Topic: R-4 - What's your preferred record mode?

[waltmon]

4 mono channels,  2 stereo channels, or mix on the fly (all 4 channels to one file)

  I can see advantages to each...I love the mix on the fly option.

[Fatah Ruark (aka MIKE B)]

I use a 680. Not exactly sure if it would make any difference. Since the R4 is 4 channels I'll limit my options to 4 channels.

For me how I record 3+ channels depends on what I can get feed wise.

More often than not, I just do 2 stereo channels. 2 for my mics and 2 for a straight soundboard feed. I'd do the same for 4 mice.

Sometimes things would be different though. For example, with a single singer playing 1 guitar I'd run 2 channels of stereo for my mics and 1 vocal mic feed + 1 guitar pickup or mic feed.

I haven't figured out any reason why I'd run mono feeds for my mics or a soundboard patch (although I would run a mono feed from the board if it was a mono board and I was running out of channels on my deck).

[H₂O]

I'd go with 4 mono files and mix in post - it's a lot easier to mix after the event then during

4 mono files gives you larger times between file splits

[waltmon]

Yeah..24/96 will be a huge file.

[ccage]

I ran 2 stereo pair 24/48 - couldn't really tell difference at 24/96 and used less drive space.
Once I learned how to do 4 ch post mix in Audacity...it was snap.
Never did try the 4 ch mono option.

just my .02   

[Hypnocracy]

I've been getting a mono SNB mix from my favorite local band of late...I could bug the FOH guy for a Stereo Mix...but...I've been real happy with the Mono SNB & two Omni Mic's Spaced about 20ft across the stage from one another. Real surprised at just how much stereo information comes out in the final product mixing the SNB in the center and hard left - hard right on the omni's

https://archive.org/details/bs2014-01-10.FatFrogg_Avenson_SNB

That lead me to try recording three mono tracks on the DR680...I've been too lazy to go back to stereo files even when I had just a Pair out in the room...I like H2O's reasoning - longer track less splits.

[stevetoney]

I go with mono because most music sets I record don't extend over the file size limit that would cause an automatic track split.  It's not a really big deal either way though.  I do think that if I was recording in 24/96 or 24/192 and 4 or more channels, I'd trend towards using mono files because it can get a bit tedious piecing together more and more pieces, because the length of each piece would be progressively shorter and shorter as you cram more channels or bits into each 2GB file.

One reminder that if you do go with mono files, in post you need to pan each of the channels either 100% to the L or 100% to the R when create your stereo mixdown file.  Perhaps this should be obvious, but it wasn't to me when I first started using mono files.  Since I didn't manually pan my files, by default Audition mixed the combined two channel file to mono which was confusing to me for awhile until I realized why.  At first, and actually for a few days afterwards, I thought that I'd set up my recorder wrong and that I'd eff'ed up the capture, but then I figured out that I hadn't done the mixdown right.

[Marshall7]

2 stereo channels, or often 2 x 2 stereo channels

[Gutbucket]

Here's one that hasn't been mentioned yet- I sometimes choose to record 2-channel stereo files instead of single channel mono files so I can play back the raw unedited files in stereo without using an editor.   That's useful if I'm recording things in obvious pairs (AUD, SBD, stage-lip whatever) to be mixed later.  If I'm recording things that aren't really organized as pairs and need to be mixed anyway, I usually record mono files.

I've been real happy with the Mono SNB & two Omni Mic's Spaced about 20ft across the stage from one another. Real surprised at just how much stereo information comes out in the final product mixing the SNB in the center and hard left - hard right on the omni's

Haven't had a chance to listen to your link, but that technique gets my endorsement.  If you can't get the mono SNB feed, you can do something similar with a third mic in the center, either another omni or a forward facing directional of any pattern.  Works well on stage and also from farther back as well.  Since you probably have a free channel available anyway, you can try adding the third mic even when you do have the mono SNB.

If you have a surround setup at home, try playing back these three channel recordings directly over the front three speakers as L/C/R.

[waltmon]

Is it pretty easy to match up the files seamlessly when you exceed the 2 GB's?   I ran the 4 monos with my 744T and dont remember any 2 GB file cap there. 

[stevetoney]

Is it pretty easy to match up the files seamlessly when you exceed the 2 GB's? 

I've never had any issues getting split files to seamlessly merge but anytime I have a 2 channel recording that goes over 2 hours (to be precise, I think it's like 2hr, 8min at 24/48), my computer goes bonkers presumably because I've hit the 2gb file size limit.  I'm not a Windows wiz, but I think Windows can't handle a file size over 2gb.

  I ran the 4 monos with my 744T and dont remember any 2 GB file cap there.

Well, a 24/48 mono file won't hit 2gb until around 4 hours of continuous record time, so you probably just never hit the file size limit running 4 channel mono. 

Also, keep in mind that the 744t has up to a 4gb file size setting, but some people choose a setting based on their computers' OS ability to handle only a 2gb file size.  So, for example, if I'm running 24/48 mono files, I might just choose 1gb as my file size limit...that would give me two hours of recording time before automatic splits happen and limit my 2 channel mixdowns to the 2gb filesize limit.. 

[Marshall7]

I've never had any issues with files sizes over 2 GB on my Windows machines.

[stevetoney]

I've never had any issues with files sizes over 2 GB on my Windows machines.

Did a search in order to nail this down.  Looks like max file size is 4gb but only on FAT32 drives.  If the drive is NFTS, there's no file size limitation.

[Marshall7]

Mine is NTFS

[waltmon]

Chris Johnson changed out the hard drive to a 64 GB CF card with adaptor when he did the transparency mods....so that would change the mechanical drive limitations, correct? Love there are now no moving parts!