It seems so obvious but I can't find the gear. I have 8 tracks of very high quality mic pre and converter (Crane Song) and all I want to do is take it to a venue and capture the sound digitally. I could use a laptop but I don;t trust 'em.

I don't need all the converters that come with hdr etc. Does no one make a simple box that captures bits as aes lays them down, reliably, with hardware. Maybe I should just use a tape recorder. t.

No one I know of has an AES or ADAT bit catcher.

JoeCo (BlackBox) is supposed to ship a digital input model. Alesis HD24XR also takes digital in, but it's ADAT. You'd need their format converter. In both cases, though, they also have onboard converters.

My Fostex DV824 has eight channels of AES input. It's a HDD recorder that also will mnirror to DVD-RAM. Might be able to find one at a reasonable cost.

If it was me, I'd wait for the JoeCo BBR1-D.

D.

If the price is right, that seems like a nice machine thumbsupthumbsupthumbsup

X-48 with the AES cards works well. Could be considered a little expensive for what it is though. If you only need 24 ins and outs, you can save some cash by buying just one I/O card.

Don't one of the the nagras have sone aes inputs a well..?
I'd also appreciate a 8-16ch aes bit bucket.

Zaxcom Fusion 12-Channel Recorder with Effects :: Professional Recorders :: Recorders :: Coffey Sound at 8500 USD
SONOSAX at 6100 USD

This is crazy. Surely there must be a need? I'd like a 8-16 ch backup. Looks as the BBR might be the thing.

The Nagra VI allows only a max. of 4ch of AES inputs (2 AES connectors).

I do not know of any other solution than a computer based one with digital audio interface
(e.g. RME Digiface 24ch@48k, 12ch@96k with 3x AES/ADAT converters
or
RME Madiface 64ch@48k or 32ch@96k with AES/MADI converter).

This is crazy. Maybe a hardware person can explain it. I mean, AES, the most rock solid and flexible digital output, common to most high end converters... and all these manufacturers falling over themselves to provide tiny incremental benefits.... and nobody makes a reliable device for sound capture that accepts AES for a price approaching realistic, even though all the device has to do is catch bits from aes channels and lay them into wav files? Really, I'm shocked. it probably costs 200 dollars to make from standard components in scale, and no analog nuance or wiring or transformers or (anything expensive) is required. No moving parts. Gimme 40 gig of ram (10 dollars in scale?), a last-generation cpu (20 dollars in scale?), 8 aes inputs (100 dollars in scale?), and one usb (1 dollar in scale?) to suck the bits out when I'm done. Reliable capture from whatever converters I want at any rate I want... why is there no demand for this? if there were, surely someone would make one.

The small Sonosax recorder is the only one I found when I wanted an AES bit bucket. Subsequently the newer R4 also does this but with a few more extra pres. I ultimately decided to buy the 788T because it can be used as a standalone for eight channels in an emergency or where I cannot take my Cranesong. It was way more than I wanted to spend but unfortunately there don't seem to be any other solutions in the 2K range.

Baithak

Thats a VERY nice bit of hardware. Should be for a thousand dollars a pound.