Opinions on the Fostex D2424LV?

[David Morley]

Anyone using this? At the prices they are these days, seems like a great
deal. Thanks
David

[Minga]

In article >, David Morley wrote:
> Anyone using this? At the prices they are these days, seems like a great
> deal. Thanks
> David

I'm using the Fostex D-160 (Kind of like the D2424lv - but missing TONS
of features) and I love it. I dont see how the D2424LV could get WORSE,
all those features!

$1400 bucks isnt "cheap" in my mind. But I'm a cheap *******.

-Minga
www.minga.com/60DollarStudio

[David Morley]

In article >,
Minga > wrote:

> In article >, David
> Morley wrote:
> > Anyone using this? At the prices they are these days, seems like a great
> > deal. Thanks
> > David
>
> I'm using the Fostex D-160 (Kind of like the D2424lv - but missing TONS
> of features) and I love it. I dont see how the D2424LV could get WORSE,
> all those features!
>
> $1400 bucks isnt "cheap" in my mind. But I'm a cheap *******.
>
> -Minga
> www.minga.com/60DollarStudio
>
>

It´s about $1150 these days, plus drive.

[David Morley]

In article >,
Mike Tulley > wrote:

> I tried to use a demo at a local MI store, but it doesn't come with a
> hard drive (one of the reasons it's so cheap) and neither they nor I
> could find a hard drive that it would accept. It seems to be fussy
> about drives.

Good to know. Thanks.
Still, at $1150 these days even without drive, that?s cheap.
Maybe fostex have a list of qualified drives somewhere...

[John L Rice]

"David Morley" > wrote in message
...
> In article >,
> Mike Tulley > wrote:
>
> > I tried to use a demo at a local MI store, but it doesn't come with a
> > hard drive (one of the reasons it's so cheap) and neither they nor I
> > could find a hard drive that it would accept. It seems to be fussy
> > about drives.
>
> Good to know. Thanks.
> Still, at $1150 these days even without drive, that?s cheap.
> Maybe fostex have a list of qualified drives somewhere...

I have a D2424LV and so does the bass player in my band. We do a lot of
tracking at his house and then I take the drive and put it in my machine at
my studio and transfer the tracks into Cubase. It works quite well. I used
to use a D824 and it locked up to MTC as a slave better than the D2424LV
does I just recently determined. Probably because the D824 only had to read
8 tracks but the D2424LV is trying to move 24. ( I was getting occasional
random glitches in some tracks in Cubase if the track count was high ) I've
switched to let the D2424LV be the master and Cubase the slave and it works
great now.

Even taking into consideration the bad manual and Fostex's lame support I
think the D2424LV is the best buy in a 24 track digital recorder under
$2500.

Fostex is lazy and or cheap about testing drives. Here is their current
'list' :
http://www.fostex.co.jp/int/hdlist/d2424lv.html
which lists only ONE model of drive! Sheesh. The Western Digital Caviar
Special Edition 60 to 100 GB. Their old list was just a 'little' more
extensive. They used to mainly recommend Quantum and then after Maxtor
bought out Quantum Fostex was mainly recommending Maxtor. They must cut a
deal with who ever is supplying drives for manufacturing and only recommend
those. Real helpful for their end users. ;-(

On the Japanese Fostex site you can get to a list that shows Maxtor as being
compatible :
http://www.fostex.co.jp/jpn/MEDIA/kishubetu/d2424.html

I've used both Quantum and Maxtor drives in Fostex HD recorders.

Check out http://www.homerecording.org/bbs/ and look at the Fostex forum,
lots of active discussion about D series recorders there.

Best of luck!

John L Rice

[David Morley]

In article >,
"John L Rice" > wrote:

>
> I have a D2424LV and so does the bass player in my band. We do a lot of
> tracking at his house and then I take the drive and put it in my machine at
> my studio and transfer the tracks into Cubase. It works quite well. I used
> to use a D824 and it locked up to MTC as a slave better than the D2424LV
> does I just recently determined. Probably because the D824 only had to read
> 8 tracks but the D2424LV is trying to move 24. ( I was getting occasional
> random glitches in some tracks in Cubase if the track count was high ) I've
> switched to let the D2424LV be the master and Cubase the slave and it works
> great now.
>
> Even taking into consideration the bad manual and Fostex's lame support I
> think the D2424LV is the best buy in a 24 track digital recorder under
> $2500.
>
> Fostex is lazy and or cheap about testing drives. Here is their current
> 'list' :
> http://www.fostex.co.jp/int/hdlist/d2424lv.html

Thanks for that John!
All I care is that the audio sounds good and that it syncs ok. Maybe
it´s better with the SMPTE option?
It having to be the master is no problem for me either.

