Topic: [PT 2] M-Audio MicroTrack 2496 - *actual* real-life experiences thread

[Todd R]

From my testing, I've found the clip indicators on the MT to be very accurate, and the clip indicators on the SBM1 to be not so accuarate, depending on how you look at it.  I tested the MT against my V3 and my home Sony A6 DAT deck, both of which I've found to be very accurate.  I then looked at the waveforms in CoolEdit.  Each time the MT indicated an over, so did my V3 and A6, and the waveform view showed that to be the case.

I guess you could say the SBM1 indicators were accurate, but from all my testing, the clip indicators come on exactly at clipping, not at -2db as advertised.  So from my testing of at least my SBM1, the clip indicators of the SBM1 came on at 0dbFS, not -2db, and they seemed to be a little sluggish at that.  Bottom line, I trust the clip meters of the MT more than the SBM1, and they seem right on par with the V3.

[silentmark]

Interesting. When my sbm1 would light up for a micro second, I never really got any clipping so I am used to that. Now if they light up for a couple seconds then some clipping would happen. While watching my rig I watched this intently and saw that the MT would lite up at times, but not the sbm1. The sbm1 would lite up briefly and the MT was flashing clips. I suppose it just needs to be investigated some more. Thanks for the input Todd !

[sunrisemusic]

Using a seperate usb2.0 card reader is faster then the unit itself, 1.6 gig 45 minutes with the MT, 2 gigs 35 minutes with a reader, times are approx.

Thanks for the report. Please excuse the "newbie to CF cards question", but I assume these above times are transfer times? Wow, after my own experiences of iPods and firewire drives that's longggggg. Guess I'll have to get used to that. What speed card is it?  (I will be getting a card beyond the stock one that came with the unit later this week - so I'm currently stuck with mp3s.)

[sunrisemusic]

Uh oh, I hope this doesn't happen again (I'll keep you posted)....

Several days ago, last time I looked my MT was about half full on battery. It's been switched off since then. Today I decided to charge it cos I wanted to record my regular solo gig (just using the external stereo mic) and nothing happened when I plugged it in so I unplugged and tried switching it on - I would hope that I just didn't hold the button down long enough, but I'm suspecting that the battery drained while in OFF mode.  So I plugged it back in again and after way longer than I would have expected the light finally came on and it charged up.

I'm now around half full again. I won't need to use it for a few days (unless the firmware update comes out before then, LOL) so I'm going to leave it turned off and see if the same thing happens.

Anyone else been able to keep their hands off the unit for long enough to see if the battery drains while turned OFF? That would be horrible if it does that. Ah well, I guess iPods and maybe even PDAs will do that too, but not so quickly! Sure, after a week I could understand it, but a couple of days? 

[pgoelz]

Uh oh, I hope this doesn't happen again (I'll keep you posted)....

Several days ago, last time I looked my MT was about half full on battery. It's been switched off since then. Today I decided to charge it cos I wanted to record my regular solo gig (just using the external stereo mic) and nothing happened when I plugged it in so I unplugged and tried switching it on - I would hope that I just didn't hold the button down long enough, but I'm suspecting that the battery drained while in OFF mode.  So I plugged it back in again and after way longer than I would have expected the light finally came on and it charged up.

The MT that I had briefly did essentially the same thing.  Out of the box it would not enter charge mode until it had been plugged in for 3-5 minutes. 

From my model airplane experience with LiPoly cells, here is the skinny.... take it for what it is worth.....

1.  All LiPoly cells that I am familiar with leave the manufacturer at pretty close to 50% charged.  This is to optimise the shelf life. 

2.  LiPoly cells should never be discharged below 2.5V or they will be permanently damaged.  All LiPoly powered equipment that I am familiar with uses 3V as a safety margin and automatically shuts off when the voltage reaches that level to protect the cell(s). 

Therefore, if you leave your MT at 50% charged and come back to it only to find it dead, it would seem possible that the MT slowly discharges the internal battery when off. 

