Multi microphone Recording
- Thread starter nklaeser
- Start date
Jim Feeley
Veteran
I know a couple people who've moved from Boom Recorder to Reaper for this sort of thing. Timecode on Reaper's kinda tricky, but totally doable:
Boom Recorder:
http://www.vosgames.nl/products/BoomRecorder/
Reaper:
http://reaper.fm
As for a front end: some sort of mixer with a USB output. There are dozens:
https://www.sweetwater.com/shop/studio-recording/mixers-control-surfaces/
Or some sort of audio interface. I use Focusrite Scarletts. Those are nice, but there are lots. Many with USB, some with Thunderbolt, etc:
https://www.sweetwater.com/shop/studio-recording/audio-interfaces/
How many mics, and what sort of stuff will you be recording?
Boom Recorder:
http://www.vosgames.nl/products/BoomRecorder/
Reaper:
http://reaper.fm
As for a front end: some sort of mixer with a USB output. There are dozens:
https://www.sweetwater.com/shop/studio-recording/mixers-control-surfaces/
Or some sort of audio interface. I use Focusrite Scarletts. Those are nice, but there are lots. Many with USB, some with Thunderbolt, etc:
https://www.sweetwater.com/shop/studio-recording/audio-interfaces/
How many mics, and what sort of stuff will you be recording?
Noiz2
Sound Ninja
I have also used Reaper. I used it because we were doing multiple passes on a music track for a film and you can't really do that with BoomRecorder.
Reaper is going to be cheaper.
Why I prefer BR to any DAW for production recording mostly relates to the logging and stability.
File names in a DAW are more work to manage, BR takes care of a lot of that. You can take notes tied to takes while they are recording. There is a prerecord buffer that indicates if your system is keeping up with the recording. Gives you a good indication if everything is going well, or if you are heading in to trouble. This is very useful for testing a setup before you need to record since you can stress test it and see how well it performs.
The first remote gig I used it for I was worried that writing to external USB drives would glitch so I set up a test recording 64 tracks simultaneously to the drive. I could see the buffer deal with write lags to the drive but the buffer never got below 50% and I recorded 30 minutes with out any issues. That was more than double the tracks I was going to need so it was a nice solid feeling. ProTools would never have handled that many tracks simultaneously to a USB drive.
But BR is a recorder and just that. No editing or tracking. So if what you need is a DAW then it's not a good choice.
Reaper VS ProTools. Though I really want to love Reaper and replace PT, I don't. It's OK but partly because of experience and partly because it always in "smart tool" mode I find I am often frustrated with it and MUCH slower working with it. However after decades with PT I would never use it for production recording. Even the most stable versions of PT will just crap out for seemingly random reasons. Then you search to find what DAE error #555 means and look up the threads of others who have the same error till you find what the fix is. Often it's as simple as tossing your preferences (and then reseting all the options back to where you want them).
It happens so often that there is a third party app that does nothing but trash and restore the various files that get corrupted frequently.
The last version I have used is much more stable that the early versions but still you kind of never know if it is going to start up problem free, or you are going to spend some time troubleshooting. And AVID and Apple don't like each other so there is always a dance of what version of PT works with what version of OS.
Reaper on the other hand works with just about any version of Mac OS you can get your hands on. And while I am slow on it I have never had it crash or even have stability issues.
For post Reapers biggest drawback is lack of any support for file exchange (OMF, AAF, XML, etc.). Which is why I'm really hoping the Resolve's Fairlight section can work as a PT replacement. Last look it wasn't there yet, but promising.
Reaper is going to be cheaper.
Why I prefer BR to any DAW for production recording mostly relates to the logging and stability.
File names in a DAW are more work to manage, BR takes care of a lot of that. You can take notes tied to takes while they are recording. There is a prerecord buffer that indicates if your system is keeping up with the recording. Gives you a good indication if everything is going well, or if you are heading in to trouble. This is very useful for testing a setup before you need to record since you can stress test it and see how well it performs.
The first remote gig I used it for I was worried that writing to external USB drives would glitch so I set up a test recording 64 tracks simultaneously to the drive. I could see the buffer deal with write lags to the drive but the buffer never got below 50% and I recorded 30 minutes with out any issues. That was more than double the tracks I was going to need so it was a nice solid feeling. ProTools would never have handled that many tracks simultaneously to a USB drive.
But BR is a recorder and just that. No editing or tracking. So if what you need is a DAW then it's not a good choice.
Reaper VS ProTools. Though I really want to love Reaper and replace PT, I don't. It's OK but partly because of experience and partly because it always in "smart tool" mode I find I am often frustrated with it and MUCH slower working with it. However after decades with PT I would never use it for production recording. Even the most stable versions of PT will just crap out for seemingly random reasons. Then you search to find what DAE error #555 means and look up the threads of others who have the same error till you find what the fix is. Often it's as simple as tossing your preferences (and then reseting all the options back to where you want them).
