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Sonosax SX-R4+


pvanstry

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Unit is very attractive to me and my work mostly because of the track count and Sound Quality. Novel new features and control / viewing levels on a tablet / phone is useful too. Here we are a house of Nagra and currently run a Nagra VI and a Nagra Seven. I have owned every Nagra digital         machine and they have all been super reliable.

 

Now here comes the SXR4+ which I want to like. What about all the nonsense and ups and downs with firmware? I can't stand being subject to constant computer type updates which make me in to a data manager or IT person. I'm in music recording.

 

I would like to order and use the new Sonosax outfit. These tales and reports from the front on this forum have made me reconsider.

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42 minutes ago, Patrick Tresch said:

Hello Richard, I'm sorry I shouldn't have used the name beta tester while mentionning you, though your inputs in this thread are very informative and valuable. Thanks and have a nice day.

Pat

No offence taken, Pat :)  I thought it might be useful to clarify my relationship with Sonosax anyway (as I know I've posted on here quite a bit)  

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On 30/07/2016 at 5:58 PM, tarasov said:

I pre-ordered an R4+ what seems like years ago, attracted to the boasts of amazing features and quality in one small package, as well as the connectivity option via Dante protocol (I use a Yamaha 01v96i and bought an mLan Dante card in anticipation of the R4+ arrival). After paying up-front, and without inspection of a physical unit, one arrived many months later after the actual 'release' date. Within days of testing it, there was 1), an intermittent 'popping' noise in the monitor chain (went 'to tape'  as well),  and  2),  a crackle and buzz when WiFi was engaged. This, in addition to no battery door  and one of the rubber legs missing.  I brought this up with my local dealer as well as Sonosax, and the unit was replaced (still no battery door or Dante option though). I check in with this thread now and then to see what's happening but all feels quite disheartening. No follow-up from Sonosax re my previous issues or things Dante. That said,  anyone want to buy a barely used R4+ and an mLan Dante card? 

Dear Mr Tarasov,

I'm sorry and feel sad if you are disapointed with your SONOSAX SX-R4+. 

But it seems good if your unit was replaced, I believe with the external WiFi antenna?

Sorry, it was never question of a battery door.

Dante: we still study the way how to use the RJ45, and we still not fixed if we will use Dante or another protocole.

With my best regards,

Jacques

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On 27/07/2016 at 10:15 PM, Wandering Ear said:

For those with corrupt recordings, have you tried loading them as raw data in Audacity?  I've recovered corrupted audio file this way before, where a small error in the header caused only noise to play back when the actually audio was there.

We identified and fixed the v2.3 bug, which concerns a misconfiguration between 32 & 24-bit. The 2.4 release is under tests and will be released very soon.

For those that have corrupted files and want to recover them:

  1. Download & install Audacity (http://www.audacityteam.org)
  2. Select File > Import > RAW data and select Signed 32-bit PCM, Little-endian, channel count (which is given in the filename after the 'S' letter), 16384 as Start offset, 100% and sampling frequency.
  3. You should see the audio waveform and export it to a new file

JAX

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3 hours ago, JAX said:

We identified and fixed the v2.3 bug, which concerns a misconfiguration between 32 & 24-bit. The 2.4 release is under tests and will be released very soon.

For those that have corrupted files and want to recover them:

  1. Download & install Audacity (http://www.audacityteam.org)
  2. Select File > Import > RAW data and select Signed 32-bit PCM, Little-endian, channel count (which is given in the filename after the 'S' letter), 16384 as Start offset, 100% and sampling frequency.
  3. You should see the audio waveform and export it to a new file

JAX

Thank you Jacques!  I think I had mine set to 24bit when setting up the recorder, so may have been why all my files were ok

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v2.4 firmware up:

 

 


Version 2.4 is a fix for version 2.3, which has a major bug.

CHANGELOG

  • Fixed timecode bug (was not correct on SD2)
  • Fixed SD card 'SPEED' error
  • Fixed monitoring bug
  • Fixed take edition bug (metadata wasn't saved properly)
  • Fixed alarm level (was active even when disabled)
  • Fixed take number generation (wasn't correct if a take was shooted with identical scene name)
  • Fixed sound report (false start takes were displayed and projects were not filtered)
  • Fixed system instability involving 4 channels output option card and sampling frequency changes
  • Fixed monitoring bug for 4 channels output option card (mix channels weren't mapped)
  • Enhanced WiFi communication
  • Added WLAN channel selection for Access Point (AP) mode
  • Minor interface bug fix & enhancement
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On 31 July 2016 at 4:31 PM, Plush said:

Unit is very attractive to me and my work mostly because of the track count and Sound Quality. Novel new features and control / viewing levels on a tablet / phone is useful too. Here we are a house of Nagra and currently run a Nagra VI and a Nagra Seven. I have owned every Nagra digital         machine and they have all been super reliable.

 

Now here comes the SXR4+ which I want to like. What about all the nonsense and ups and downs with firmware? I can't stand being subject to constant computer type updates which make me in to a data manager or IT person. I'm in music recording.

 

I would like to order and use the new Sonosax outfit. These tales and reports from the front on this forum have made me reconsider.

 

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Now here comes the SXR4+ which I want to like. What about all the nonsense and ups and downs with firmware? I can't stand being subject to constant computer type updates which make me in to a data manager or IT person. I'm in music recording.