If it IS discharging while off, that is indeed VERY serious because it is therefore possible to discharge the cell(s) below 2.5V per cell and damage them. 

Paul

[jbraveman]

16/48 from SBM-1 to spdif on MT.  4gb microdrive.  Stops exactly at 57:53, 651,189kb each time (3times in a row).  Files confirmed to be 16/48 in goldwave.  Very bizzare.

[F.O.Bean]

Well here are some of my findings. First I do want to state that I do not stealth and could care less about the analog inputs at all and the shows I taped were all with the digi in.

Time remaining: I also had a strange time come up with a 4 gig card. It display 4:30 remaining, when it should have been around 6:30 for 16/44.1, settings were on auto through the digi in. It didn't stop at all so no problem there. Yesterday I set the input to be the 1/8" jack, set it to 16/44.1 wav and the time remaining display showed 6:36 remaining. I switched back to the digi in and I got the same time remaining, 6:36.

I used AC power both nights so I have no real battery life reports, BUT I did learn that you should power down after each set when using AC power or even an external battery pack (which is my next test I hope to do). If you leave the miniusb in when powering up, it goes into charge mode, no biggie, just plug the usb jack in after powering up. What I did find was after the first night's first set recording I left the unit plugged in and powered up. Second set starts, I hit record and the unit froze. Powered down, unplugged the miniusb, hit record, froze again, powered down again, then up, hit record, good to go, re-plugged the AC power in. After that second set I powered the unit down, third set getting ready to start, power up, hit record, plug the AC jack in again, no problems. I did this process the second night of recording as well with no freeze ups.

I did notice the red clip lights on the MT seem a bit over zealous as my sbm1 wasn't even lighting up while the MT was like a Xmas tree at times, so just keep that in mind. Being so used to the o so wonderful meters of the D7/8 , these took alittle getting used to, still don't like them that much, really need some dB numbers on there. I am sure over time I will get a bead on them 

As it has been said, the digi in and the usb port are REAL tight, I need to shave some of the plastic off the usb jack for a smoother fit.

Using a seperate usb2.0 card reader is faster then the unit itself, 1.6 gig 45 minutes with the MT, 2 gigs 35 minutes with a reader, times are approx.

At this point, even with the limited usage, I give a thumbs up 

damn, it takes THAT long to transfer from usb 2.0 card reader>HD that sucks, clearing a 4GB would take 70 mins

i was hoping 4-5mins for a transfer like that

[Jonny Durango]

Here is a post from Chel Van Gennip on rec.audio.pro

<<
Today I made, as promissed, some real recordings with the Microtrack.

Two microphones AKG C480B with CK62ULS capsules (comparable with Schoeps
CMS 6 + MK 2, but better  ;-)  + Microtrack 2496. Recorded at 48/24, peak
level -7dB
Normalised and converted to 48/16

Hall was not very quiet, some noise from airconditioners and outside.
Piano bench needs fixing. Piano (Sauter) and acoustics were not perfect.

http://www.serg.vangennip.com/piano2.wav (size 34M)
>>

Phantom power was furnished via the Microtrack to AKG C480B's which are spec'd for 48V ± 4V....sounds fine to me (other than the damn squeaky piano bench!) 

Jonny Durango

[hyperplane]

16/48 from SBM-1 to spdif on MT.  4gb microdrive.  Stops exactly at 57:53, 651,189kb each time (3times in a row).  Files confirmed to be 16/48 in goldwave.  Very bizzare.

that sucks. big time. if the Microtrack 2496 would just register as a member here, i'd -T him for your experience alone!

[WiFiJeff]

damn, it takes THAT long to transfer from usb 2.0 card reader>HD that sucks, clearing a 4GB would take 70 mins

i was hoping 4-5mins for a transfer like that

I have been transferring from CF for my R1 since January.  3-4 GB would take that long via a CF-to-PCMCIA adapter, but a firewire CF card reader does it in 10-15 minutes.

