Hi everyone! New user here. I’m looking for a device that I hope exists, but I don’t really know how to google for it.
My problem: I’m using the Elektron Heat Mk II as the last link in a dawless setup. Every time I want to get something off my gear and into a computer, I need to get my laptop, plug in the Analog Heat, then open up Reaper, switch sound source to an aggregate device*, start a new project, record the thing, check the levels, then render the file. It feels more like accounting than music making, and it takes the “less” out of my dawless setup.
What I’m looking for is something like this: A thumb drive but with a female connector in one end and a male connector in the other end. I plug the Analog Heat (or any usb sound card) in the female end, and press play on my [music making things]. A red led lits up. Ones and zeros are written to the thumb drive until they stop coming. Led turns off. I could then put this thumb drive in my computer, or bring it to a studio, or whatever. There is a file on it named “2021-02-27 23:55:00.wav” and I’m done.
Does anyone know if this thing exists?
[*] Perhaps this is not needed, but that’s the only way I don’t get feedback on macOs
True, but that’s an extra D/A->A/D step that feels unnecessary. It would be nice to just have a small one-purpose device the size of a thumb drive that cut out the middle man and simply recorded the digital stream to a file.
Maybe I’m over/underthinking it, but just plugging in a small thumb drive to the Analog Heat and mix down straight to it seems like the perfect workflow.
Phones work quite well for this purpose. Simply connect the 2 devices via USB and voila, analog heat is recognized as a class compliant audio interface.
But the field recorder would convert analog to digital, right? So I would need to trust the A/D converters on that device? As opposed to trusting the Analog Heat to do the conversion as it would if I used it as a sound card. I’m pretty new to this, so please correct me if I’m wrong
All I can say is I’ve never worried about any extra steps of conversion and everything I’ve recorded that way sounds fine to my ear. If something sounds off there is a 99% chance that is my mixing ability or other less expensive gear in the signal chain and not the extra conversion on the field recorder.
With the field recorder you would be using the analog outs of the AH. So the AH wouldn’t convert anything. But yes you’d be trusting the field recorder. Buy a decent one.
Fair enough, and I appreciate your feedback. I’m probably a bit lazy, I just thought the idea of plugging in a thumb drive and getting a file on it would be the easiest way of getting sound from A to B.
Sure, but it’s beside the point, isn’t it? If I’m already using the AH as a sound card, but I’d prefer not having to plug it in to a computer to get the ones and zeros on to disk - wouldn’t it make less sense for me to connect a secondary device via audio out and do the conversion outside of the AH if the AH already supplies a digital signal? I’ve sort of invested in the AH digital signal already if that makes any sense?
I use my AH as my primary soundcard. Works great. When I feel like recording, I just open Bitwig, and I have a templet for OB. Pless play/rec on BW. the OT has usb midi, so it’s all in one really. I’m sure you could do the same with your phone. Just a tiny screen.
I can kinda see your point, but is it really such a burden to have a template set up in a DAW that you can open and have ready to press record right away?
I’ve said it in another thread, but I’ve got my setup wired in such a way that the only way I can hear what I’m playing is if my Reaper template project is open and armed to record, that way it’s super easy to capture whatever I’m working on. Open the DAW before even starting a session and you eventually forget it’s even there. You could even use a MIDI controller to trigger record so you don’t even need to have the computer nearby.
And then it’s right there, on your computer already, you don’t have to transfer from SD card or anything…
I know it might sound silly, but it is an obstacle and it’s something that takes away from the joy of making music for me. It’s just a whole bunch of steps that I’d rather not deal with, and if there was another way I’d want to know about it. I’m not complaining about the way the AH works or anything, I was just interested to see if anyone had found a thumb drive that could recognise sounds coming in and say “Hey, this is audio, let me record that for you”. Of course I could probably do it on a Raspberry Pi or something, but the appeal was a device the size of a typical thumb drive that you could just plug in at the very end of your chain and record sounds to.
It sounds like a great idea. If you are thinking it, there may be more folks like yourself out there that are thinking the same thing. But thumb drives don’t seem to be on the radar of recording device companies. They do seem to be on the radar of DJ decks. Do you want to use this thumb drive on DJ decks or something?
