Field recording efficiency

[zeronyne]

As the decades roll by, I find myself more and more interested in good user experience. Part of it, of course, is because it's been my career since the 90s, but I'm realizing that my motivation in music wanes as things become tedious. And as a person who is into granular synthesis, tedious is the name of the game.

Traditionally, I've carried around first a portable DAT recorder and then just my phone to record found sounds. Recently, I got one of those Zoom recorders with the built in XY-positioned mics. But the real problem is getting them into the various instruments I use. Morphagene and other Eurorack sample manipulators need microSD cards with files formatted just so. My Akai S5000 has a SCSI-emulating memory card reader with its own imaging rules, and the same applies to my Triton not to mention software.

So despite the fact that it may seem like a waste of money, I'm thinking about getting a laptop specifically for handling all of my samples. I do it now with my DAW computer, but all of the little cards and cables and adaptors that I need to pull out when I'm working with sounds really adds to the aforementioned tedium.

Has anyone divided up their music production workflow to separate, dedicated-function computers? This seems to be an Anderton-style thing, but I assume he's at NAMM and too busy to reply to this. So what say you? Any recommendations on compatibility or workflow? I'm equally Windows and OSX, so I can go with whatever...the software required works on both.

[KenElevenShadows]

I have not done this although my computer is dedicated to running Pro Tools and nothing else.

 

Computers are tools. If you feel that this would help increase your workflow and creativity and makes things simpler, well....I think you have your answer. 

[spokenward]

7 hours ago, zeronyne said:

Has anyone divided up their music production workflow to separate, dedicated-function computers?

 

I divide them by my temporary enthusiasms. Your project sounds similar to thoughts that I have had but that I have not yet put in place. I keep a Zoom H2N pretty handy.  I don't have the Akai and the Eurorack, but I have been assembling a more software-centric group of tools for stretching, repitching, warping, and granular fun. 

 

I have been assuming that I would mount these samples on disks attached to a single-board computer like a Raspberry Pi (they've been scarce lately but I have an RPi 4 with 8GB).  The commitment is a microSD card that can be swapped out when I want to do something else with the box. Jürgen Moßgraber's sample conversion utilties are updated and expanded on a regular basis. There is Linux support with that.

 

https://www.mossgrabers.de/Software/ConvertWithMoss/ConvertWithMoss.html

 

I'm not entirely sure that I want to head down the SFZ rabbit hole with all of this but it is pretty mature. And again there is Linux support on many of the projects.

 

https://sfzformat.com/software/tools/

 

 

[Notes_Norton]

I don't have the same workflow, but in a way, I do the same thing.

 

I have two laptops on stage. I use ThinkPads exclusively because they are almost bullet-proof.

 

I have one for my backing tracks, and another for words and/or music notation.

 

Both jobs can be done with one computer. It's more convenient to have one computer for each task, though. There is enough going on during a gig, so anything that makes the workflow easier is a plus. But the main reason for two is redundancy. If one fails, the gig goes on.

 

This happened twice in the 23 years I've been using them on stage. The first time, the hard drive started making a mechanical noise, so I moved the USB-to-Audio interface to the other computer, which did both tasks efficiently, and finished the gig. The second time, the CMOS battery failed, and the computer wouldn't boot. I've since learned I can enter the date manually and it will boot, but I just went to one computer for the gig.

 

In the very unlikely event that both fail, I have everything stored on USB thumb drives, so I can go to any store that's open, purchase a Windows computer, and we're finishing the gig.

 

Whether it's computers or cables, it's best to have a backup system ready to go, because the show must go on.

 

Notes ♫

[Nathanael_I]

The other thing you could do is get enough USB ports that all the adaptors are always connected. I have a 16 port rack mount USB3 hub on the main DAW. The card reader for my DSLR is permanently attached along with everything else. Would it matter if you never had to plug or unplug card readers?