These things are - to a degree - computers and firmware updates are normal and expected. I'm sure on your Nagra there were a couple of firmware updates, too. And often manufacturers are able to add features and capabilities which, for whatever reason, weren't there at release.
A buggy firmware update is not pleasant, bit it's not unusual, either. It can happen. Hence the doctrine to never update while in production.

If you record to a digital recorder and make backups of those recordings you're a data manager already
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1 hour ago, dolo72 said:

 

Yes, you are right, we are the guys sound recording or music, and we must not become IT guy, and your remarks make me think.
However, our machines have become so complex that, at first, we need a lot of modifications and adjustments software (thanks to beta testers).
Each new version requires much time and controls, with the risk of bugs ...
If we listen all customer requirements, we have to made a new version every week ...
We must listen to our customers, and make a list of "wishes" and "needs" to consider the new version of the software.
I hate my mobile phone (Android) which is updated every day ... and also the fact that each software on the computers ask every time learning ....
We do the driving license car or motorcycle once, and it is not necessary to start to learn when changing car!

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Hi Apologies i thought i had deleted the quote, long day on set. I was actually going to say i have complete faith in Sonosax. I have been using their products for years and this is just part of the development time. The fact that they immediately alerted the problems and now have a fix is testament to this and to Sonosax as a company. I am quite happy to wait for the fine tuning because my existing sonosax setup sxr4 and sxs8 is working absolutely fine with no problems. I would say to Plush just be patient for the required features. I personnaly never early adopt because the firmware development is inevitable when the real world makes contact with any product in our business. This is and has been true for many companies making professional audio products, I do find it a bit strange that sonosax is being singled out when sound devices has definitely had big problems which they have also resolved.  Thanks are due to those braver than me and to Sonosax for having an open dialogue with their sxr4+ experience on this forum. 

  Lisala 

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There is no manufacturer of processor based sound kit that has not had bugs or glitches in their software along the way. HHB, Genex, Fostex, Sound Devices, Zaxcom, Nagra, Aaton - all have released software at some time or another that has had problems. Some of those problems have been rather more mission critical than others. I remember one version of software that was loaded the pre record buffer with audio from whatever happened in the 10secs before you hit record, so if you were in PB and you hit record, the first ten secs of what you recorded was actually PB from a previous take. I remember a version of soft that only ran TC at 29.97 irrespective of what TC rate you actually chose. We have all seen machines that only work with 'approved' cards - which always seems odd to me.

One engineer (sadly no longer with us) explained to me that the reason his company only did about 2 software updates per year (if that even) was that it took about a week or more to properly test the new versions of software, so they would do loads of changes in one go, and then spend days testing and checking in order to release something really solid.

I sometimes wonder about putting in new soft mid job, and have to weigh up the pros and cons of new features vs new 'quirks'.

Enjoy the Olympics folks - good, honest (hopefully) software free stuff ;-)

 

Kindest, sb

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I do find it a bit strange that sonosax is being singled out when sound devices has definitely had big problems which they have also resolved. 

Well this is a Sonosax thread!
Anyway, I absolutely remember when Soznd Devices released, I think v2.13, for the 788T it caused a lot of trouble for many users, as it caused some severe problems. Don't know what it was, luckily I didn't install it.

My own critical remarks earlier, were not aimed at firmware issues per se. Rather the whole hardware side
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1 hour ago, Constantin said:


Well this is a Sonosax thread!

Right! This is the place where people are talking about Sonosax, not all the other devices over the years that have had some problem. I agree for the most part with Bash's statement: "There is no manufacturer of processor based sound kit that has not had bugs or glitches in their software along the way. HHB, Genex, Fostex, Sound Devices, Zaxcom, Nagra, Aaton - all have released software at some time or another that has had problems." but I do have a problem with people who use this sentiment to defend/promote or defuse discussions about the gear we use or the companies we deal with. Personally, I hope the discussion here in the Sonosax thread continue, I am learning a lot about a machine with which I have no personal experience.

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  • 3 weeks later...

So I put the new firmware and recorder to the test recorded a festival for 4 days about 30 hrs plus 8 hrs straight and it held up solid running 4 channel and some 6 channel stuff! Good job no errors,only thing I personally would like to see is a mono file selection the polys suck when recording 8 hrs straight.

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2 hours ago, kingkita said:

So I put the new firmware and recorder to the test recorded a festival for 4 days about 30 hrs plus 8 hrs straight and it held up solid running 4 channel and some 6 channel stuff! Good job no errors,only thing I personally would like to see is a mono file selection the polys suck when recording 8 hrs straight.

Is the issue the file breaks?   Before about v1.4 firmware it would actually record huge files (which broke the .wav specification).  I think wav64 compatibility is on 'the list' of things to get done (which allow much larger file sizes).

If it's just a case of splitting the files, sound devices wave agent can handle that (free download)

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18 hours ago, Richard Thomas said:

Is the issue the file breaks?   Before about v1.4 firmware it would actually record huge files (which broke the .wav specification).  I think wav64 compatibility is on 'the list' of things to get done (which allow much larger file sizes).

If it's just a case of splitting the files, sound devices wave agent can handle that (free download)

Yes it breaks it up into tons of files which is a major pain in the butt,record 6 channel non stop for 8 hrs and the file breaks are insane,I do use wave agent to deal with it,If you could do straight 6 channel mono files wouldn't have a ton of file breaks in it that the poly file creates.Makes post work a nightmare.Then you could just pull what you want off the card without opening up a can of worms.

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  • 2 months later...

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