Recording REALLY long sessions

[johnnybigoode]

So, long story short.

There will be a DJ gig @ my bar tommorow, and the guys are even bring some old school mk2s.

I wanted to record it hard.

Last time I tried, I just routed the 'tape' output into Ableton Live, pressed record, and enjoyed the evening.

When I tried to save it, the whole thing crashed and I lost over 5 hours of audio.

I believe this happened because of the 32bit OS, the final file was just too big.

Is there anyway to automate new audio file creation when the total recording is over, I don't know, 90 minutes?

[Matt Houghton]

What medium are you recording on to? There's a 4GB file size limit on FAT32 drives, for example.

[Richie Royale]

Probably a good idead to just stop (for a second), then start every 90 minutes or 2 hours, so you might get a fractional gap, but at least it'll be two or three separate files.

[grab]

If it's a DJ gig, you're only going to be recording the stereo out to FOH, right?

By my calculations, if you're recording stereo 32-bit WAVs at 96kHz, you have 5592s before you hit the limits of a 4GB file. That's 93 minutes. If you record 16-bit stereo at 44kHz, that goes up to 24347s, which is 6 3/4 hours.

Of course, if your software has problems with this, then new software is the answer. Most modern software will automatically split long recordings over multiple files to stop this being a problem. Reaper definitely does - and it costs you nothing to download and use.

[Aliweasel]

Reaper definitely does - and it costs you nothing to download and use...

... for 30 days.

[johnnybigoode]

Ugh, I would hate to use a new software in a couple of hours just for that but...

Is there anything special I need to know to do this with Reaper?

[Mowens800]

Not sure if this would work on your software. Set up a second input exactly the same but don't arm it until 90 mins approaches. Just keep switching what is armed. You'll have files with overlaps which should do the job (unless when you hit arm, your software stops recording). You could test this before hand though.

You can then edit them together seamlessly after the gig and not have the short millisecond gap as described above.

[johnnybigoode]

The gaps aren't the problem, It's a DJ set, later I can always make some small edit to get the missing beat - the problem is... I wont be at the venue the whole evening. And the other person who could simply press F9 twice is... well... forgetful...

I'm not confident on using reaper for the first time tonite (actually, in a few hours) so I'll have to just hope for the best.

Thanks for everyone's help.

[ef37a]

Geez you guys have it easy!

When recording shows or AGMs (THEY can go on for fekkin ever!) we ran a Ferrograph 15ips then a Brennell 15ips then reloaded the Ferrie' di da...All the time a Truvox was running DP tape at 3&3/4ips as Asaver.

Today I would run a hi fi VHS machine as a 3hour backup.

Dave.

[Aliweasel]

How big can you make a wax cylinder?

[ken long]

By my calculations, if you're recording stereo 32-bit WAVs at 96kHz, you have 5592s before you hit the limits of a 4GB file. That's 93 minutes. If you record 16-bit stereo at 44kHz, that goes up to 24347s, which is 6 3/4 hours.

No such limit if he records to NTFS using RF64 or w64.