Jump to content

Who is really wringing out Boom Recorder?


Recommended Posts

I've done a lot of hairy gigs w/ Metacorder, and it seems like there are some other folks here who have done a lot more of same than me.  But what about BoomRecorder?  Anyone using it for high-track count live recording?  (above 8 tracks, more like in the 24 tr range).  With what interfaces etc?  I'd also be interested to hear from some of the folks using it on location/on carts to backup Devas or add extra tracks to them etc..  How's it going?  What pitfalls etc?

Philip Perkins CAS

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Philip,

  I have used Boom Recorder for over a year now, and I absolutely love it! I have not done a feature with it (until this May), but I did a live recording with it of two Wu-Tang Clan concerts several months ago. My interface is a Yamaha 01V96 with the MLan 16 ch firewire card. I plugged two 8ch insert snakes into the live board, and got a stereo mixdown and 14 iso tracks all day long, from 10:30 AM all the way to 2AM, and had zero glitches. It was about 85 gigs of Data. I recorded at 24/48K and all seemed fine. The only bummer was that the 01V96 needs more attenuation. I had to ask the live sound guy to gain down a couple of channels because they were peaking the preamps even with the 20Db pad turned on!

Tom

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have used Boom Recorder on two features now and am very pleased. I have recorded up to ten tracks without any problems. I wish we could mirror to a DVDram but there is something making it a bit inconsistant which I'm sure Take will figure out (It is not related to his program). Never a failure to the external Maxtor one touch 100Gig drive. Overall a great recorder. BTW the Post people like the file name to be scene and take #. Post was VERY happy with all of the info. I was able to write in the "note" window and the single Excel spreadsheet which contained the info. for the whole movie. I'm using the Motu Ultralight, 744T (supplying TC and acting as backup) and Sonosax ST8D.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hello Philip,

Although this is second hand knowledge from the manufacturer, you may find this useful.

From only a few customers I know the setup and from even less clients I know they are working with high track counts.

The customers that use Boom Recorder with high track count are integrating it in a studio or sound truck and tend to automate everything using AppleScript to configure Boom Recorder. There is one who uses a couple of MOTU I/O24 daisy chained together, a few others are using RME cards with MADI interface on a G5 PowerMac.

When recording 48 tracks in mono files you do want to record on an external firewire disk. Mac OS X likes to record into memory, then when the memory pressure is high enough it flushes all the data to disk. The writing happens in large burst which gets worse when you have more memory. Boom Recorder does tell Mac OS X that the files it is writing are not going to be read back any time soon, this is a hint for the operating system that caching is unneeded, it does help but its not perfect.

An internal SATA disks will use a lot of CPU time during these bursts and seems unable to declare the flushed memory as clear. Boom Recorder in turn is unable to write more data and the ring buffer slowly gets full.

With an external firewire disk, this all becomes much smoother as actual writing to the disk is handed of to the firewire controller which is much more intelligent than a standard type SATA controller. There are some SATA RAID controllers that are based on SCSI controllers who are about as intelligent as the firewire controller.

Cheers,

    Take

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...