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Christian Shaw

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Everything posted by Christian Shaw

  1. Thanks for your response Glenn. So can I assume this is normal behaviour for the unit? I'll stick to 12v NiMH or NiCad batteries in that case and stop worrying!
  2. I thought this was the case. Certainly I will not be using the li-ion NP1s in the unit. The 12v NiMH should be better. I did notice the current output was a relatively low 5.2mA on each input rather than around 13.5mA for the MixPre. Perhaps this is to balance the slightly higher voltage?
  3. Having worked out how to extract the Deva II files from the DVD-RAM using a modern PC, and having had the phantom power supply on mic input 4 fixed, I now have the four track up and running. Tests on the phantom power voltage reveal a strange issue that I'm hoping someone can chime in on. With the 12v external supply connected, we have around 55v dc phantom power at the inputs. This is obviously slightly over spec for most mics. I then tested with a full li-ion NP1 and was disturbed to get a reading of 72v at the inputs! This drops off progressively as the battery drains. Testing with a variable PSU seems to indicate that 10.5 to 11v give closest to 48v at the inputs. I have tested the unit with inexpensive mics which seem to have taken no evident harm; I wouldn't want to be plugging in anything by Schoeps or Sennheiser though! With phantom power needing to be constant, I'm guessing there must be an issue with the power supply in the unit that the tech didn't address (I've gone back to him about this), but was wondering if anyone here might be able to offer some insight. If it is another fault, it may be a case of just using the unit with a linear PSU of 10.5-11v (if I can find one), because there is no point sinking any extra cash in I feel. Could it also be that the unit was designed to work with NiCad instead of li-ion?
  4. Yeah, I thought to keep an eye (or an ear) on that because the mic trims don't really go down all that low in comparison to most machines, and I don't have stats on the max input level to know at what point the pres will overload. But like you said, with what I'm doing there are aren't really any unexpected signal peaks; I usually set the gain at the beginning of the session based on the loudest passage that's going to be played, and it rarely gets touched after that unless the mics get moved for some reason. The material from Saturday sounds fine to me, but for louder sources, I'll no doubt have to employ some mic pads.
  5. It's a great machine Glenn, must have been way ahead of its time at the time you released it. I've just handed it over to the local audio tech because the phantom power to mic input 4 isn't working. I'm sure it'll come back fixed and I'll be very happy. In the meantime, I'm playing with my 2 channel recordings from Saturday; the pipe organ sounds clean with great detail, transparency and a lovely crispness in the highs which I find very important for baroque material such as Bach.
  6. I agree Philip, if the pres and ADC/DAC are good, and I love the sound of the Zaxcom and how quiet it is.
  7. I've let Howy, who I was speaking to at Zaxcom, know how I solved it. Anyway, I hope the info is useful to anyone else like me who is foolish enough to want to use 20 year old technology. At least now I have a solid 4 track with great pres and timecode generator that I paid nothing for 😁. ... And thanks to all on the thread for your input and enthusiasm; what a lovely, welcoming forum this is. I shall look forward to talking to you all further.
  8. Being impatient, I decided to install a program called IsoBuster, which extracts files from damaged discs. A search of the disc revealed the full DVD RAM filesystem full of lovely .bwf files! So I'm happy to say, although the process is a little more time consuming than drag-and-dropping files from an SD card, I'm now in business with the Deva ii at least. Best of all, I can do it all from within Windows 10.
  9. Hi Bash. Thanks for the link, but the program doesn't recover from optical media. I'm going to try ISOBuster if all else fails, but will test the legacy drive before I spend £40 on that!
  10. I can't believe how good such an old machine can be, that's why I've got to get it up and running again! Made some pipe organ recordings with it on Saturday in Liverpool and they sound great; worst case scenario I can always make up an AES cable and run them into my 552. I'm about to try a Linux install as apparently it reads all FAT file systems.
  11. OK, well the Windows 95 and 3.1 virtual machine haven't worked. Fingers crossed that the new (old) DVD RAM drive does when it arrives. Thanks for your responses all.
  12. That's good to know. Thanks for running that test John. I haven't got a MacBook Pro anymore but I know people that have so if all else fails I can save up files on the Deva HDD and use someone else's. One question; when you mirrored the Deva HDD to the DVD RAM drive, did you need to 'ERASE SCSI' from the setup menu first, or did you format the discs first? I suppose the 'ERASE SCSI' option is actually formatting the discs too?
  13. Thanks John. I've tried the Win 98 virtual machine to no avail. Next up; Win 95! My DVD drive is Multi, which is meant to support DVD RAM. It could still be the problem though so I've ordered a Matsushita IDE DVD RAM / R drive similar to the one in the SCSI DVD RAM that came with the Deva ii. Zaxcom weren't sure of the OS to use (suggesting Win 98), but also suggested trying some 2.2gb discs. The closest I have been able to find online is 2.6gb so I'm going to test that too. I won't let this machine go to landfill; it's too good to be obsolete! A solution will be found!
  14. Thanks for all your replies. I am currently installing a Windows 98 SE virtual machine on my PC and hoping it will work!
  15. I recently got a Zaxcom Deva ii for free, and although it is old, I love the sound, functionality, and form factor and want to use it for multi channel location music recordings, and for sound on small scale documentary shoots. It came with the DVD-RAM recorder. The problem I have is I can't work out how to access the files on my PC. I first tried removing the internal hard disk and plugging in to my Windows 10 computer via an IDE to USB interface. Result; no files to be seen. Next, I bought some DVD-RAM discs and tried mirroring the HDD; this has worked as the files play back on the unit from the external disk, and by visual inspection, the tracks are obviously there on the disk. Thinking I'd solved the problem and would find my lovely BWF files waiting, I put the the disk into my DVD multi drive, only to find that again, there were no files on the disk, and the file system showing as RAW. I've tried formatting various ways, but each time the Deva wants me to erase the disk before it allows mirroring. Lastly, I installed XP on my PC to see if the OS was the problem. Again, no files to be seen. I tried formatting to fat32, at which point it can be seen that there is a percentage of the disc used, but no files to be accessed. I have an old DVD RAM drive on the way to test, and am going to try Windows 98 later, but feel I'm clutching at straws! Is there some kind of special software I need to access the files? Any assistance those experienced folk on here who have used the machine could give would be extremely gratefully received!
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