Dave SA Posted November 19, 2010 Share Posted November 19, 2010 Hi Guys, I have a band that I know asking me to reccomend a rack mount solution for playing their backing tracks. It only needs to be capable of outputting a stereo track. They want removable hard drives to transfer the tracks from their comps and back etc... Can anyone suggest specific units? Cheers. This is what they say: ''basically - a rack mountable hardware unit with an LCD screen that can play high quality wav files. So it would need a hard disk that we could transfer the files on to. it would need a stereo output of some description (be that two separate jacks or just one, doesn't matter) I'm sick of relying on laptops, ipods etc to play pre-recorded backing tracks when we run the risk of the system crashing, skipping, failing etc.'' Thanks in advance to the community. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TonyMitchell Posted November 19, 2010 Share Posted November 19, 2010 http://www.d-mpro.com/users/getdownload.asp?DownloadID=476 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J Pearce Posted November 19, 2010 Share Posted November 19, 2010 Why does it need a hard disk when a £10 flash USB stick can hold over 400mins of stereo wav files? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doug Siddons Posted November 19, 2010 Share Posted November 19, 2010 Re my thread http://www.blue-room.org.uk/index.php?showtopic=44309&hl= I gave up! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gareth Owen Posted November 20, 2010 Share Posted November 20, 2010 Tascam HD-R1 - 1u rackmountable, LCD display, will hold as much data as a Compact Flash card will allow, will play (and record) a mixture of WAV and MP3, decent quality audio, analogue and digital I/O, and you can transfer data on and off with a standard USB stick. Marantz also make a variation but I don't think it has the front panel USB socket which would seem reasonably critical for your application. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boatman Posted November 20, 2010 Share Posted November 20, 2010 This topic might help. It's a dual channel version of the CDMP-1300 which can be found here. Both are similar to the CDMP-1400 mentioned in the thread referred to in Doug Siddons' earlier post, but with added capability of playing standard audio CDs and data CD-Rs. Edited for SPaG. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stuart91 Posted November 22, 2010 Share Posted November 22, 2010 I'm sick of relying on laptops, ipods etc to play pre-recorded backing tracks when we run the risk of the system crashing, skipping, failing etc.'' I can sympathise with your sentiment here, but I'm not sure that a basic MP3 player will be all that different in terms of electronics and firmware than the rackmount players that other posters have suggested? I'm not aware of an iPod ever "crashing" but if you've had experience of that I'd be very interested to hear about it. I certainly wouldn't want to play cued sound effects off an iPod. However I wonder if there are apps available for iPod touch for this kind of function? A well written app with a decent GUI could be preferable to a basic LCD display on a bit of rackmount kit. Actually, an iPad could be great for this with the bigger screen. The other solution might be to have a laptop that does nothing but playback. So no internet connection, no other software, and password it so people can't muck around with it. Run something like QLab which seems to have a good track record for reliability. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave SA Posted November 22, 2010 Author Share Posted November 22, 2010 I believe the band have now decided that they will stick with a laptop. Thanks for the input gentlemen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doug Siddons Posted November 23, 2010 Share Posted November 23, 2010 I'm not aware of an iPod ever "crashing" but if you've had experience of that I'd be very interested to hear about it. Actually crashing no, but: Input jack failing/one side coming out due to wear Mishit the button and get lost inthe menus Faulty play button Gone to sleep Music changing when a call comes in ( happens on the iphone) Slipped off desk and falls on floor Play lock mechanism sticking Noisy mp3's Battery running out Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stuart91 Posted November 23, 2010 Share Posted November 23, 2010 I'm not aware of an iPod ever "crashing" but if you've had experience of that I'd be very interested to hear about it. Actually crashing no, but: A lot of the complaints on your list are things that could happen to any kind of player - e.g. broken connectors, faulty buttons, etc. A noisy MP3 will still sound noisy on a professional rackmount player. I think the big issue is that iPods spend their lives getting bounced around in peoples pockets, so it figures that they are in less than perfect condition when they reach us. It doesn't necessarily mean that an iPod set aside for show playback would suffer the same problems any quicker than a rackmount player. Having said that, I think we'd all agree that a touch-wheel iPod isn't ideal for critical cued playback. Since I've never owned one and am not familiar with the button layout etc. I hate being given one to play from. But the actual hardware itself is not fundamentally less reliable than something that comes in a 19" case with a professional brand name. That's why my preferred solution for this situation would be a dedicated laptop, or potentially an iPod touch or iPad if someone writes "an app for that". I'm sure other solutions would exist on the Android platform or any of the tablets that will be flooding the stores this Christmas. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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