[David Morley]

In article >,
"John L Rice" > wrote:

> "David Morley" > wrote in message
> ...
> > In article >,
> > Mike Tulley > wrote:
> >
> > > I tried to use a demo at a local MI store, but it doesn't come with a
> > > hard drive (one of the reasons it's so cheap) and neither they nor I
> > > could find a hard drive that it would accept. It seems to be fussy
> > > about drives.
> >
> > Good to know. Thanks.
> > Still, at $1150 these days even without drive, that?s cheap.
> > Maybe fostex have a list of qualified drives somewhere...
>
> I have a D2424LV and so does the bass player in my band. We do a lot of
> tracking at his house and then I take the drive and put it in my machine at
> my studio and transfer the tracks into Cubase. It works quite well. I used
> to use a D824 and it locked up to MTC as a slave better than the D2424LV
> does I just recently determined. Probably because the D824 only had to read
> 8 tracks but the D2424LV is trying to move 24. ( I was getting occasional
> random glitches in some tracks in Cubase if the track count was high ) I've
> switched to let the D2424LV be the master and Cubase the slave and it works
> great now.
>
> Even taking into consideration the bad manual and Fostex's lame support I
> think the D2424LV is the best buy in a 24 track digital recorder under
> $2500.
>
> Fostex is lazy and or cheap about testing drives. Here is their current
> 'list' :
> http://www.fostex.co.jp/int/hdlist/d2424lv.html
> which lists only ONE model of drive! Sheesh. The Western Digital Caviar
> Special Edition 60 to 100 GB. Their old list was just a 'little' more
> extensive. They used to mainly recommend Quantum and then after Maxtor
> bought out Quantum Fostex was mainly recommending Maxtor. They must cut a
> deal with who ever is supplying drives for manufacturing and only recommend
> those. Real helpful for their end users. ;-(
>
> On the Japanese Fostex site you can get to a list that shows Maxtor as being
> compatible :
> http://www.fostex.co.jp/jpn/MEDIA/kishubetu/d2424.html
>
> I've used both Quantum and Maxtor drives in Fostex HD recorders.
>
> Check out http://www.homerecording.org/bbs/ and look at the Fostex forum,
> lots of active discussion about D series recorders there.
>
> Best of luck!
>
> John L Rice
>
>
>
>
>

Also John, how is it recording 24 channels thru analog in? I assume it
does this no problem, but some sites say it can´t (confusing it with the
older version that only had 8 analog in?)
Thanks
David

[John L Rice]

"David Morley" > wrote in message
...
> In article >,
> "John L Rice" > wrote:
>
> >
> > I have a D2424LV and so does the bass player in my band. We do a lot of
> > tracking at his house and then I take the drive and put it in my machine
at
> > my studio and transfer the tracks into Cubase. It works quite well. I
used
> > to use a D824 and it locked up to MTC as a slave better than the D2424LV
> > does I just recently determined. Probably because the D824 only had to
read
> > 8 tracks but the D2424LV is trying to move 24. ( I was getting
occasional
> > random glitches in some tracks in Cubase if the track count was high )
I've
> > switched to let the D2424LV be the master and Cubase the slave and it
works
> > great now.
> >
> > Even taking into consideration the bad manual and Fostex's lame support
I
> > think the D2424LV is the best buy in a 24 track digital recorder under
> > $2500.
> >
> > Fostex is lazy and or cheap about testing drives. Here is their current
> > 'list' :
> > http://www.fostex.co.jp/int/hdlist/d2424lv.html
>
> Thanks for that John!
> All I care is that the audio sounds good and that it syncs ok. Maybe
> it´s better with the SMPTE option?
> It having to be the master is no problem for me either.

I would think the SMPTE option would be really solid BUT that option card is
extremely expensive compared to the cost of the machine. I think it's over
$1000 for the card!

With my setup I can't do sample accurate transfers ( as far as I know you
can only do that with ADAT tape machines and maybe the ADAT HD so that may
or may not be an important consideration for you ) but that's not a problem
since if I need a duplicate track in Cubase I would just make a copy of the
one already in the computer. I did a test last week and transferred 24
tracks at once into Cubase. I then transferred those same tracks again to 2
4 more channels in Cubase. Then I played back all 48 tracks at once.
While all the tracks stayed in relatively tight sync from beginning to end
of the song ( about 6 minutes long ) there is some subtle drifting going on
as the two machines constantly readjust to stay in sync which causes obvious
phase shifting and cancellation etc. I would never need to do this so I
don't worry about it because additional tracks that get transferred over
that are different from each other sound totally in sync and musically fine
to my ears.

Best of luck! :-)

John L Rice

[OKden]

I bought a 2424lv last fall because I had to mix a record with more tracks than
we had Protool I/O. The idea was to put all the overflow tracks on the Fostex,
and mix it on an analog console. For that purpose it worked flawlessly. Just
send it MTC and wordclock, and it locked extremely tightly.

I chose the Fostex over the Alesis because it chases MTC out of the box, and
the Alesis doesn't. I didn't consider Mackie or Tascam because I didn't want to
buy a bunch of cables. The studio already had plenty of 1/4" tie lines.

Though it was delegated to percussion, and BGV tracks, I thought it sounded
fine. I've never heard the A/D, so I can't comment on that. This one came with
a 30gig drive. I've never heard of there being problems finding compatable
drives, the WD's can be found almost anywhere.

My only gripe in my limited use of the 2424lv is that the reference level is
stuck at -12. When mixing analog, It'd be nice to have some more level to hit
the console with.

I really should sell mine, as I haven't used it since.

[Les Cargill]

David Morley wrote:
>
<snip>
>
> Thanks for that John!
> All I care is that the audio sounds good and that it syncs ok. Maybe
> it´s better with the SMPTE option?
> It having to be the master is no problem for me either.


The VF series stuff synchs really well. I'd hope the bigger brother
units do too.

--
Les Cargill