DP24-SD Observations and questions

[Matt B]

... some stuff I have figured out, read, and have wondered about.

1. There has been discussion about keeping record levels at the lower end of the "green zone." Aside from clipping (in the rec), does this matter on individual tracks, or just when recording a master track?

2. Have we discovered a work-around for small edits, below the minimum that the DP will accept? I would like a way to remove a click, cough, etc, from a vocal track (or etc.), without resorting to riding the slider when I mix.

3. It is real easy to delete a song! The DP does not give you much argument.

4. It took me a while to accept that the DP takes a second to finish recording, and accept the command to rewind or etc. Going immediately from record to stop to rewind just causes frustration!

5. With the phantom power covering multiple channels, it is real easy to feed 24V into your ribbon mic. No damage here, but I have learned to check carefully.

6. The instructions say not to use a guitar or bass without the switch on channel H activated, but it is OK to use a guitar or bass through a pedal, and not activate the switch. What is the difference? Change in impedance?

7. It has been a change to not have a switch for monitors. Monitor and headphone do the same thing on the DP. Has anyone devised a way to turn the external monitors off and keep the headphone output active? Separate headphone amp? Switch box for the monitor leads?

8. I assumed the green "remaining time" indicator on the display reflected the total time left on the SD card. I have noticed it to read 61x AND 5x within a single recording session. Is there a dual function?

9. You can stop and resume a recording! Someone else pointed this out, and I think it is so cool. Want to change the effect settings during a recording? Hit stop, make the changes, and hit record again. My brain is from the days of tape, and tape did not stop instantly!

10. For those looking at the DPs, the color display is very effective. My primary hesitation to buying the DP was the small display. I bought a VGA adapter for my old Korg unit, to avoid the horrible monochrome display that was about the same size. I have no complaints about the small but vibrant display on the DP.

 

[RustyAxe]

The DP24/32/24sd/32sd are great in the box recording units. But they have limitations. I love my DP24, and recorded a CD with it. Mixed in Reaper. Mastered professionally. Release party coming up end of the month.

1. Yes ... depending on what you might do to a track in mixing, you want to leave to "headroom". Most FX introduce gain. Going into the red causes a pronounced clipping, unlike the sometimes pleasant overdrive of analog mixers. It's easy enough to bump up the amplitude at the end of the process (at least on a computer, never use the DP24 for mixing/mastering)

2. I do ALL my editing on the PC using Reaper. I've worked around that issue.

3. Deleting a song takes a few steps ... MENU/SONG/select/F4/delete/YES/NO. There's no workaround for carelessness.

4. Uh ... no big deal

5. Not any different than any other mixer supplying phantom power.

6. Change in impedance. Not sure about a difference in gain, nothing shows on the block diagram.

7. Not a problem for me since I do all my tracking with headphones then to the Mac (see #2)

8. Beats me. I use a 32 gig card, and backup regularly as a project is in development and especially when finished.

9.

10. I like the display when I'm recording, but for any real editing it's just too dang tiny, see #2

 

[Matt B]

I am dabbling with Reaper. Today I actually used it for something other than just to host a drum virtual instrument. I pitch-adjusted a track - I am so proud. Still a lot to learn.

My previous system (Korg D3200), a decade older could immediately go from record to stop to rewind. I was surprised when the DP would not. I think I am used to it now - watch the little reels on the display until they stop.

Likewise, I was used to independent phantom power for each channel. It has been too easy for me to plug into an unused input, without realizing that the phantom power is enabled for four channels. More a warning to others.

 

[RustyAxe]

Check Google for "phantom power blocker" ... there are several inline units that you can use for that mic. Worth the peace of mind, IMO.

 

[Matt B]

The phantom power blocker is a cool thing!

More on the time remaining - does it have a dual function not mentioned in the manual?

Per my DP24-SD, I have 29.4 GB total storage, 26.0 GB remaining. The time remaining on the display shows 53:56. When I arm a track for recording (23-24), the time remaining shows 4:08.

It switches back when the track is unarmed. I turned the DP off, repeated the experiment, and had the same results. Is there a limit to track length as well? I will not be recording a four-hour track, but I can see that a "books on tape" reader could easily go beyond that limit.

Matt B

 

[Phil Tipping]

Matt, I think the time remaining oddity is due to max file size limit on the sd-card (4GB on FAT32 cards). This means one track can only be a max of 4GB. At your lowest quality setting, a mono track needs approx 5MB per minute, so 4GB allows for about 12 hours (6 hours for stereo). At the max quality, these figures are about 8 hours for mono, 4 for stereo. If no tracks are armed, the machine has no way of knowing how many tracks you want for the song, so it calculates time remaining based on the total card size - for 32GB this is 8 times the above figures, i.e. 96 or 64 hours. Once you start arming tracks, the time remaining drops to the limit per track. If you only arm a mono track, the remaining time should double... if my theory is right If you arm more & more tracks, the remaining time won't change as the limit is due to the individual track limits. Once the remaining space on the card drops below 4GB, the time remaining should decrease.

 

[Tony Nicholson]

Matt,

Point 7 - Monitoring. I use a 4 way headphone amp - DP monitor outs to headphone amp, then headphone amp outs to monitoring system. I don't use the DP headphone socket.

The headphone amp is a Behringer HA4700 which is reasonably priced and it adds a lot of flexibility and control over the headphone sound.

 

[Matt B]

Thanks all! Good advice. MY biggest issue so far has been the delay in writing a recording after the stop button is pushed.

It really surprised me that a decade-newer machine would step back in this respect. I was accustomed to hitting "stop," "rewind" and being ready to go. On the DP, this leaves the machine playing from where the stop button was pushed. I don't exactly know how, but I also lost several takes by pushing the buttons in quick succession.

I now push "stop," and let things settle down. The step back in capability still perplexes me, but at least I have adapted!