recording 2GB+ wav's in traction (title edited)
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- KVRian
- 779 posts since 3 Apr, 2003 from UK
KBytes per second = ( Sample rate * number of channels * ( Bit depth / 8 )) / 1024chimmy wrote:Also, can someone point me in the right direction where I can know how to calculate file size beforehand, by using specific numerical values for bit depth, sample rate and # of tracks in order to determine file size?
MBytes per minute = (60 * Bytes per second) / 1024
Which for 16bit, 44.1kHz, stereo gives 10.093 Mbytes/minute, or 605 Mbytes/hour
For 24bit, 96kHz, stereo we get 32.959 Mbytes/minute or 1977.539 Mbytes/hour
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- KVRist
- Topic Starter
- 35 posts since 19 Mar, 2005
Ok... well the plot is thickening a bit. First off though... a rebuttle on my music tastes/recording niche. A LOT more to the jamband scene than phish and the Dead. No too many selling out 4000+ seat arenas, and even less selling out the 30,000+ seat venues. Many bands however, are now falling into the "jamband" category. There are rock, jazz, bluegrass, stringband, blues, hip-hop, techno, folk, and whatever else that has a creative/improvisational edge that are now getting lumped into the jamband scene. Here are a few that are selling their live downloadable concerts. http://www.livedownloads.com/artists.asp This is the arena in which I play. There are 5 or 10 more sites like this, and some even bigger where the music is 100% free. http://www.archive.org/audio/etreelisti ... 715aec174a
Most of the bands that allow the free music sharing as well as the live for sale stuff will only allow an ambient/audience recording to be circulated, then they have a pro doing a multi track or a live mix off the board. This is where I'm attempting to move my career.
As for the 52 GB in the 60 GB partition... That is a 4hr session, and I don't ever plan on recording a 4hr session. Typical for me is 60-90 minutes for the opener, and about the same for the first set of the main act. 2nd set with encore is typically about 90-120 minutes. If it is a 1 set performance for the headliner, the set is usually about 120min. I would say that half the shows I record will fit on 2 80min discs, and half need to go on three (just headliner... not including the opener) The general rule of thumb is a minimum of 20% open space on the drive, but I think that can be pushed when the op system is on a different drive.
That all being said... I did find a way to make adobe audition work with the onyx mixer, so I was able to do a test with it. It doesn't recognise the onyx aiso driver but it does recognise the wdm driver. Last night I recorded a 32/96 3.2 GB wav file (7 actually) and they were fully functional and without incident when opened/edited in adobe. Files were not split. Adobe uses an info file (****.pk) that (I'm assuming) holds the header information. When I tried to open the 32bit files in either wavelab, traction, or windows media player, they were not recognised. However if I split the file to smaller than 2GB, or converted the bit depth/sample rate I could use the files like any other in all programs.
How this works exactly I don't know, but for the record, splitting the wav is not the only way around this issue.
As another side note... I hold no ill will to the creators of this software program. The program is what it is... When I first lashed out against traction as well as Mackie I did not understand the limits of a typical wav file. I'm anxious to work with traction in my mixdown after this weekends recordings, and I have no doubt, based on how much you all love this program, that it will be more than satisfactory.
Matt
Most of the bands that allow the free music sharing as well as the live for sale stuff will only allow an ambient/audience recording to be circulated, then they have a pro doing a multi track or a live mix off the board. This is where I'm attempting to move my career.
As for the 52 GB in the 60 GB partition... That is a 4hr session, and I don't ever plan on recording a 4hr session. Typical for me is 60-90 minutes for the opener, and about the same for the first set of the main act. 2nd set with encore is typically about 90-120 minutes. If it is a 1 set performance for the headliner, the set is usually about 120min. I would say that half the shows I record will fit on 2 80min discs, and half need to go on three (just headliner... not including the opener) The general rule of thumb is a minimum of 20% open space on the drive, but I think that can be pushed when the op system is on a different drive.
That all being said... I did find a way to make adobe audition work with the onyx mixer, so I was able to do a test with it. It doesn't recognise the onyx aiso driver but it does recognise the wdm driver. Last night I recorded a 32/96 3.2 GB wav file (7 actually) and they were fully functional and without incident when opened/edited in adobe. Files were not split. Adobe uses an info file (****.pk) that (I'm assuming) holds the header information. When I tried to open the 32bit files in either wavelab, traction, or windows media player, they were not recognised. However if I split the file to smaller than 2GB, or converted the bit depth/sample rate I could use the files like any other in all programs.
