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Gear / Technical Help => Recording Gear => Topic started by: biker on October 10, 2005, 02:07:47 AM

Title: MicroTrack2496 at WSP 2005-10-09
Post by: biker on October 10, 2005, 02:07:47 AM
Ran the MT2496 at the WSP show in Knoxville this evening. Well, yesterday evening now. My intent was to evaluate it as a replacement for my trusty DA-P1 and to make the move to 24 bit, 48 kHz recording. I've been very impressed with some 24/48 recordings and it is easily apparent that it is worthwhile. What's not so clear to me is the value of 24/96 for the most part so I'll be happy with 24/48.

The rig was ADK A51TL (card, 20cm DIN) > V2. The balanced XLR outputs from the V2 went to the 1/4" TRS inputs on the MT2496. The unbalanced RCA's went to the P1. I had experimented earlier in the day with finding an output level from the V2 that would make both recorders happy, but ran out of time. Mics were in the section about 8 feet up. One of three LD rigs running in the section by the way. Another set of ADK's and a pair of Neumans. Four others were SD.

New firmware was installed (1.1.5). Recording settings were 24 bit, 48 kHz wav and L & R channels linked. The L/M/H switch was set to L. CF flash cards were 2.0 GB Sandisk units, phantom power off (of course) and backlight was set to "never on". Oh yeah, and I set the date and time on the unit. No external power, just the stock internal battery. I had run it through two full charge cycles and a couple of shorter ones.

Thought I had a good starting point for levels but got smacked pretty good on both units. Regrouped with a bump down on the coarse gain on the V2 and life was much better for the DAT, but still a lot of red on the MT. Hit the down button "a few times" on the MT. Forgot to keep track of how many times in the heat of the battle. In the afternoon testing, the best levels at a cursory glance seemed to be achieved when the green lights were on steady, with occasional moments were one or the other would go out, and no red. Even a briefest of reds looked to clip so I ran with the mostly solid greens. The first set went fine after that. Total time was 1h,11m,1s.

Put the other CF card in for the second set. Paid attention to the boot time and it was about 15 seconds. I was trying to maximize battery life so I turned the unit off at set break. Started up OK but discovered that using the hold switch is a very good idea, as bumping the NAV button puts it in pause mode. Lost a couple of minutes on that. Therefore the second set was composed of two files, first one 2m,2s, and the second 1h,29m,1s, for a total time of 1h,31m,8s.

Total recording time this evening was 2h,54m,29s. I'd guess maybe another five minutes at the most of just powered on time. The battery display still showed the lower left triangle, and I never saw the low battery warning.

The level meters pretty well crapped out after 20 to 30 minutes of recording. The two second peak hold indicators (vertical hash mark) were still functional but the instantaneous levels were pegged. The left channel did so first, followed by the right one about ten minutes later. I was hoping to get some comparison files up but my music PC has a random reboot problem and I gave up for the night. I'm heading off to four days work in London on Monday, followed by a couple of days R&R in Amsterdam, so that will have to wait until I come back. Assuming I do of course! I should have brought a coax cable and tried running 24/48 out of one of the V3's there this evening, but didn't think about it till too late. I'm sure someone else will take care of that.

Adios

Roger
aka biker
Title: Re: MicroTrack2496 at WSP 2005-10-09
Post by: svenkid on October 10, 2005, 02:23:01 PM
good call on the hold button !!
Title: Re: MicroTrack2496 at WSP 2005-10-09
Post by: biker on October 11, 2005, 07:03:00 AM
I should also mention I am tickled to death at being able to transfer a show in a just a few minutes versus real-time for DAT! Brought the MT2496 over to the UK with me so that I could listen to the show. I like what I hear so far but my traveling headphones aren't the best quality so I can't really comment on the sound yet.

Roger
Title: Re: MicroTrack2496 at WSP 2005-10-09
Post by: John R on October 11, 2005, 07:51:24 AM
great report roger, thanks.

green good, red bad 8)