you’re right I checked the file size of each track from my last recording and all 18 tracks (.wav files) are the exact same size whether there was any signal going to them or not so I guess it doesn’t make a difference. Based on what you and Tom’s experience with a Sandisk Extreme USB 3 pen drive I’m gonna buy one before my next gig and try it out. Sounds like it might be the winning formula hopefully.

[DavecParticipant]

I did 45mins on a sandisk extreme 32 gig. Worked fine, but a very quiet gig.

Any thoughts on 3 1/2″ drives anyone?

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