How this works exactly I don't know, but for the record, splitting the wav is not the only way around this issue.
As another side note... I hold no ill will to the creators of this software program. The program is what it is... When I first lashed out against traction as well as Mackie I did not understand the limits of a typical wav file. I'm anxious to work with traction in my mixdown after this weekends recordings, and I have no doubt, based on how much you all love this program, that it will be more than satisfactory.
Matt
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- KVRist
- 52 posts since 26 Aug, 2003
I was too busy mixing over the weekend to catch this thread as it was evolving. Now that I am back to work Monday morning I have some time. I do alot of the same type of recording as Matt. I learned a long time ago that I had a 3 some hour limit. This is strickly a file size problem as my drive is formated FAT32.
For the type of recording you are doing Matt, I think you are just wasting bandwidth and HD space recording at 24/96. I know that that is the rate of your targeted format but I don't see the need to track at that rate especially if it is going to fail. Recording a live show is a very noisy environment. There is no way that you are going to hear an improvement in sound quality over 24/48 or maybe even 16/48. Give your poor computer a break. The fact that it could record that many hi res. tracks for an hour is impressive. I wouldn't say that Mackie has misrepresented the capabilities of their system. Every system is going to have limitations. What those limitations are will depend on just how many features you try to use at once. The limitations in this case have more to do with a file format that Mackie didn't invent. Now that it has been brought to their attention I'm sure that is will be addressed. So, for now lower your sample rates and make some more killer recordings.
Matt, I frequently do similar live recordings in a very similar manner. What area are you in? I'd like to talk to you on the side. I think we may have some similar interests.
For the type of recording you are doing Matt, I think you are just wasting bandwidth and HD space recording at 24/96. I know that that is the rate of your targeted format but I don't see the need to track at that rate especially if it is going to fail. Recording a live show is a very noisy environment. There is no way that you are going to hear an improvement in sound quality over 24/48 or maybe even 16/48. Give your poor computer a break. The fact that it could record that many hi res. tracks for an hour is impressive. I wouldn't say that Mackie has misrepresented the capabilities of their system. Every system is going to have limitations. What those limitations are will depend on just how many features you try to use at once. The limitations in this case have more to do with a file format that Mackie didn't invent. Now that it has been brought to their attention I'm sure that is will be addressed. So, for now lower your sample rates and make some more killer recordings.
Matt, I frequently do similar live recordings in a very similar manner. What area are you in? I'd like to talk to you on the side. I think we may have some similar interests.
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- KVRist
- Topic Starter
- 35 posts since 19 Mar, 2005
Tim,
your points are noted. Differences are subtle but there are differences in going to a 24/96 recording. Depending on the playback system the differences can be night and day. Hoever, the bulk of the listeners in this world think MP3's sound OK! Different strokes for different folks I guess. I personally do listen to DVD-A, and appreciate the quality differences. I will agree that the bigger difference is between the bit depth more than the samplerate. But even that is subjective based on the source and the recording chain. For thoes who have not had the chance to play with one of the onyx mixers, you would be pleasantly surprised at the dynamic capabilities of these mixers. Not to imply they will compete with a $20,000 console, but for something portable and reasonably priced they smoke. In the right environment, live or studio, they can most certainly take advantage of the increased dynamics of 24bit IMO. As for increasing the sample rate... there are many theroys on that issue, and none of us can hear a 48khz tone like the 96k rate will allow. However many believe that we can in some way percieve these tones and this in some way opens up the tones we can hear. For me... the 96k issue is more a "dog & pony" show, but it is still important to me for marketing purposes.
As for Mackie... yes I've made a very big stink about this, and in doing that they will hopefully inform people of these issues.
