Tascam MX-2424 Yes or No

[Steak Knife]

I am now running DA-88's in the studio. I have put a lot of miles on these machines and they have done a pretty good job. I now am looking at the Tascam hard disk recorder MX 2424. Its a 24 bit machine with some editing, easy to use, ect... but the back up for the system is ???????? I have read in a user group that the DVD RAM back up takes about 20 to 25 min. for a 5 min 24 track song. Much to long for a albums worth of music. It would take over 4 hours to back up 10 songs. Aside from buying a stack of hard drives to back up, has anyone come up with a good way to back up your projects on this machine?

[microsoftsucks]

Keep in mind that you can "queue up" a bunch of backups. You don't have to sit in front of the machine for that 4 hours straight.

 

Also, it'd be a rare day indeed if I had to back up 10 songs in one night. The way I work, I rarely have more than 3 or 4 songs I need to back up on any given evening. Typically more like 2 songs in an evening.

 

BTW, I use various backup mechanisms (listed most-expensive to least-expensive):

 

• HD. The client brings a hard disk. I copy the files to it. (10 songs would take only a few minutes with an Ultra 160 drive). The client goes home with the drive. If the client brings a Firewire drive, I use my own HD, move that HD to my Mac or PC, then copy the files from my HD to the Firewire drive.
   
  
• DVD-RAM.
   
  
• CDR. I move the MX2424's HD to my Mac or PC (depending on what OS's native format the client may want as a backup, I'll format the drive HFS+ or FAT32). Then burn CDRs.
   
  

Having one or two external (or carrier-mounted) HDs facilitates switching projects and transferring files to/from PCs and Macs.

 

The MX2424 can also transfer projects in 650MB chunks across ethernet for easy archiving to CDR. (This works well on most PCs. Not so well on most Macs.)

 

Have you checked out Tascam's MX2424 Forum ?

[microsoftsucks]

Two more thoughts:

 

Backing up the MX2424 ain't much different than backing up a computer-based DAW. Choose your favorite format (HD, DVD-RAM, Jaz, CDR, Travan Tape, Data DAT, whatever) based on cost vs. time, and go. The MX2424 supports HD, DVD-RAM, and Travan natively. The other formats are all available via an external computer.

 

The MX2424 can do incremental backups if you use its native "backup" format. After you do your initial backup for a project, any subsequest backup operations will store only the audio files that have changed since the previous backup.

[Steak Knife]

Thanks Microsoftsucks for the reply. I live in the Seattle where the microsoft folks roam! mooooooo. To ask a band that comes into the studio to bring their own hard drive for a back up will be hard to do. We can have a group come into the studio and lay down 10 basic tracks in a day which would require a lot of extra time running back ups. This band might not get back into the studio for a week or so to finish their project. We can have 3 or 4 groups in a week. That would be a lot of drives to have around. Its kind of back to the 2 inch analog tape cost again, $150 plus to have a drive to keep a back up. Do you know if anybody is using the new G4 MAC'S DVD burner to back up. It seems to me to be the best cost and fastest way to go?

[microsoftsucks]

Yeah, it is kinda going back to the cost of analog tape... but believe it or not, it's actually a little bit less!!!

 

10 pop songs, tones, and a bias-pad at 30 IPS on 2'' tape typically takes up 4 reels. That's $600 worth of tape.

 

For $450, you can buy a 36GB Ultra160 SCSI Quantum Atlas V in an external case that will easily hold 30 songs with TONS of undo-able punch-ins, edits, and alternate takes. (24+ tracks, 24-bit audio.) That's 3/4 the price of 2'' for more than 3x as much storage.

 

You can buy a raw 18GB Ultra160 SCSI drive for $209 (from outpost.com). That'll hold about 15 songs (again, with TONS of punch-ins, edits, and alternate takes).

 

If you install a StorCase system in your MX2424, you can mount the raw 18GB drive into a StorCase carrier, slot the drive and carrier into your MX2424, and record directly onto that drive. When you switch projects, just pull out the drive and slot in another one. No time lost from backups or restores. And now you're talking 1/3 the price of 2'' tape for almost 2x as much storage.

 

Or you can shove that $209 18GB drive into a $69 external case (megahaus.com). That's 1/2 the cost of 2'' tape for almost 2x as much storage.

 

If you don't want the bands/labels to buy drives... and if you don't want to spend your own dough on a bunch of drives for swapping between projects... then I'd recommend the following:

 

Slap a 36GB drive ($370 at outpost.com) into your MX2424. At any given time, you can keep 2 albums worth of songs on it and still have enough room to record a third album.

 

Drop the 9GB drive that you pull out of the MX2424 (it comes with a 9GB Quantum Atlas V) into a $69 external case (megahaus.com). Spend an additional $45 on a good quality SCSI cable and terminator.

 

Cram an Ultra2 or Ultra160 SCSI controller into your Mac. (I have an Adaptec 29160 in mine. $300.)

 

Whenever you need to move a project between your MX2424 and your Mac, copy the songs onto the 9GB external drive and transfer away. If the songs are less than 5min long, you can get 10 songs onto that 9GB drive. From MX2424 to Mac, that transfer will take you 10 minutes (much faster than ethernet backup, which is currently speed-limited by ViewNet's Java layer).

 

Then use the DVD-R drive on your Mac to do the "permanent" backups. (No, I don't know anyone using the Mac DVD-R drive... but it sounds like an awesome idea!)

 

(BTW, you might find that it's really not that offbase to expect clients to bring in their own HDs. For example, clients with Pro Tools at home will oftentimes have an external drive (SCSI or Firewire) that they'll bring to the session so they can take the tracks home and tweak. And HD storage is cheaper than analog tape.)

 

This message has been edited by microsoftsucks on 05-17-2001 at 06:08 PM

[Steak Knife]

Thanks Microsoftsucks for the clear reply!! You have giving me some great ideas for back up. thanks again.