Jeff

[F.O.Bean]

damn, it takes THAT long to transfer from usb 2.0 card reader>HD that sucks, clearing a 4GB would take 70 mins

i was hoping 4-5mins for a transfer like that

I have been transferring from CF for my R1 since January.  3-4 GB would take that long via a CF-to-PCMCIA adapter, but a firewire CF card reader does it in 10-15 minutes.

Jeff

usb 2.0 is fatser than firewire tho, unless its firewire 800

usb 2.0 card reader>usb 2.0 PC should take even quicker!

[ShawnF]

[usb 2.0 is fatser than firewire tho, unless its firewire 800

usb 2.0 card reader>usb 2.0 PC should take even quicker!

My understanding (probably from someone on this forum) was that for bursts USB 2.0 is faster than Firewire, but that for sustained transfers, Firewire maintains a higher rate.

[hyperplane]

[usb 2.0 is fatser than firewire tho, unless its firewire 800

usb 2.0 card reader>usb 2.0 PC should take even quicker!

My understanding (probably from someone on this forum) was that for bursts USB 2.0 is faster than Firewire, but that for sustained transfers, Firewire maintains a higher rate.

that's what i've read as well. this isn't a "fact" of any kind, but note how many analog-to-DV converters use Firewire/IEEE1394 as the transferring route, as opposed to USB (2.0). my point being, to "create" (a.k.a. write) approximately 13 GB of data for each hour of footage captured, the transfer route must be able to sustain a constant (high) speed. the *majority* of video capture devices i've seen that utilize USB (2.0) are MPEG-2, which would be a maximum of approximately 4.3 GB per hour of footage captured. in other words, about one-third of the amount of data as a DV capture device. hence, it would make sense from this information alone that USB 2.0 cannot sustain as high of a speed while transferring as normal Firewire/1394 connections.

[fuzn]

Taped NIN last night with the microtracker. Came out so bad that it was amazing, mostly because I was so close there were no stacks around me. I ended up just being happy being 10 feet away and just had a great time. Anyways. First problem I had was the autolux set. I got it going, did it, came back, and the microtracker is OFF and the power button is stuck in. I had the hold button still on, so I have no idea how any of this happened. I had so much junk in my pocket that anything could have happened. Then I did QOTSA and NIN. Both came out with clipping galore. I set it for M and moved both sliders at about 1/3 the way and started the file and put it on hold. I tried to play the file back after qotsa to see if it clipped, and the stupid thing wouldn't even play the file. It would play some older files, but not the ones I needed. I'd just keep pushing the nav button in over and over and nothing happened. I am very sure I wasn't writing to any files either. It of course did play it 4 hours after the show, how nice.
Anyways, NIN was the same. I'll attach a pic here and a clip. Oh yeah, the setup was SP-CMC-4>SP-SPSB-1>MT via Line-In with Phantom off. After the show I noticed the L/M/H was moved from M to H. No idea when that happened, but i'm not suprirsed with all the stuff in my pocket. In total I had a MT, SP-SPSB-1, and a USB battery pack all hooked up.

I'll try the setup again when I get a pair of mics modded with phantom power all set.

PS, if you're an NIN fan you can figure out which songs didn't clip!

Here is a clip that should sound terrible http://www.fuzn.net/mtclip.wav

I can't believe it was clipping, but oh well. Trent threw his bottle right on my hat and I guess I lost my hat! I was drenched in water as well. I have no idea where the bottle bounced off to. I was NOT expecting that to happen.

[jcrab66]

[usb 2.0 is fatser than firewire tho, unless its firewire 800

usb 2.0 card reader>usb 2.0 PC should take even quicker!

My understanding (probably from someone on this forum) was that for bursts USB 2.0 is faster than Firewire, but that for sustained transfers, Firewire maintains a higher rate.

you are correct sir!