Matt
pm sent
your points are noted. Differences are subtle but there are differences in going to a 24/96 recording. Depending on the playback system the differences can be night and day. Hoever, the bulk of the listeners in this world think MP3's sound OK! Different strokes for different folks I guess. I personally do listen to DVD-A, and appreciate the quality differences. I will agree that the bigger difference is between the bit depth more than the samplerate. But even that is subjective based on the source and the recording chain. For thoes who have not had the chance to play with one of the onyx mixers, you would be pleasantly surprised at the dynamic capabilities of these mixers. Not to imply they will compete with a $20,000 console, but for something portable and reasonably priced they smoke. In the right environment, live or studio, they can most certainly take advantage of the increased dynamics of 24bit IMO. As for increasing the sample rate... there are many theroys on that issue, and none of us can hear a 48khz tone like the 96k rate will allow. However many believe that we can in some way percieve these tones and this in some way opens up the tones we can hear. For me... the 96k issue is more a "dog & pony" show, but it is still important to me for marketing purposes.
As for Mackie... yes I've made a very big stink about this, and in doing that they will hopefully inform people of these issues.
Matt
pm sent
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- KVRAF
- 4644 posts since 28 Nov, 2002 from Chicago
mmmatt, did you try my suggestion of splitting the left and right channels into two distint inputs? That'd double your maximum record time.
Someone shot the food. Remember: don't shoot food!
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- KVRist
- Topic Starter
- 35 posts since 19 Mar, 2005
yes,
by recording in mono I am able to do 3hrs at 24/48, and still stay under the 2GB limit. This seems to be perfectly stable. I think this would translate to about 1hr and 30 minutes at 24/96. However I much prefer to minimize my time in post as it is not my specialty... yet. So having to split and rebuild as stereo for the stereo tracks seems like extra work. Leaving as is, will just require a little extra attention to the ballance on those mono feeds, right? Maybe that isn't as much of a pain as it seems to me.
The mix down is where I will really be looking for help in the upcoming weeks. I PROMISE my next thread won't be a bunch of bitchin'. I know what I want to hear, but getting it there is going to be a big leaning experience for me. I may end up sub contracting the mixdown on these next few recordings. I will have 6 or 8 hours of footage to work on after this weekend, so I will have my hands full for awhile. This is starting to feel fun again... I'm getting excited fot this weekend.
Matt
by recording in mono I am able to do 3hrs at 24/48, and still stay under the 2GB limit. This seems to be perfectly stable. I think this would translate to about 1hr and 30 minutes at 24/96. However I much prefer to minimize my time in post as it is not my specialty... yet. So having to split and rebuild as stereo for the stereo tracks seems like extra work. Leaving as is, will just require a little extra attention to the ballance on those mono feeds, right? Maybe that isn't as much of a pain as it seems to me.
The mix down is where I will really be looking for help in the upcoming weeks. I PROMISE my next thread won't be a bunch of bitchin'. I know what I want to hear, but getting it there is going to be a big leaning experience for me. I may end up sub contracting the mixdown on these next few recordings. I will have 6 or 8 hours of footage to work on after this weekend, so I will have my hands full for awhile. This is starting to feel fun again... I'm getting excited fot this weekend.
Matt
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- KVRAF
- 6740 posts since 25 Mar, 2002 from sheffield, england
Pan the split mono tracks hard L&R, and route them to another track: you can now use the group track's Vol / Pan filter to adjust the level without changing the balance, or if you want you can render the group track to destructively create a new stereo file (if this doesn't end up too big again!)mmmatt wrote: However I much prefer to minimize my time in post as it is not my specialty... yet. So having to split and rebuild as stereo for the stereo tracks seems like extra work. Leaving as is, will just require a little extra attention to the ballance on those mono feeds, right? Maybe that isn't as much of a pain as it seems to me.
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- KVRist
- Topic Starter
- 35 posts since 19 Mar, 2005
heh... good deal platnuiumears. As for file size... one thing I have done the limited times I've done post mixing is cutting all the tracks before I mix, so that should cure any problems with file size. (I typically cut the songs even if they segue together... just no 2sec gaps in the burn). I never thought about routing the tracks to another channel... I guess I don't have to do anything to the file, just tell the DAW how to use it, then I can run my effects and adjustments like it was a stereo channel. Thanks for the tip! You guys rock!
Matt
Matt
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- KVRist
- 52 posts since 26 Aug, 2003
Have you read this recent thread? http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... sc&start=0mmmatt wrote: As for file size... one thing I have done the limited times I've done post mixing is cutting all the tracks before I mix, so that should cure any problems with file size. (I typically cut the songs even if they segue together... just no 2sec gaps in the burn).
