Downloading tracks digitally to my computer

[JamieWright]

Hello. I want to digitally interface my Fostex hard disk recorder with my computer so that I can burn mixed songs and masters to CDRs. I plan on getting a Montego II Plus card with the fiber optic connection (Fostex has digital out on fiber optic). I will be using N-Track and plugins to do the mixing and mastering on the songs. My main concern is syncing the tracks once I get them to my hard disk. I have done similar things with the analog connections of my current sound card, but I always run into problems getting the tracks lined up perfectly.

My question is this. When I transfer digitally to my computer can I transfer a complete track as a single entity? By that I mean, will I be transferring wave files or will I simply be digitally recording each track and still have to worry about getting the tracks synced up to the same starting point? In which case, its no different than what I am currently doing except for the elimination of minor losses in the analog transfer.

 

[Jon X]

Unless you have found some software that works with your Fostex to transfer the tracks without actually recoring them on the PC, then you will still be recording wav files. You will still have to use some multitrack software on the PC and line up the tracks if you are transfering individual tracks that you then mixdown on the computer.

I have experimented with recording and copying a 'marker' to each track before I begin recording on the multitrack unit. Then when it's time to transfer them to the PC and line them up, I use that marker which is at the exact same place at the beginning of each track to help in lining the tracks up. It makes it easier to line things up, and doesn't work too bad. I'm still planning to get a soundcard with multiple inputs to ease this problem of transfering audio from the portable recorder to the PC.

 

[drstawl]

Yeah- I use the marker method with my multitrack SW and a 2-input soundcard.
You can use a .wav editor to trim the piece from start of file to marker to the same length in each .wav file. Then simply loading them into the multitracker will line them up.