Topic: MicroTrack 24/96 Beta 1.2.0

[Ed.]

alright, i'm sure its swapped then, i gotta fix that.  thanks guys.

[Chris K]

Yes it still flips chanels. When I was recording this weekend m/s, I had configured backwards and was running mid on the right channel.
Serendipitously when I went home to swap channels and mixdown, the channels were already swaped.

so when recorded it flips the track, and then when you download it it flips back? am i reading this right? if so then what is the issue other than playback on the mt, which suxs for playback imo

[Craig T]

no, he had his mics plugged into the preamp backwards (he ran L=side R=mid, should have been L=mid R=side).  he thought he was going to have to swap channels prior to the m/s>stereo mixdown, but since the MT swapped the channels it was ok.  did you follow that?

[Chris K]

gotcha...probably the one time user error worked to his advantage 

[SonicSound]

Forget M/S .... Belly Blumlein
http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=55241.msg722112#msg722112

[koops]

Hey people, thought I'd add to this lucrative chat by telling my woes of the Microtrack (and to introduce myself)...

Firstly, I love it: it's the cheap ($240 on E-Bay), ultra lightweight, very portable and sounds amazing - I don't care if it's not 24 bit it sounds fine to me.

Secondly, I agree with all the niggles with usability: dodgy nav button, it creaks when squeazed, and the software interface can be cumbersome to use at first.  and I don't think anybody has mentioned the fact that CF media doesn't easily guide itself to slot into the side of the microtrack, and I've found myself pulling it in and out three or four times just to find the correct projectory.

However, my biggest concern was with the fact that my 2GB CF media wasn't recognized by the device, however it was formatted as advised by the M-Audio knowledge base... it also worked fine through several standard card readers.  The CF card I was using was an Integral i-Pro 2GB Ultra High Speed (100x) CF Card.  Having spent almost £90 on this card, I was a little disappointed so I contacted M-Audio to ask what could be wrong.  Just to clarify, I have updated to firmware v1.2 and the device seems to work fine with the accompanying Kodak 64Mb media.

When I heard back from technical support, they provided me with a list of tried and tested CF cards which I thought should be wider-known as I'd certainly have found this info useful when considering an upgrade to the rather stingy 64Mb card.  I have copied thier response word-for-word below...

"here is a list of tested cards:
   *Tested and approved CF cards for the MicroTrack:

Hitachi Microdrive 2GB, 4GB, 6GB
Seagate 5GB drive ("microdrive" type)
Transcend 4GB CF, 45x
Corsair 4GB CF (47-00057)
Lexar 1GB CF Professional 80x
SanDisk 1GB CF
JAMedia 1GB CF
Toshiba 512MB CF
JAMedia 256MB CF
SimpleTech 128MB CF
Kodak 64MB CF

Kingston Elite Series

CF/1024-S 1 GB Compact Flash Card (SLC) (50x)
CF/2GB-S 2 GB Compact Flash Card (SLC) (50x)
CF/4GB-S 4 GB Compact Flash Card (SLC) (45x)

Kingston Standard Series

CF/128 128MB Compact Flash Card
CF/256 256MB Compact Flash Card
CF/512 512MB Compact Flash Card
CF/1024 1024MB Compact Flash Card

Kingston Elite Series

CF/1024-S 1 GB Compact Flash Card (SLC) (50x)
CF/2GB-S 2 GB Compact Flash Card (SLC) (50x)
CF/4GB-S 4 GB Compact Flash Card (SLC) (45x)

Kingston Standard Series

CF/128 128MB Compact Flash Card
CF/256 256MB Compact Flash Card
CF/512 512MB Compact Flash Card
CF/1024 1024MB Compact Flash Card"

To conclude my story, I have exchanged my 'bad' card for an equivalent sized Kingston Elite series, and should recieve it anyday now.

I hope this post helps anyone out there looking to upgrade their storage space...

Cheers, Chris.

[silentmark]

- I don't care if it's not 24 bit it sounds fine to me.

Ummmm why would you think it is not 24bit ?

[alienbobz]

Has anyone been able to figure out a true workaround with this time remaining issue? I ran both the JB3 and MT (digi-in, 24/48) on Saturday. MT showed about 1:46 when I started in for the first set. First set ran about 1 hour. Powered down the MT during the set break, and the next file had the remaining 46 minutes. Part of one of the songs is cut. Thing that is pissing me off right now is that the MT seems to sound a lot clearer than the JB3 (for some reason the JB3 seems to have more crowd noise during songs). Would like to figure this issue out for my next show or I may just leave the MT until they fix this. Let me know.

[chitaper]

Has anyone been able to figure out a true workaround with this time remaining issue? I ran both the JB3 and MT (digi-in, 24/48) on Saturday. MT showed about 1:46 when I started in for the first set. First set ran about 1 hour. Powered down the MT during the set break, and the next file had the remaining 46 minutes. Part of one of the songs is cut. Thing that is pissing me off right now is that the MT seems to sound a lot clearer than the JB3 (for some reason the JB3 seems to have more crowd noise during songs). Would like to figure this issue out for my next show or I may just leave the MT until they fix this. Let me know.

On the 1.15 firmware you could try starting a new file (w/o rebooting), it would often show the correct time afterwards. Haven't tried this on 1.2 though.

[alienbobz]

Yeah I have unfortunately upgraded to the new firmware .

[Ed.]

i have this problem as well, my idea was to shut the mt off, eject the card, restart the mt, and then insert the card again.  however, i haven't had a chance to test the theory yet.  i hope to do it sometime this week.  i'm hoping that will reset the time, but its hard to say.

[koops]

- I don't care if it's not 24 bit it sounds fine to me.

Ummmm why would you think it is not 24bit ?

If you'd done your homework you should know...

http://home.rustradio.org/~rdvdijk/microtrack/index-old.html

[Ed.]

i guess i still don't get what you're getting at, the unit records 24bit.

[cybermansrev]

i guess i still don't get what you're getting at, the unit records 24bit.

If I'm understanding the link correctly http://home.rustradio.org/~rdvdijk/microtrack/index-old.html I think the point is whilst the microtrack is recording 24bit, due to the noise floor there's really only 18 bit of "good" data to use.

The tests on that page do look very odd, particularly the left channel "wavering" it would be interesting to run the same test on other peoples MT's to see if it's just a problem with the one they tested.

[Ed.]

fair enuf, but that was only done thru the analog in, digi in is clean, although i don't have any graphs to back up that accusation.