Mackie HDR2496 or Otari Radar II 24? what to go for?

[The Red Bladder]

Ah, I see that you are blind - you didn't tell us that at first!

OK, I've worked with the blind on many occasions, as they had a large talking-book centre near where we lived and a friend of mine worked there for two years. It was mostly staffed by the blind and severely visually impaired.

In today's audio world, the blind have a new and very severe disadvantage. In the past, all audio was on tape of one sort or another and all desks had knobs that you could touch and feel. All that has gone! In the past we were all 'blind' and we had to use our ears. Now all the information is visual. For example, we align vocals simply by looking at the wave forms on screen and shifting them.

Radar would make an ideal system for a blind person, as it uses dedicated buttons for most things, but it too has a menu that unfortunately cannot be ported to a 'speak' programme.

To be honest, the real solution is for you to go down the DAW route, but via Reaper, as you can create your own macros and short-cuts in Reaper and put them on a dedicated button. Every single command or combination of commands can be placed on a letter. If you got your head around a TDM system (and well done you!) then and possibly with a bit of outside help, customising Reaper to your specific needs should be the best way forward.

In an ideal world, you would get the new Radar-Studio, which combines a regular Radar unit with any PC-based DAW within one system and you can flip between the two systems seamlessly. But they cost $5,000 plus VAT and import duty!

I feel that trying to get an old system that cannot even export the audio could be an expensive and frustrating dead-end.

[EdRedfern]

Hi Red Bladder,

I know for fact I don't need to export data from the machine to any other workstation for mastering. all mastering work is done analogue via the console and outboard to CD / digital media. it's how I prefer it.

I don't even want to think of implementing windows based operating systems because of the cost of a 3rd party screen reader like JAWS for windows being ridiculously overpriced. no thanks.

I'm considering a tascam X48, so if anyone has one of the earlier models they'd consider selling, please let me know.

I am more or less close to my final decisions after a bit of soul searching and realistic arguments. I know that the radar is reasonably blind friendly as have worked with one before on a job. yes of course if I had the £15,000 for a radar studio then of course I would. but if I had the resources, I'd stick to a mac pro, Avid thunderbolt IO and a series of AVID 192's etc then either an avid S6 or an assl AWS948 desk. at least in that surrounding, I'd be covered. until then, it's the old hardware to get the money in.

ed

[RRuskin]

Go with the RADAR 24. It is still supported and there are enough of them out there. They can be updated to use SSD drives if SCSI make you uncomfortable. You still also find a variety of digital in/outs for easy transfer to any DAW you care to use. Neither TASCAM nor Mackie can help you with their respective units.

[resistorman]

If only your advice wasn't 7 years too late