Old pro tools system. Need help

Farview said:
The software. https://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/hd24tools/download.html

Instructions for networking the HD24 to the MAC https://www.sweetwater.com/sweetcare/articles/set-up-alesis-hd24-transfer-files-os-x-mac/

The downside of this is the ethernet transfer is insanely slow because the nic card in the HD24 is a few generations old. But since the G4 isn't the computer you use for anything else, it doesn't matter much if it takes a week to transfer everything.
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I had no clue what I was doing at the time and still don't but a few weeks ago I hooked the digidesign adat bridge up to the G4, then plugged tracks one through eight into the adat bridge from the HD24. I armed the first 8 tracks in protools then hit record, then hit play on the HD24 and all 8 tracks were recorded, I guess not transferred, into the G4. I saved it under a file name. I closed out of protools, opened protools up again and called the files up, plugged the adat bridge out into the adat card on the Yamaha 02R and hit playback on protools and they all played back. So, they did go there, get recorded and play back. I was able to do that. The only problem was track one which should have been the kick drum came back as a squeal and I was guessing that I had recorded track one at too high a volume. All the rest of the tracks sounded fine. I have not really got back to it since. They have the instructions in the HD24 manual on how to set up a Mac to communicate between the two. There are no instruction on how to actually transfer the files so I will look into that on sweetwater. Thanx.
 
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The squeal could have been feedback from a routing issue. Does the ADAT bridge have enough I/O for all 24 tracks at once? If it does, you just have to solve the squeal problem and record everything in real time into Protools.
 
Farview said:
The squeal could have been feedback from a routing issue. Does the ADAT bridge have enough I/O for all 24 tracks at once? If it does, you just have to solve the squeal problem and record everything in real time into Protools.
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I am not sure. I think it will only do 8 at a shot, I will have to look into it again.
 
The adat bridge has two light pipe ins and outs so it should handle sixteen. It has two I think RS232 ports to hook up to the computer. The G4 has two digidesign cards in it so I am guessing I would have to hook up both "RS232" ports to the computer cards and hook up 16 channels from the HD24 to the adat bridge and then I would be able to download 16 tracks at a time? I am new to all of this so I must ask, is that recording the files or transferring them? Is there a difference. I don't remember if I had to have the faders up in protools or not when I did the eight the first time. If it is transferring the files the faders should be irrelevant? If I am recording whats coming as opposed to transferring files then the faders will make a difference? Thanx for your help. I have to run down to the basement everytime I check something, at seventy this is getting to me lol. You are getting me some good exercise
 
Doing it that way is recording new files, not transferring. You are recording the audio that is being played by the hd24.

Because of that, if you record 8 tracks at a time, you will have to find a way to line the tracks up in protools, because each set of 8 tracks will have a different start point.
 
Farview said:
Doing it that way is recording new files, not transferring. You are recording the audio that is being played by the hd24.

Because of that, if you record 8 tracks at a time, you will have to find a way to line the tracks up in protools, because each set of 8 tracks will have a different start point.
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That shouldn't be much of a problem or should it? I wouldn't know.
 
It's not hard to move the files on the timeline, but you will need a reference of some sort to line them up perfectly.

I used to do it by syncing the player with the daw using time code, but that is another layer of hardware shenanigans you would have to figure out how to set up.

Without time code, you could simply record 8 tracks on the first pass, then on the second pass, re-record one of the tracks (like a kick track) and the next 7 tracks. Repeat until you have all the tracks in the daw.

Once all the tracks are recorded, group them into passes, and line up with the kick track for all the passes. Then you can mute/delete the extra kick tracks.
 
Farview said:
It's not hard to move the files on the timeline, but you will need a reference of some sort to line them up perfectly.

I used to do it by syncing the player with the daw using time code, but that is another layer of hardware shenanigans you would have to figure out how to set up.

Without time code, you could simply record 8 tracks on the first pass, then on the second pass, re-record one of the tracks (like a kick track) and the next 7 tracks. Repeat until you have all the tracks in the daw.

Once all the tracks are recorded, group them into passes, and line up with the kick track for all the passes. Then you can mute/delete the extra kick tracks.
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There is still a click track in every song and a 7 count on the drumsticks before the tune starts. That might help. I have to go down and see if I can do sixteen tracks at a shot with the way I mentioned. Hooking the two RS232 ports from the adat bridge, one to each card in the Mac, and the first sixteen tracks out of the HD24 into the adat bridge. Since I have no literature and couldn't find any manuals on the adat bridge I am flying by the seat of my pants. I am wondering if the adat bridge can transfer files instead of recording them?
 
