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vox1 · Contributor IV Joined: 14 Nov 2004 Posts: 126

Hi! For years I've used a DAT deck (or ... a big ole Fostex Foundation workstation) as a backup recorder for phone patch & ISDN sessions,
when i'm tracking something to my Mac out in the control room.

I need something more dependable and compact and am considering something a little more recent vintage...maybe one of the desktop
Tascam HD 4 or 8 trackers....

I wonder if a unit that uses an flash drive would be dependable - esp. for
longer sessions up to half-hour or hour...vs. hard-drive-based..

Perspective or alternative suggestions welcomed and appreciated: )

TIA

MikeE
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Mike Sommer · Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2011 10:28 am Post subject:

Since you are talking about ISDN sessions, aren't the clients recording the gig?

If so, why not just use the DAW on your computer, to record the back up of the session?

There are a plethora of small digital recorders that take line signal in-- The Zoom H4 comes to mind as does the Fostex FR-2.

Flash drive recorders are very fine and stable units.
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vox1 · Contributor IV Joined: 14 Nov 2004 Posts: 126

Hiya Mike! I should've just said phone-patch. Its mainly just phone-patch sessions i'm concerned with - just for safety like to roll a backup (tho i've had a studio ask that i roll a back-up on my end before).

Anyway, yep normally going to a DAW and splitting a feed to another device as the backup in case of any computer crisis -

I just wanted some consensus, mainly about stability of flash vs HD-based standalones such as older Tascam stuff - (DR 02? ) -

As for my current backup routine - i've had enough of DAT ; ) but... decades worth of stuff archived on 'em that one day, some day i might want to save to disk - at which point i'll probably be thinking, "good luck with 'dat " Smile

And i can't count how many years worth of analog reels are in storage around here... but that's another project entirely.
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Bish · Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2011 1:18 pm Post subject:

Although I don't own it any more, I used to have the Zoom H4n, and I think it would be a fine backup recorder... XLR or line inputs, backup USB interface, and a field recorder all in one unit.

Cheers
Peter
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vox1 · Contributor IV Joined: 14 Nov 2004 Posts: 126

Thanks Peter. I was considering one of the portables...probably would be fine - as long as it'd be easy to shuttle around on to find what i need quickly and dump it over to a desktop Mac for edit and conversion.
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Mushmelon · Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2011 11:06 pm Post subject:

I use a Fostex MR8 MKII 8-Track Compact Flash Digital Multitrack Recorder. It goes for about $249. The buttons are a bit flimsy though. The record button snapped off after about 4 years and I had to get a new unit...(at the time the replacement button pack was running around $150 so I just bought a whole new recorder). Does the job well and sneaker-netting the recordings to your computer via flash drive are much easier than the USB option. Just my 2 cents worth...YMMV
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Bruce · Posted: Thu Sep 22, 2011 6:50 am Post subject:

Another (cheaper) thought is to save your session immediately and then save that particular audio file to another hard drive as your backup. Unless it's an unusually long session it should take but a moment.

Either that or trust that most hard drives that fail rarely do it in the middle of the day but on start up (yes, experts?), and just backup your system every night.

B
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Bish · Posted: Thu Sep 22, 2011 7:11 am Post subject:

I have a Drobo that's on 24/7. During Irene, I lost power and managed to shut down everything in a controlled way (luckily I was at my desk when the UPS screamed at me)... on restoration, one of the drives in the Drobo failed. This is the only time in the last three years that I lost a drive... prior to that, the failure was on a start-up as well, and the one before that was a laptop drive on start-up. So, this is anecdotal rather than empirical, but I'd certainly agree with Bruce's observation. If you're worried about a drive as a single point of failure, RAID is your friend. I have the main data drive in the MacPro mirrored, everything backed up hourly via Time Machine to an external drive, and then everything dumped out to the Drobo nightly with ChronoSync.

Now I just need to get my act together with some off-site backup.
Cheers
Peter
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vox1 · Contributor IV Joined: 14 Nov 2004 Posts: 126

georgethetech · Posted: Thu Sep 22, 2011 9:37 pm Post subject:

I might be going Drobo soon...
Love that you can lose a single HD, replace it, and have zero downtime.
Also that you can dynamically upgrade the capacity over time.
For local and offsite backups for my entire home's network I use Crashplan.com. It's awesome.

If you want a realtime backup recorder, flash is a nice way to go. Just erase each day and start over, with zero loss of quality. There are so many out now it's mind boggling.
This one's nice.
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ballenberg · Posted: Fri Sep 23, 2011 3:06 am Post subject:

and those backup files can be downloaded right into any editing software---Line out, or USB?

Thanks George

vox1 · Contributor IV Joined: 14 Nov 2004 Posts: 126

George, that is a handy little box, the Sangean... Tho for the about the same $$ - i could see just grabbing a used Tascam flash portastudio which could double as a spare multitracker for other stuff

I kinda prefer something with balanced ins too. i see this one has digital I/O and USB so that'd pro'lly be fine for my needs. Kinda like the rack mountable Tasc. SS R-05 - but there again, i figure why not go for a small-footprint Flash multitrack for maybe a couple hundred less?
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