It happens so often that there is a third party app that does nothing but trash and restore the various files that get corrupted frequently.
The last version I have used is much more stable that the early versions but still you kind of never know if it is going to start up problem free, or you are going to spend some time troubleshooting. And AVID and Apple don't like each other so there is always a dance of what version of PT works with what version of OS.
Reaper on the other hand works with just about any version of Mac OS you can get your hands on. And while I am slow on it I have never had it crash or even have stability issues.
For post Reapers biggest drawback is lack of any support for file exchange (OMF, AAF, XML, etc.). Which is why I'm really hoping the Resolve's Fairlight section can work as a PT replacement. Last look it wasn't there yet, but promising.
Jim Feeley
Veteran
All good stuff, Scott. Let me just add that the people who moved from Boom Recorder to Reaper for live recording (as in: stuff they aren't recording to recorders from Sound Devices, Zaxcom, etc) are really experienced, used to use Metacorder, JoeCo, and other such systems. I found the move surprising, but they know what they're doing. Huh.
Boom Recorder is cool (and Tak, the developer seems like a cool guy), but development appears to have slowed down. Last maintenance release was a year ago. Last significant release longer than that. So if Boom Recorder does everything you need and is compatible with your system RIGHT NOW, then cool. But if you're hoping for some changes, it may be a while. I'm not trying to spread FUD; I'd love to see a major update.
Upside: Lots of information is available on these two apps. Both are inexpensive and both have free demo versions available.
Boom Recorder is cool (and Tak, the developer seems like a cool guy), but development appears to have slowed down. Last maintenance release was a year ago. Last significant release longer than that. So if Boom Recorder does everything you need and is compatible with your system RIGHT NOW, then cool. But if you're hoping for some changes, it may be a while. I'm not trying to spread FUD; I'd love to see a major update.
Upside: Lots of information is available on these two apps. Both are inexpensive and both have free demo versions available.
What exactly are you doing, and just how many microphones are you needing to record at once??
Because usually using a dedicated recorder for most people will be simpler and more robust. (plus powering for a laptop can be a hell of a problem when on location for loooong days)
As if you're recording up to 8 then now that the new F8n is out there are many very cheap Zoom F8, we'll probably see the price of a secondhand F8 head down to nearing $500ish soon. (or you could get a Sound Devices MixPre10T for triple the price with 10 inputs, although still only 8 XLR phantom powered inputs just like the F8/F8n)
And if you need even more than that, it is easy enough to pair two F8 recorders together to work simultaneously at once.
However if there is something specific about your needs that makes you want to use a laptop with a high mic count then I'd suggest probably go with a Behringer X18 or XR18 (or if you need even more than that, any of the Behringer X32 series such as the Behringer X32 Rack. Is the one I'd love to have! You can get it new for sub $1K, although I can't really justify owning one myself as my track count never goes higher than what a F8n can do). Then pair this with either Reaper or BoomRecorder.
Have a read of my thread I made last year when I was mulling over these thoughts:
http://jwsoundgroup.net/index.php?/...der-or-boomrecorder-but-for-windows-or-linux/
The cure:
http://www.aatranslator.com.au
You can even contact them and they'll do an export for you of anything for just a token donation (that they'll put towards to the purchase price of the software if you decide to later get it) if you wish to give it a try.
It probably is smarter that Reaper puts their focus elsewhere in improving Reaper and lets others handle the constantly shifting sands of (non)standards.
Noiz2
Sound Ninja
Well yes if your on Windows. Once you add that to your cost BoomRecorder is probably a better choice, unless your doing playback.
OMF is 26 years old so hardly "constantly shifting", and it is a standard. There are a couple of flavors and AFF is really just a new "flavor" of OMF. The reason Reaper is not interested in OMF, by their account, is that they are focused on music and that is an area that has never used OMF much.
For post sound though it's a deal breaker for all but the most OMB productions.
And yes you can run a second machine to translate or dual boot or run it in emulation. But at that point you have invested a fair amount of money and time into a very fragile workflow, especially for a smaller operation with out dedicated tech support in house, just to use Reaper.
Rick R
Veteran
FCP dropped OMF after version 7. That sucked big time.
AAF is more complicated than OMF as it was designed more for video. In my experience AAF has been hit and miss when importing/ exporting cross app.. sometimes it works, sometimes it does not. I must prefer OMF. In my experience AATranslate worked well for Vegas which never supported OMF, despite the many requests I suspect AATranslate would work fine for Reaper
AAF is more complicated than OMF as it was designed more for video. In my experience AAF has been hit and miss when importing/ exporting cross app.. sometimes it works, sometimes it does not. I must prefer OMF. In my experience AATranslate worked well for Vegas which never supported OMF, despite the many requests I suspect AATranslate would work fine for Reaper