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Topic: Fireface UFX+ and long hours of recording with 64 channels.

Bought a Fireface UFX+ and like the swiss army knife like approach.
I sometimes do very long recordings on location (12 hours or more festivals, recording multiple area's at the same time) with 64 MADI channels active.
I like the idea to be able to make a backup recording on hardware only. So that's one of the reasons why i bought the Fireface UFX+
So I made a test recording with DURECorder. After 6 hours and 12 minutes it stopped. !???
On the harddrive there were 100 files recorded.
UFX01_00 ....UFX01_99.wav Is this the maximum that can be recorded? 100 wav files?  The drive was only for 200GB full. (Still had 800GB left).

Also. How long should it normally take to convert the multichannel wav to single wav files with the  RME Multichannel WAV File Batch Processor software? In my case it took all night! (Maybe it took 6 hours... not sure... i was a sleep.)  I used a core I7 (@3GHZ) laptop with 2 USB harddrives connected. One was USB2 . The other one USB3

2 Reply by ramses (edited by ramses 2017-06-12 17:19:38)

  • ramses
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Re: Fireface UFX+ and long hours of recording with 64 channels.

Which disks ?
What sample frequency ?
Did you record all 64 channels ?

In terms of batch processor:
I would guess i/o between 2 USB disks takes a lot, especially if one is only USB2.
I would do the conversion on a Laptop with an internal SSD.

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub13
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Re: Fireface UFX+ and long hours of recording with 64 channels.

Western Digital 2,5 inch Elements which normally work fine when recording 64 channels in reaper. When copying from the harddrive to the SSD using the USB 3 poort i get 80 mB/sec from this disk.
48khz/24Bit.  There is not enough room on the harddisk's SSD. I recorded all the 64 channels so i would have an idea what happens if you use 64 channels.  In practice I might use a few less. (55- 60 channels ?) Depends on the situation.

The thing is I will probably forget to check the DURECorder after 6 hours or so. And even if I did check it there will be a minute or more unrecorded when changing to another harddisk or partition.
I was thinking making 4 partitions on a 1TB hardrive so I can record 4x6 hours on one disk with 64 channels.
Would be nice if the software could go to the second partition itself to continue recording. (If the limit of the hardware is 100 files)
Then it could be continious (i hope).

  • ramses
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Re: Fireface UFX+ and long hours of recording with 64 channels.

Why 4 partitions ?

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub13

5 Reply by MC

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Re: Fireface UFX+ and long hours of recording with 64 channels.

Yes, you reached the 100 file limit, and with 64 channels get about that time of continuous recording. Sorry to say that but we will not change or extend that as it would require a lot of internal changes, and it is IMHO reasonable to expect the user to stop and restart the recording manually after a few hours if the recording is that extreme long in time.

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Matthias Carstens
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Re: Fireface UFX+ and long hours of recording with 64 channels.

Ok. Can I just pick up the recording on the same drive when I have reached the 100 files limit?
So after recording UFX01_00 ....UFX01_99.wav  can the UFX+ make again 100 files on the same partition? (Did not try that yet)
Like UFX02_00 ....UFX02_99.wav and then UFX03_00 ....UFX03_99.wav and so on?

I tried to create 4 FAT32 partitions on the 1TB drive that I use But you can only create 3 primary partitions I found out.
But the UFX+ will only accept the 1TB drive if it has only 1 partition on it. The partition should be as big as the drive its self.
Otherwise you get a FS error in DURECorder.

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Re: Fireface UFX+ and long hours of recording with 64 channels.

With further testing i noticed that you can start a second recording when the 100 files are reached.
Is there any way to automate this in future? So that when the limit is reached DURECorder will start a new recording by its self?
At the moment you get a pop up message that recording has stopped. So it will probably not be so hard to let total mix push the record button internally again. Even if you miss a few seconds because of this it is still way better than having nothing after the file limit has been reached.

8 Reply by ramses (edited by ramses 2017-06-14 15:01:04)

  • ramses
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Re: Fireface UFX+ and long hours of recording with 64 channels.

Sounds like a good idea.

On the other hand it would IMHO also be very nice to have Durec only limited by the amount of storage on the device,
as I think its a phantastic and powerfull use case, to connect the UFX+ with i.e. MADI to a Behringer Digital Mixer
and then record a session simply as long as it goes.

Maybe at the moment more rarely in use, but maybe more often once available, as this is a very nice recording feature.

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub13

9 Reply by MC

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Re: Fireface UFX+ and long hours of recording with 64 channels.

In the next verson of TotalMix FX the DURec Info button will show the real recording remaining time, based on the 100 files limit. So far it showed the maximum recording time based on the disk space, which in this case is just wrong. I think this improved display will make it easy to recognize how much time is left, and when it makes sense to manually stop and restart the recording.

The entry 'Rec. Remain time' on the unit's display has always worked like that, so the info is there as well.

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Matthias Carstens
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Re: Fireface UFX+ and long hours of recording with 64 channels.

Good to know that there is a way to see the remaining time. And it's awesome that you can also record on this unit. A separate stand alone MADI recorder cost as much or is more expensive than the Fireface UFX+.

Do you think it would be possible to let the unit create another file when the limit is reached? It seems like an easy fix an this would take away all limitations regarding recording time. Then you could easyly record 1 or 2 days of 64 channel audio with the unit.
The festivals I have to record with it have a duration of 12 hours and then sometimes there is an area where they do a few more hours for the people who are not tired yet after 12 hours of Dance music. And those festivals exist world wide.


MC wrote:

In the next verson of TotalMix FX the DURec Info button will show the real recording remaining time, based on the 100 files limit. So far it showed the maximum recording time based on the disk space, which in this case is just wrong. I think this improved display will make it easy to recognize how much time is left, and when it makes sense to manually stop and restart the recording.

The entry 'Rec. Remain time' on the unit's display has always worked like that, so the info is there as well.

11 Reply by MC

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Re: Fireface UFX+ and long hours of recording with 64 channels.

What looks simple at the outside is unfortunately not so simple when it comes to implementing. At this time we are preparing a big firmware and TM FX update and will not change anything like that. Maybe later.

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Matthias Carstens
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Re: Fireface UFX+ and long hours of recording with 64 channels.

I can understand about this being not so simple as it looks.

Just wanted to let you know that it could be useful to some of your products users. Apart from festival recordings this would also be useful when recording big brother TV programs as a backup recorder. I know they have been using MADI to record all those mikes that they hide in the big brother house. The long recording time looks extreme, but might be more needed than you and I think. wink

MC wrote:

What looks simple at the outside is unfortunately not so simple when it comes to implementing. At this time we are preparing a big firmware and TM FX update and will not change anything like that. Maybe later.

  • ramses
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Re: Fireface UFX+ and long hours of recording with 64 channels.

Understandable, when a new release is underway.
OK maybe in the future :-) Many thanks for all these efforts Matthias !

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub13