Field recorder: BoomRecorder VS Metacorder

[JC925602]

We're planning to get one of them but I have a question:

Why would someone pay 1795$ for Metacorder when BoomRecorder is 260$?

Both look very similar.

1535$ difference is big for the option to burn DVD in background or mirror to another drive. And the mirror option is built into many FireWire drives.


JC

[bad jitter]

BoomRecorder of course. Gallery's cs is the worst in the industry.

[soundeziner]

I was at the same point a little more than a year ago.

I bought BoomRecorder first mostly for the price. Mr. Vos is exceptional when it comes to responding to customer questions and feature requests. He even implemented a feature I requested before I even bought his software! Great guy and one day BR will be a serious contender. Unfortunately, BoomRecorder did not work for my company for a few reasons and from what I was told I don't see that they will be addressed in the near future.

The biggest problem we had is that the software is designed under the assumption that you are working on only one project at a time. No setup recalls or project based organization so we had to make more notes, be more conscious of folders, and allow more time at the start of each day/shot. We shoot a cluster of shows at once so this was a huge deal.

No solos or mutes in the primary window. We also wanted to have a track for each primary and record enable those that were warranted per shot. This wasn't possible as BR records any and all tracks created. This generates more audio files than necessary OR changing layouts for every shot where the number of mic's change. Again a track enable/disable button was all we wanted.

This may be changeable but we never could - Key chording was required for a few things (our location sound crew stopped using BR for this reason alone). It also is not set up (yet) to work with MIDI/USB. Using it in conjunction with the Frontier Designs Tranzport would have been VERY nice.

We JUST bought Metacorder. I'll be iinstalling it and playing with it over the next two weeks. Supposedly none of the issues we had with BR are present in Metacorder. Perhaps someone here who is familiar with it can chime in?

[Noiz2]

I use BR. I can see some of the points you had problems with. You can however disable tracks, though it's sort of undocumented. In the patch window you can not assign any channels to a file. BR will always record a file but if there are no channels assigned to it it is a zero channel file that is VERY small and is named EMPTY (and shows up on the sound report that way. Also you can very easily mirror recordings to another drive (though I don't think to a DVD RAM) by just assigning a second file to a channel or a second channel to the same input ( I do this all the time making -6 safeties of my main tracks).

I don't find the solo an issue since I'm coming in through a mixer so I can solo all I want. If you don't have monitoring on the input then I can see this might be an issue. I also would like track disable since the workaround works but is more complicated than I would want. I'm only working on one project at a time so the management issues you have are not a big deal for me but YMMV.

Take Vos is very responsive and often on a number of forums answering questions. He is a major plus, while Gallery (in my experience) has almost nonexistent support.

If you want to try BR out you can download a trial that works for some number of days or you can buy the two track version for $20 (which also gets you a good discount (more than what you paid for it) on the full version if you decide to upgrade).

[MusicTrax]

Gallery Software's support isn't the greatest, but I've had good luck with the Metacorder user group on Yahoo:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/metacorder

Their local dealer in LA, Coffey Sound, was also extremely helpful to me in setting it up. It's a fairly rock-solid program, and I think the user interface is hands-down the best thing out there.

You can't beat Boom Recorder for the money, though, and Take Vos (the developer) is a very good guy. He hangs out frequently on the Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.motion.picture.sound as well as Jeff Wexler's Forum.

Note that neither Boom Recorder nor Metacorder is a match for a real standalone Deva or Cantar (or, if you just need 4 tracks, a Sound Devices 744T). The only reason use Meta or BR would be if you absolutely had to have more than 8 tracks, or had an extremely complicated location mixing situation (like a reality show)

--Marc W.

[philper]

I have both. I have Metacorder because it came out first, and was at a much more finished state of development long before BR. I still use Metacorder all the time, partly because I've already done so much work w/ it and know it well, and it has worked for me under some very hairy conditions on a not terribly fast computer. I think the price you have quoted is a list price--I'm pretty sure you could get it for a lot less (try Coffey or Trew), but still not as cheap as BR. If the price is not a barrier to you I encourage you to go to a dealer and look at the interfaces--I find Metacorder's much more straightforward, easier to use and more forgiving of momentary confusion. That said, the location sound community has mostly voted in favor of Boom Recorder. Several recordists in my area use it as their only location recorder, and many Hollywood-level mixers use it as the backup to their
Devas and Cantars. If you have questions about either, Jeff Wexler's forum (jwsound.com) is a good place to ask them, as is the Metacorder users group.

Philip Perkins CAS