Hi All!

Researching the possibility of using my Mac G4 laptop for multichannel
recording on video shoots. USB or Firewire portable would be great but
I have only been able to find MI stuff that has 2 mic and 2 line. I am
after a minimum of 6 and really need it to be battery or USB powered.
The final target for the files is ProTools or Avid. So far the Presonus
Firepod looks promising but it requires shore power. Any ideas? Anyone
doing this? I am aware of the portable HD recorders BUT for $25 K it is
a little nutz.

Thanks

Location Audio for Video

Group: rec.audio.pro Date: Thu, Jan 19, 2006, 10:05am (EST-3) From:
(BB)
Hi All!
Researching the possibility of using my Mac G4 laptop for multichannel
recording on video shoots. USB or Firewire portable would be great but I
have only been able to find MI stuff that has 2 mic and 2 line. I am
after a minimum of 6 and really need it to be battery or USB powered.
The final target for the files is ProTools or Avid. So far the Presonus
Firepod looks promising but it requires shore power.

Any ideas? Anyone doing this? I am aware of the portable HD recorders
BUT for $25 K it is a little nutz.
Thanks

I can't think of any of the 5 professional portable recorders that's
even close to that price. At the top would be the AAton Cantar 5 and
Zaxcom Deva 5 at around $15k for 10 tracks.


Eric

Um, I don't know about macs, but PCs allow for the use of ASIO
drivers. With this, you can have a lot of two channel cards on the
same computer and map their inputs to different recording tracks
within the program (eg Nuendo). My laptop I generally have a stereo
input on the laptop itself and a better stereo input on an external. I
just use ASIO drivers to get 4 tracks on input (which is all my
battery powered mixer can output anyways). I'd look into the use of
multiple sound devices simultaneously on macs, or switch to a PC. Or
you could spend $500 for a half desent 8-track HD recorder...

On 19 Jan 2006 10:05:47 -0800, "BB" wrote:

Hi All!

Researching the possibility of using my Mac G4 laptop for multichannel
recording on video shoots. USB or Firewire portable would be great but
I have only been able to find MI stuff that has 2 mic and 2 line. I am
after a minimum of 6 and really need it to be battery or USB powered.
The final target for the files is ProTools or Avid. So far the Presonus
Firepod looks promising but it requires shore power. Any ideas? Anyone
doing this? I am aware of the portable HD recorders BUT for $25 K it is
a little nutz.

Thanks

"Brandon Anderson" wrote in message
...
Um, I don't know about macs, but PCs allow for the use of ASIO
drivers. With this, you can have a lot of two channel cards on the
same computer and map their inputs to different recording tracks
within the program (eg Nuendo). My laptop I generally have a stereo
input on the laptop itself and a better stereo input on an external. I
just use ASIO drivers to get 4 tracks on input (which is all my
battery powered mixer can output anyways). I'd look into the use of
multiple sound devices simultaneously on macs, or switch to a PC. Or
you could spend $500 for a half desent 8-track HD recorder...

Here's a very inexspensive mac program called Boom Recorder that is getting
some positive reviews on the rec.audio.movies.production.sound newsgroup
which incidentally is probably a much better place to be discussion location
sound for film and video.
http://vosgames.nl/

If you are willing to spend more, Metacorder is becoming a standard
recording application for film and video work on the Mac.
http://www.gallery.co.uk/metacorder/intro.html

All of the other NLE recording applications on Mac or PC pale by comparision
for the job of recording sound for picture in sync on location. No midi
timecode conversions or any of that other "music" stuff. In fact, there
really isn't a decent app on the PC side at all.

Charles Tomaras
Seattle, WA




On 19 Jan 2006 10:05:47 -0800, "BB" wrote:

Hi All!

Researching the possibility of using my Mac G4 laptop for multichannel
recording on video shoots. USB or Firewire portable would be great but
I have only been able to find MI stuff that has 2 mic and 2 line. I am
after a minimum of 6 and really need it to be battery or USB powered.
The final target for the files is ProTools or Avid. So far the Presonus
Firepod looks promising but it requires shore power. Any ideas? Anyone
doing this? I am aware of the portable HD recorders BUT for $25 K it is
a little nutz.

Thanks

"Charles Tomaras" wrote in message
...

