Recording in LE for 2 hours strait

[jnewry]

So I'm looking to record in LE for 2 hours strait utilizing 16 tracks. I have a 003+ and am planning on getting a 8 channel adat option to connect. Now what I don't want to happen is the tracks stop recording for any reason. I have a macbook pro intel with 2 gigs of memory... will this be enough or will it be better to borrow a friends mac pro that has more memory and stuff?

Do you forsee any problems that might happen that I should look out for??

[daeron80]

Processor power and RAM won't be the issue. The crucial factors will be system stability, hard disk capability, a particular preference setting, and actual runtime.

Do a test. You don't need anything actually going into the inputs. Just make 16 tracks and put them in record for the length of time you will need. Do it two or three times just to be sure. That will help ensure that your system doesn't get unstable over that amount of record time, and that the hard disk doesn't overheat or have trouble finding new sectors. It will be best to use a disk that has lots more free space than you technically need, and preferably doesn't have tons of tiny files (fade files, e.g.), because those cause more fragmentation which can be a problem for capturing lots of long files at once.

In PT Preferences, make sure Open-Ended Record Allocation is set long enough.

Depending on your system, 2 hrs might be too long. There are a couple of possible hangups, here, and I'm not sure where the line falls with each. It may be that LE itself has a maximum supported file length, regardless of disk system. If not, the max will be determined by your OS and/or disk format. Again, I'm not sure what those are for each system. But there is a limit, and it would be good to find out what it is for your system, and calculate the max size your files could reach, which will depend on sample rate and bit-depth. IOW, there's no simple answer. You'll need to do some research to find what your max possible file size is, and do the math on your session settings. 8 bits per byte, 1,048,576 bytes per MB. Sample rate times seconds of play time.

[flommer]

The old limit was 2GB per audio file. Each track gets it's own audio file.

The new limit in PT 8 is something like 3.5 GB

If you do the math, it works out to like 7 hrs of continuous recording at 24bit/44.1k.

I'm not saying that's a good thing to try and do...

[jnewry]

Originally Posted by daeron80

Processor power and RAM won't be the issue. The crucial factors will be system stability, hard disk capability, a particular preference setting, and actual runtime.

Do a test. You don't need anything actually going into the inputs. Just make 16 tracks and put them in record for the length of time you will need. Do it two or three times just to be sure. That will help ensure that your system doesn't get unstable over that amount of record time, and that the hard disk doesn't overheat or have trouble finding new sectors. It will be best to use a disk that has lots more free space than you technically need, and preferably doesn't have tons of tiny files (fade files, e.g.), because those cause more fragmentation which can be a problem for capturing lots of long files at once.

In PT Preferences, make sure Open-Ended Record Allocation is set long enough.

Depending on your system, 2 hrs might be too long. There are a couple of possible hangups, here, and I'm not sure where the line falls with each. It may be that LE itself has a maximum supported file length, regardless of disk system. If not, the max will be determined by your OS and/or disk format. Again, I'm not sure what those are for each system. But there is a limit, and it would be good to find out what it is for your system, and calculate the max size your files could reach, which will depend on sample rate and bit-depth. IOW, there's no simple answer. You'll need to do some research to find what your max possible file size is, and do the math on your session settings. 8 bits per byte, 1,048,576 bytes per MB. Sample rate times seconds of play time.

Question: Do you think it would be smart to get a brand new glyph drive just to do this recording? Like nothing on it previously and clean slate? or will that make much of a difference?

[jnewry]

and THANKS flommer! you saved me from doing some annoying math/research lol

[daeron80]

It doesn't have to be any particular brand of drive, nor brand new. As long as it's known to be reliable.

Cleaner is better to a point. It doesn't need to be empty, just uncluttered, and not so full that you would be pushing it too far towards the full mark. What can happen is, if you're laying down a bunch of tracks at once on a fragmented disk, and it starts to get past about the 90% point (or less than 10 GB left for bigger drives) it has to start searching for lots of separate little free blocks scattered all over the surface. That's when things can get fouled up. As long as it's got plenty of room left to work with, it can just chug along writing more or less contiguously, and then it's all smooth sailing. Usually.

Assuming 24/44.1, the tracks will take up about 454 MB/hr. 2 hrs files will be a bit under 1 GB each. No problem there. 16 tracks of that would take up a little over 14 GB. If it were me, I'd double that and add 10 GB - around 50 GB of free space. That will allow for the recording going longer than expected, or someone talking you into using a higher sample rate against your better judgment, or the need to process some of the files with an Audio Suite plug-in on the spot, or whatever. Recording sessions seldom go exactly as planned. It's always good to allow double time and double recording medium.

But definitely test it first. You want to be sure the disk doesn't overheat when kept that busy for that long.