Anything that is part of the protools setup will only record, not transfer. The adat bridge is just a digital audio interface.

Transfers would have nothing to do with protools or its hardware. A transfer is like when you take a word document from an external hard drive and drag and drop it to your desktop.
 
Farview said:
Anything that is part of the protools setup will only record, not transfer. The adat bridge is just a digital audio interface.

Transfers would have nothing to do with protools or its hardware. A transfer is like when you take a word document from an external hard drive and drag and drop it to your desktop.
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Okay, got that. I hooked up 16 tracks like I said and was able to record that into Protools. Once again though track one did not come in? Say I imported the files then
opened them in protools instead of recording them in like I am doing, when I opened the files with Protools would they look and be the same? I looked at the tracks
in I forget which folder, it shows all the separate tracks as .wav files. If you are recording the tracks instead of importing the files will the protool faders control the volume of the incoming signals? There is no way to control the outgoing signals from the HD24, they are the way they are recorded and that's that. Also, I looked all over for meters and I couldn't find any? I have a guy coming over to try and help me sort the routing on my Yamaha 02R console, he hasn't used that setup but he is using protools
so he should be able to answer a lot of these basic questions. He has never worked with an HD24 etc, probably has a much newer protools version, I wonder how much
of the program is similar to the new ones.? I would guess the concepts are the same.
Once again
Thanx for the help.
 
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Just be glad it is an intel mac vs power PC with NuBus. That is where I started with all this nonsense.
 
If you took the hard drive out of the hd24, hooked it to the computer and used the software to turn them into wav files on the computer, you could then import them into protools and edit and mix them from there.

When you are using the bridge to record tracks into protools, you don't have control over the record level and you don't want it. Get the audio into protools first, then worry about mixing.

You generally don't adjust the input level in the daw, you set the level on the preamp or interface.
 
I tried downloading a song again. Fourteen tracks. Protools took it but for some reason didn't get tracks seven or eight. I tried it twice. I played it back. I expected it to
come back through my board in all separate channels but it came back only as a stereo mix. The gentleman who was supposed to come over didn't show. When monitoring do you come out of the computer speaker jacks or come back out through an interface? I have a lot of questions but they will answer themselves as
I putz around with it. My main concern at the moment is to get the routing between the HD24 and the 02R straightened out.
 
Why would you expect it to show up at the mixer as separate tracks when you only have two outputs connected to the mixer?

In order to get the separate tracks onto separate channels on the mixer, you would need to connect the 16 outputs of protools to the 16 inputs of the mixer and route each individual track in protools to its own output on the interface.

How exactly did you "download" the tracks into protools? You either recorded them into protools or imported the files.
 
Sir, I've been going through old threads and I came across one from 2014 that is eerily similar to this. It seems you have been asking essentially the same questions about the same equipment for almost a decade and still don't understand the signal flow of any of it.

I'm sorry, but it might be time to move on with your life.
 
Farview said:
If you took the hard drive out of the hd24, hooked it to the computer and used the software to turn them into wav files on the computer, you could then import them into protools and edit and mix them from there.
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I suggested this in post #4, back in July, but no, he insists on doing it the hard way. I'm not going to knock myself out trying to get him to see sense.
 
Farview said:
Why would you expect it to show up at the mixer as separate tracks when you only have two outputs connected to the mixer?

In order to get the separate tracks onto separate channels on the mixer, you would need to connect the 16 outputs of protools to the 16 inputs of the mixer and route each individual track in protools to its own output on the interface.

How exactly did you "download" the tracks into protools? You either recorded them into protools or imported the files.
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Because I had all 14 tracks light piped into the board from the Mac via the adat bridge. You taught me something very valuable with that second sentence. I recorded them in. I have yet to download tracks. I didn't look in the folder where it shows the individual tracks, seven and eight may be there but not playing for some reason? When you monitor the mix, do you come back through an interface to an amp and monitor speakers or do you come out of the computer audio jacks to an amp to monitor speakers?
 
I just got this equipment about three months ago so I don't see how I could be asking about it in 2014? Must have been something different.
I had been thinking of making the transition to a DAW for many years now. More than fifteen. I have asked many questions over the years.
Then this equipment fell into my lap. I think somewhere in here it says the last software I used was Cakewalk circa 2000.
Thanx for all the help given so far. I will get around to downloading files in the near future as opposed to recording them.
 
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