Considering ADAT

[burning sound]

I am considering buying 2 ADAT LX 20's but I am wondering if this is the way to go or not. If anybody has any input in other multitracks (I need 16 in-out, not virtual tracks) like the Fostex hard disk or any others please give me some input. It will mostly be used for recording bands live off the floor. With a budget of about $3000-$4000 just for the multitrack let me know what you think and any news about Alesis being bought by Numark and how this will effect the product. I know this is an Alesis forum but please be open minded about suggesting other multitracks. Thanks for helping me make this expensive decision.

[Blue Bear Sound]

My ADATs (3 XT20s) serve me quite well...

Bruce

[Automaton]

If you've got $3 - 4K to work with, stay away from the LX20s, everyone I know, that has one, has had nothing but trouble with them. Go with the XTs if you want ADAT.

[oneArtist]

BS,
Iwould wait to see if the new Alesis HDR actually ships. If it does, this would be a better choice for full 24 track recording for under $2K
Chuck

[dragonworks]

I love my adat and am considering sleeping with it.

[Automaton]

put it in your pants!

[Dom Franco]

ADATS are very portable and do provide quality recordings at a reasonable price. I have used them for remote and studio recording projects. They do require maintenance after a few hundred hours, so it's good to have more than one to use while the others are in the shop.

Personally I believe the ADAT's days are numbered. I give the industry about 3 more years and we will have some new unit emerge that takes the place of ADAT's in all of the studios and remote rigs around the world.

I predict some kind of mini-harddisk drive, that provides longer record times on smaller media. Pro tools is very cool but not exactly portable yet; but how about a palm-pilot sized unit that records 48 tracks of un-compressed digital audio on mini-disks.
(The mixer connections would be bigger than the unit?)

See you in the future;

Dom Franco

[mnicoletti]

Hi, all,

HD24 is slated for October now.

Dom Franco, my guess is multitracking on DVDs They already have five or six channels on them...but I do not know if they will be able to do what we used to call "SelSync" in the analog days (listening to tracks while overdubbing new ones)!

Mike

[Automaton]

October?! Man, I thought that was supposed to be ready at least a month ago. What's the hold up? They're probably going to end up pissing more people off and they are just going to go to with other machines... I'll probably have enough money saved up to buy a protools system by the time that thing comes out. I heard that when the original adat was going to come out they kept pushing it back for a really long time, and everyone stopped buying analog machines in the year and a half or so of release push backs. And whatever happened to the nanotracker, I'm not a fan of the nano stuff at all but I did keep seeing that in catalogs for like a year or longer, but it never came out.

[burning sound]

What kinds of problems have people heard about with the LX's? To me they seem like the perfect unit for my studio (its primary function is for low cost quality recording for indie bands).
Thanks for all the input.

[dragonworks]

I know a few people who have the LX and they have never had any problems. I did stick my adat down my pants one time but my you know what got stuck in the door and all these girls started asking me "is that and adat your packin or are ya just glad to see me" so I figured I better stick with sleeping with it.

[mnicoletti]

Automaton, Chap 11s have a way with screwing with your product delivery schedules.

The software for the nanotracker was being developed by the same guy that designed the hardware and firmware (not the drivers) for the PCR card...need I say more?

Mike

[BigKahuna]

mainly transport problems (tapes getting stuck) ... oh and a bad playback head (actually I think it was the head preamp? but what do i know). Still, both my LXs have lasted about 3-4 years of being completely ignored from a maintenance perspective. Not anymore, though ... they get lots of TLC now.

Here's a tip ... don't leave the tapes in, and don't leave them half-in the door either. Remove them completely after each session.
Oh, and if you can use the lightpipe on the LX, do it. All in all, it's a good machine, especially if you can avoid the unbalanced I/O.

PS ... the HD24 release getting pushed back sucks. I was hoping to buy in Oct after being able to read some actual end-user comments on the unit.
Oh well, guess I'll wait until Xmas! ... or maybe next summer!