Topic: Any experience with auto-start for recording?

[yltfan]

Do they work? I'm thinking about trying it with my dr-680 tonight, as there's a chance I will be a few minutes late getting back to the venue after setting up at load-in. I haven't explored it at all, but just wondering if it really works, and how much it takes to get it to start.

[yltfan]

The other options are: ask someone to hit start or record over an hour of nothing...
I'm kind of torn, leaning towards rolling the dice with the auto-start. I looked it up, you can set the level at which it starts, seems doable.

[F.O.Bean]

go for it

[vanark]

I'd just hit record and get dead air.  Better to be sure.

[jb63]

I've done it with other recorders with great success.
Just test it first. I set up, then set it to start in 2 minutes and run for one minute and then stop.
Wait it out, if it works, set it for what you want and you are ready.


When I have enough card space and battery, I just record the air. If I make it back in time, stop and start again and you have your pre-show track.

[page]

I've done it with other recorders with great success.
Just test it first. I set up, then set it to start in 2 minutes and run for one minute and then stop.

This. It worked great on my 722 assuming I had the clock setup correctly (DST, timezone travel, etc). I would often setup, set an aproximate gain that I knew would be needed based on prior experience, and then walk away or whatever. It worked great at Phish since we had little space for bags and stuff so I could stash mine under the stand without having to get near it.

When I have enough card space and battery, I just record the air. If I make it back in time, stop and start again and you have your pre-show track.

I've done that too, especially in a pinch where I don't have time to tinker with the timer.

The one word of caution is that it makes having gapless file recording more critical as you're more likely to hit that 2 or 4gb mark during a song.

[yltfan]

I don't think the dr-680 has the option of setting for a specific time, but I did use the db level auto start, and it worked well. You can change the level for it to kick in, and with the 2 second buffer, you shouldn't miss a thing. For the show last night, it kicked about 15 min before the band started, when someone was checking the guitars. If that didn't happen, the crowd noise when the lights went down/band came on stage surely would have.