SNIP

Here's a very inexspensive mac program called Boom Recorder that is
getting some positive reviews on the rec.audio.movies.production.sound
newsgroup which incidentally is probably a much better place to be
discussion location sound for film and video.

I think that's rec.ARTS.movies.production.sound, but you knew that.

Steve King

"Steve King" wrote in message
...
"Charles Tomaras" wrote in message
...

SNIP

Here's a very inexspensive mac program called Boom Recorder that is
getting some positive reviews on the rec.audio.movies.production.sound
newsgroup which incidentally is probably a much better place to be
discussion location sound for film and video.

I think that's rec.ARTS.movies.production.sound, but you knew that.

Yes it is ARTS...my mistake!

Hello BB,

The MOTU Traveler http://www.motu.com/ is a firewire or DC powered
device with lots of inputs, I think it was something like 4 microphone,
8 line inputs, ADAT, spdif.

Take Vos
Developer Boom Recorder
http://www.vosgames.nl/

The MOTU Traveler http://www.motu.com/ is a firewire or DC powered
device with lots of inputs, I think it was something like 4 microphone,

8 line inputs, ADAT, spdif.

To clarify, with the Traveler you get 8 A to D converters, which can be
8 line ins, or 4 line ins plus 4 mic ins, or varying combinations. The
ADAT & SPDIF ins are available simultaneously with the 8 analog ins, so
you can, with additional outboard converters get 18 channels into your
DAW with the Traveler. The 4 mic pres are quite good, with loads of
gain available. Good box, about $800.

Scott Fraser

do you need them to run on batteries?

Hello Rado,

The MOTU Traveler I believe has a 4 pronged XLR input for DC.

Take

"BB" wrote:

Researching the possibility of using my Mac G4 laptop for
multichannel recording on video shoots.


How are you going to handle time code sync?

--
"It CAN'T be too loud... some of the red lights aren't even on yet!"
- Lorin David Schultz
in the control room
making even bad news sound good

(Remove spamblock to reply)

On Jan 19, 2006, BB commented:

Researching the possibility of using my Mac G4 laptop for multichannel
recording on video shoots. USB or Firewire portable would be great but
I have only been able to find MI stuff that has 2 mic and 2 line.
------------------------------snip------------------------------

The best thing out there is probably Gallery UK's METACORDER, which you can
get info on he

http://www.gallery.co.uk/metacorder/intro.html

This is basically a software package designed especially for recording film
sound (or film-style video sound) on location. It costs about $1800 (plus
preamps and the Mac itself), but it's very full-featured and is almost the
equivalent of a dedicated recorder costing six or seven times as much.
Metacorder works with many different kinds of Firewire and USB audio
interfaces, some of which are listed he

http://www.gallery.co.uk/metacorder/...iodevices.html

M-Audio, Metric Halo, and Mackie are three companies that make interfaces (or
mixers, in the case of the latter) that I know people are using with
Metacorder right now. In fact, I believe one crew on the ABC-TV series LOST
is using Metacorder with the Mackie Onyx.


--MFW

Hello Lorin,

You can simple feed a timecode signal to an audio input and Boom
Recorder will jam (or continues) sync to it. If you don't want drift,
you will need to use the word clock of the audio interface to lock
against the house clock.

Take

Take Vos wrote:
Hello Lorin,

You can simple feed a timecode signal to an audio input and Boom
Recorder will jam (or continues) sync to it. If you don't want drift,
you will need to use the word clock of the audio interface to lock
against the house clock.

Take

How does Boom Recorder jam sync to TC? Do you mean I can remove the TC
source from BR and it will continue to increment in sync? At what
level of accuracy?

Philip Perkins

Hello Philip,

Yes, after you remove TC Boom Recorder will continue to increment the
timecode. The level of accuracy is depended on the accuracy of the
sample rate of the audio interface.

Or better said, Boom Recorder will increment the timecode for each
sample received. A BWF files stores the number of samples since
midnight for the first sample in the audio file.

Some devices have a lot of clocking options, such as running from the
device's internal crystal, or from an external word-clock.

As for accuracy of Boom Recorder itself during jamming. It will lock on
to the leading edge of the first bit of a LTC frame. Depending on the
quality of the timecode signal you get at least 1/80 frame accuracy.

Take

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