Roots Archives Forum

I really like to use a laptop to record from the digital output of the mixer. it's really the best match you can possibly have. but I also understand that if you have to play in pubs and you're afraid of beers flying or thieves it's a different situation.

my philosophy on audio equipment is to use less units. so I progressively created wav files of vinyls I play, transfered them to cd and play them with the technics cd players. less weight, less space, less types of media and no fear about damaging records... which is very important to me! but the best is yet to come : it is also less expensive... trust me! It allows you to spend less on needles, record cleaning products,new copies of damaged records...

even if I was more like a computer opponent, I couldn't help to notice that it gives more versatility and comfort to the music. mp3s when you just want to listen to the music, but when you go to the turntables it's to MIX... it helps to focus on mixing, increases a lot your dj skills and gives your more confidence which is not negligible if you frequently play for an audience.

about md, I have to say I never felt the need to record for more than 80 minutes. I think you cannot play or record hi-md with an old mp player. but as I try to have less but more performant equipment, I have to say my md recorder is getting quite dusty. but from time to time it is useful... about the mic problem you mentioned, you just have to avoid those mics without cable cos they record the sound of the motor more than the rest... grab a small stereo one with a 1 meter cable and you'll never have this problem if you keep the mic away from the md recorder.

I'm not an anti Ikey but philsophically I think it is useless cos it does just what a computer can do.

PS: you should really go for a shmz1200 mixer! it is way better for djing and recording. the equalisation is really brilliant (shex1200 really sucks) and you'll never feel the need to record directly from your turntable.

A little technical question here:

I too have tried to use laptops to record music but suffered from dropouts in the recordings. A friend who knows lots about music and computers said this was because my HD in the laptop doesn't spin fast enough to cope with high bit rate audio recordings. Is this really true?

oras wrote:
I'm not an anti Ikey but philsophically I think it is useless cos it does just what a computer can do.

Except for fit into your pocket of course...

oras wrote: PS: you should really go for a shmz1200 mixer! it is way better for djing and recording. the equalisation is really brilliant (shex1200 really sucks) and you'll never feel the need to record directly from your turntable.

Hmm, it is a cool mixer for sure but it's a shame that the SHMZ is four times more expensive!!

And the SHEX is actually better than any of the crappy mixers offered to me by most venues. The pre-amp is pretty good and I get far fewer feedback problems when using it than the 'house' mixers.

the shmz costs twice the shex but it allows you to skip equalisation unit, and things like the ikey+. sliders and buttons (fader included) are also fully protected against dust(etc). if you had other mixers in the past you'll agree this kind of problem means often expensive repairs or the death of the mixer. it means this mixer will live longer than the shex.

about your laptop and hard disk, it depends if you use a really "old" laptop... I remember having this kind of problem with a 10 years old computer... you should try to record directly on a recent external hard disk (non usb)... that could be a solution.

I don't think my problem is to do with the age of my Laptop as it is a 2 yr old 17inch MacBook Pro!

It may have been due a lack of disk space because my HD was very very full at the time I was trying to make recordings onto it.

The internal drive is a FUJITSU MHV2120BH PL which is a 5,400 120gb SATA 2.5 inch drive.

But you are right, because recording vinyl worked perfectly when I linked up to an empty external Firewire HD as the target disk!

I didn't use the USB for recording, the MacBook has line in.

I struggle to understand why Firewire seems to have lost the battle for acceptance and USB, which is a flawed technology, has won the 'battle'. A bit like VHS defeating the far superior Betamax format in video I guess (except in professional use that is of course!).

Yes, the SHMZ looks great and yes, all my previous mixers were rubbish and developed faults or had really poor phono pre-amps. These were Numark, Sound Lab and Behringer.

What would be a neat product would be a good mixer with a built in flash memory for recording and a USB out for file transfers after recording! Or maybe someone already makes such a product?

I do a four hour set this Saturday which will give my little iKey it's first 'live' test. I'll soon see just how easy, or difficult, it is to use in this situation. Sadly, this venue provides a mixer that is really awful and there's no possibility to use my own as it is fixed in position and the venue won't allow me to swap it out

Thats lame, they should let you change the mixer over if you feel you need to.

your 5.4k speed HD may of been the issue, it is bordering on the slow side, if you get the chance id do a little mechnical work and change it for a 7.2k; the idea of a mixer or a deck with a memory stick slot would be pretty cool.. I imagine it'll only be a few years till we see it.

4 hour set sounds fun, i did a 12 hour one once, recorded it all to CD too at the time, so theres an example of a long long set and recorded!.

I guess if I really pushed they'd let me swap out the mixer for my own one. But time is tight and the 'ambient' music is being played through the mixer. So I would induce a few minutes of silence on the venue while I fiddled with the connections. So I haven't bothered to push the point.

The four hours is great, it allows me to get into the groove! But the venue isn't my first choice, the crowd isn't that good, but it's all I can get so far as I have only been playing out for less than a year so far and still need time to establish myself.

I've been toying with the idea of trying to arrange a marathon reggae DJ session for charity for some while now. I'd love to do a 24 hour 'throw away your gun' gig to encourage the youths to stop all the crazy gun and knife stuff that's going on in England right now. But I need help on it as I am so short of time right now to organise stuff like that.

I was thinking of upgrading the HD as I have no fear of the mechanical work, that's small beer to me. But I'm considering buying one of the latest 17inch Macbooks complete with a faster, larger drive - and better specs all round. The missus needs a new Mac so I'm trying to persuade her that she needs my old 17 inch MacBook and that I need a new one

on the question about the dropouts when recording to disc. Yes, may be the disk speed. Also as you mentioned an overly full HD does not perform at its best.
For multi track audio recording is is always recommended to write to a fast external disc - such as a firewire drive (as you mentioned).

I'm curious about the iKey's ability to write to a flash drive. The only way I can imagine that this is possible is that the iKey must have a fairly hefty buffer to write to before writing to the drive. Otherwise you would surely get dropouts. Any such problems?

It's $150 here which is out of my price range these days.
Whatever about the exchange rate this is not a bad price if it is as good as you say.

I don't know about swapping out the drive on a Macbook but I did so on an iBook and it was a f#$@ing nightmare. If you do plan on doing it find one of those online tutorials before you start so that you know what you are getting into!