When you say you have cut the tracks I am assuming you mean destructively in something other than Tracktion. If you do then you need to be aware of the problem if the tracks are not exactly a whole number of blocks long. You will get a glitch at the track marker.
Now if you split the track in Tracktion, nothing happens to the original wave file at all and no new files are created. Tracktion only edits nondestructively which means that if you trim out one song and save that edit then you have only saved a reference to the portion of the entire recording that contains that song. In fact you could drag out the ends of that clip all the way out to the full length of the original recording.
I have found archival of such large projects like you are doing to be a problem. The Tracktion project archiving doesn't do me any good in these cases because even at half the original size the resulting archive file is too large to fit on a DVD not to mention it takes forever to compress. Then I thought I could just split files up into a few zip files that would each fit a DVD. That took just as long and needed too much planning and interaction. I was able to do my mixdowns faster than I could back them up. I could burn the tracks to DVD uncompressed and have a stack of DVDs for each project but I have alot more faith in a HD sitting on the shelf than a stack of DVDs. What I do now is consider the price of the hard drive as a media charge and just pull the drive and store it once it is full. If I am hired to do a large recording project the client will be responsible to provide for hard drive space. The project is backed up on their drive and given to them to worry about. I'll save my copy only until I need to recycle the space.
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- KVRAF
- 6740 posts since 25 Mar, 2002 from sheffield, england
Export the edits instead of the whole project: you can opt to include only the portions of the audio files that you used, plus optional handles to keep your editing options open..Tim Brackett wrote: Now if you split the track in Tracktion, nothing happens to the original wave file at all and no new files are created. Tracktion only edits nondestructively which means that if you trim out one song and save that edit then you have only saved a reference to the portion of the entire recording that contains that song. In fact you could drag out the ends of that clip all the way out to the full length of the original recording.
I have found archival of such large projects like you are doing to be a problem. The Tracktion project archiving doesn't do me any good in these cases because even at half the original size the resulting archive file is too large to fit on a DVD not to mention it takes forever to compress.
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- KVRist
- 52 posts since 26 Aug, 2003
Thanks. Sometimes things are staring you right in the face but you never see them. I was looking for how to do that from "export project" and for some reason "export edit" just never dawned on me as how to archive audio clips. There was some other feature that I never noticed after almost 2 years. I would say that is because just got down to work with Tracktion from the minute I downloaded the demo. I never took the time to browse through all the features. Back to the archiving, I do have projects and even edits where I want to keep all of several tracks, each a couple hours long. I would have to create a few edits each with different segments of time. If I needed to retrieve audio that spans a split I'd just have to import more that one edit archive and reconnect the tracks. That wouldn't be a big deal as it would probably be a rare occurance. I'll try that for my own library but for clients I think it will still be cheaper for them to buy HD space than pay me by the hour to compress and burn backups. Thanks for the tip.
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- KVRAF
- 12977 posts since 29 Sep, 2003 from Ottawa, Canada
I'd say if you're working in a professional environment in which you are able to invoice the client for a hard drive, it doesn't get much better or more reliable than that for archiving. I WOULD worry that you should keep a redundant copy somewhere, too, though, so exporting the edits and storing on DVD is still good practice as a secondary backup.
It's sure cool to hear about the two of you using Tracktion to record such events. Makes me realize no only how flexible Tracktion can be, but more importantly reminds me of the various ways in which music can be expressed (ie. hour-long jams) and recorded (ie. being very careful to maintain even the chatter between songs) in general, no matter the sequencer.
Very inspiring.
PS, not to be presumptuous, Matt, but did you know that if you edit the first post of this thread, you can edit the title now, too? Something like, "Recording Long Sets -- the users here ROCK."
Only half-serious here, mind.
It's sure cool to hear about the two of you using Tracktion to record such events. Makes me realize no only how flexible Tracktion can be, but more importantly reminds me of the various ways in which music can be expressed (ie. hour-long jams) and recorded (ie. being very careful to maintain even the chatter between songs) in general, no matter the sequencer.
Very inspiring.
PS, not to be presumptuous, Matt, but did you know that if you edit the first post of this thread, you can edit the title now, too? Something like, "Recording Long Sets -- the users here ROCK."
Only half-serious here, mind.
