I am contemplating the purchase of a hardware recorder, such as the Alesis or a used Mackie HDR, to pair-up with my Mackie Onyx 1640i for recording and mixing. I currently use Reaper3.76 and the 1640i. I know it is a matter of personal choice, but I'm looking for feedback/input/comments from the community on this subject. Recording to hardware, I think, will enable me to utilize the Reaper software for my mixes before burning them to CD. I like Reaper. But I mix out of the box and I would like to save my mixes to the computer without losing two channels on the mixer in the mix process. I'm leaning toward a hardware recorder; still looking and reading. I've noticed the buy now prices for Mackie and Alesis have come down on ebay, but would rather purchase new or from a pro audio store. Has anyone in the community started with computer recording software before migrating to hardware recording devices such as the Alesis and/or the Mackie?
I had a mackie 24ch hdr back in the day. It makes everything besides hitting record a little more difficult and limited feeling. Punching in, deleting a take, etc. You could record in reaper and edit and then mix through your mixer into a TWO channel dedicated recorder like an alesis masterlink or whatever. This would probably be the most common method today if it is including an HD recorder.
Yep Nick, this is exactly what I am doing; using the Tascam CD-RW900SL. Wanted the Alesis MasterLink because is contained a hard-drive, which will enable me to save several mix versions of one song to compare before burning the CD. A good (MasterLink)unit is hard to find. The Tascam does not provide me that option. Tascam does offer a unit similar with a hard-drive. Cost more than I had at the time. This may be a viable option/investment for me. However, I hear what you are saying with the hardware recorder.
I like my Alesis HD24. I have the firewire port...All I have to do is hook up the FW port to my computer, attach the hard drive, and dump the tracks into my DAW...LOVE IT!
I have an HD24 XR too. My goal is getting back to the old recorder -> console setup for mixing. At this moment, with a single HD24 (I'll buy a second unit whenever I can afford it) I record either into the HD24 alone or HD24 + DAW by synchronizing a DAW to it depending on situations. I usually need more than 12 tracks @ 88.2/24 so DAW is still needed. I often use the HD24 as a 12 channel AD/DA converter via an RME 9652 for the DAW anyway. The reasons why I keep recording in the HD24 are two. One is reducing the PC work, as it only deals with part of the tracks while tracking. And the second one is that the HD24 disk format is sequential, like an analog tape. It prints the tracks sequentially. Something that no computer in the world does. The HDs in computers are fragmented and a single track may be split in several chunks all over the disk making it harder to the PC to find them and dealing with. The Alesis FST format ease the hard disks job and reliability. Sadly this is the reason why PCs cannot deal with these disks. If you plug a caddy via fireport it works like a regular external HD enclosure having any HFS+, NTFS or FAT32 disk inside. It will work normally, but PCs won't see FST disks at all. A shame. You need a dedicated software for this, that doesn't work as good as we would like... but works I'd love to leave the DAWs for editing, cleaning, restoration and mastering only. Recording and mixing with HD24s and an analog desk.
Ahh, Thanks Snap. I had a similar vision as you described your methodology for employing a HDR. Yeap, the hard drive on the computer is fragmented and defagging is a standard practice on my PC. i have some out board gear i would like to utilize on some tracks. the software plug-ins interacts or respond to the DAW faders more so than with mackie faders. Currently, I don't mix in the box. So, if I play back the just the mix of DAW the levels will need to be adjusted. One drawback to the 1640i; it does not have the flexibility to engage MIDI to interface with the DAW mixer. The A&H ZED R16 FireWire has this functionality. I'm more of a tactile person. however, everything change; there are no constants. Thank for sharing your workflow.
Until about 2 years ago I was strictly out of the box with a large format automated Allen & Heath desk and a pair of Fostex D90 8-tracks with some decent outboard gear. The desk died and would have cost a LOT of dinero to fix, so I bought a Tascam 2488Neo and at the same time upgraded my computer and started getting more seriously into ITB, first with Sonar (which I already owned) and then with Reaper. Somewhere along the way I never actually got round to using the Tascam, but have kept it "just in case" up until this week. I am about to get the box down from up in the attic and take its photo before it goes on ebay. I have to admit that with reaper and a good computer & interface I dont miss hardware recording at all. I do also have to make a decision about a couple of my nicer bits of hardware, though.... I still have a nice old Lexi and one of the classic Tony Larkin Audio Indigo series compressors, both of which do a great job that I dont really have covered in plugins. So I guess I would ask you what you think you will gain versus what you will lose.
Hello ivansc. Thanks for your comment. Currently, I'm using the DAW with my 1640i mixer to record and mix. I'm saving my mixes to cd using a Tascam CD-RW900SL. So, I burn through a number of cds just listening to my various mixes to select a suitable version. I don't have the mix saved on another location on my computer or within the DAW. I guess I could feed (import) the mix into the DAW from the cd. A perceived advantages would be to send two track mixes to the DAW and not burn the mix to cd. I also can save my mixes on tracks in the DAW, same as saving recording tracks. If I'm out to lunch or half-baked its "Ok" to say so. Or Maybe, I need to spend more time with my DAW to learn how to save my mixes to two tracks.
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RE: Hardware Recorder vs Software Recorder
