files missing after recording live gig, twice!

[frozenlake]

I did some recording with a sony laptop and tracktion, a live rock band was using 12 channels everything looked great.........except the drum overhead mic's didn't save with the rest so I have 2 hours of the whole band but no overhead mic tracks. There was plenty of signal on the meters of the input in tracktion.......anyone else had this happen? Also what are the correct procedures for making my d8b surface controls, control tracktion?

thanks

[voidar]

Did you track overheads to a stereo file? This could be a restriction in the wave format. There was a discussion on this some while ago.

[lharless]

i'd like to hear more on this as the main reason i use tracktion is for live venue capture.

that's scary. is this an issue for any other tracktion users? has it happened to any of you out there other than this guy? please warn us if so. we can get another little program to track with...

me, i don't like risky stuff. so let me know (dude that originally posted this), if it happens again, or if you really lost your data. or if you got it back, and it was just a file format thing.

...sigh...

i worry when i see things like this... do any of you?

i have yet to track anything over 5 channels with my onyx 1640 in a live venue with tracktion. and im wondering if it will be ok.

[voidar]

As said, the wav-format is restricted in size. To solve this you would have to press stop and then record again to create new files. An auto-split function could also work and it would be cool if this would be implemented in T2.

[djsubject]

this bug was suposed to be fixed in build 2.0.1.4!!!


is this the vershion you are running?

its the latest download not the boxed cd build!!!

frozenlake? plz could you check the build number that showes up on boot is 2.0.1.4 & not 2.0.1.2 & report your findings back in this thread please?


Subject

[pHz]

just spotted this over at the mackie forum ...

I noticed this thread and figured it should probably be covered here:

http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=91990

For those recording long stretches at time at once without stopping (i.e. live sound), you need to be aware that there are limitations within the .wav file format. You can only record for so long before you exceed the limitation. Fortunately with Tracktion 2 (version 2.0.1.4) this limitation has been raised to the maximum that is allowed, which is a 4 gig .wav file. Once the file reaches a 4 gig size, the recording will automatically stop (it will not restart).

The good news is that it's VERY difficult to get a file that size unless you're recording at very high sampling rates. I was able to record for about 4 hours straight at 24 bit, 96k before reaching the 4 gig limit. In a live recording scenario, it's not likely that you're going to record 24/96k (it's overkill), so that means you have just that much more recording time available if you were doing 16/44.1k. Should you need to record for 10 hours straight at 96k, simply find breaks in the music, hit stop real quick, then start recording again. That will start a brand new .wav file, giving you 4 fresh gigs to work with. Oh yeah, and if you're recording for that long, let me know what concert you're at!!

Hope this helps bring some clarity to file size limitations. Thanks!

Justin
Mackie Tech Support

slainte rob

[Rangtangtang]

Iv had no problem using 6 inputs from my Audigy 2, which comes out as 6 mono tracks, about 5 minutes in length at 96?. Is 4 gig the limit, and is it for each track or total, and how much time would that be.

Do you realy think need 12 mono tracks to record the live band. Not knowing the number of players, you could sub mix the drums to stereo, you could reduce the amount of the session recorded and do it over a number of sessions.

If I was recording a garage band, with just 6, so, have drums, bass, guitar, keyboards and vocalise, so, 2 overhead for all, di the bass and the keyboard, mike the guitar and vocal. Its simple way but does capture.

[frozenlake]

Hey thanks guys for the posts, I just recorded another concert lastnite, all 16 tracks 24bit I did stop in the middle so that it would start new files and it worked...Also i didn't have any stereo files....Also I used an external 120gig firewire drive to record onto.......Also my build is 2.0.1.2 thanks for pointing that out. I think since I had a stereo track with the old build the file size limit was met and poof! Am downloading the new one now. So far I have been extremely pleased with this set up, the Onyx 1640 preamps.....nice......I still do have the HDR/d8b setup. Thanks for the help guys.

[AndrewSimon]

Iv had no problem using 6 inputs from my Audigy 2, which comes out as 6 mono tracks, about 5 minutes in length at 96?

NOTE they are talking about 5 HOURS not 5 MINUTES.

[djsubject]

just spotted this over at the mackie forum ...

I noticed this thread and figured it should probably be covered here:

http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=91990

For those recording long stretches at time at once without stopping (i.e. live sound), you need to be aware that there are limitations within the .wav file format. You can only record for so long before you exceed the limitation. Fortunately with Tracktion 2 (version 2.0.1.4) this limitation has been raised to the maximum that is allowed, which is a 4 gig .wav file. Once the file reaches a 4 gig size, the recording will automatically stop (it will not restart).

The good news is that it's VERY difficult to get a file that size unless you're recording at very high sampling rates. I was able to record for about 4 hours straight at 24 bit, 96k before reaching the 4 gig limit. In a live recording scenario, it's not likely that you're going to record 24/96k (it's overkill), so that means you have just that much more recording time available if you were doing 16/44.1k. Should you need to record for 10 hours straight at 96k, simply find breaks in the music, hit stop real quick, then start recording again. That will start a brand new .wav file, giving you 4 fresh gigs to work with. Oh yeah, and if you're recording for that long, let me know what concert you're at!!

Hope this helps bring some clarity to file size limitations. Thanks!

Justin
Mackie Tech Support

slainte rob

Thanx for finding this info

[voidar]

I still feel Tracktion could do this stop/restart-trick automatically within somewhat safe boundaries. Perhaps even user-specific.

[Tim Brackett]

Whenever I have hit the file size limit (in T1) the recording stops but I have never lost what was recorded up to the point.

[lharless]

I still feel Tracktion could do this stop/restart-trick automatically within somewhat safe boundaries. Perhaps even user-specific.

just a little curious. what would it take for the program to be able to do this? would it be a major pain in the buttocks to pull this off or would it be relatively simple to code in?

this would be a very good thing to have.

also, just so everybody knows, you should be using the NTFS format for long recordings, to be safe.

[LRS]

I have done a number of live recordings with the last one being up to 18 tracks simultanously using Tracktion 2.0.1.4. I use the stop/start method between numbers to ensure no problems. I turn off the wav form drawing as well to lessen the load on the PC after you stop recording and I find you can recommence recording (on the same edit) almost immediately.

Using this method you get all your tracks for each song on separate files so you can copy and paste to another edit and it just keeps everything clean and tidy. You don't get anywhere near the limit (unless the song is extraordinarily lengthy) and I have had absolutlely no problems. I record in 24/44.1.

Cheers
Graham
www.lakesiderecordingstudio.co.nz

[voidar]

I guess the app could count MB's written to disk for that particular file and just start over once a given threshold is reached. This threshold could be userdefined too I guess. Shouldn't be that hard.