Playback media

Jo-JotheSoundDog

Active Member
I was just a little curious as to what kind of playback (CD, MD, SFX, Cassette, ...) people out there are using?
 
Cd and MP3

Usually we use a combination of DAT, CD, and computer programs (for loops) at Shepherd College

and CD, tape, and computer programs at Stone Bridge High School.
 
GOOD QUESTION!!!!! We have tape and cd capabilities; each with their pros and cons.

Lets start with tapes: easy to record, but a loud clicking noise when turned on. CD's: No clicking noise when turned on, harder to record with.

We used a tape for our last production "Lost in Yonkers" and it was only one thing but it sounded awful with the clicks with the gears starting to turn. This year for "Little Shop of Horror's", we are using a CD because there is a new tech director that uses common sense (me!). lol. But CD's are really the way to go.
 
Jo-JotheSoundDog said:
I was just a little curious as to what kind of playback (CD, MD, SFX, Cassette, ...) people out there are using?

CD, Tape and DAT

CD is for our shows

CD & Tape is for Dance Recitals, other rentals and such

DAT is for recording EX: Band Concerts
 
TechDirector said:
GOOD QUESTION!!!!! We have tape and cd capabilities; each with their pros and cons.

Lets start with tapes: easy to record, but a loud clicking noise when turned on. CD's: No clicking noise when turned on, harder to record with.

We used a tape for our last production "Lost in Yonkers" and it was only one thing but it sounded awful with the clicks with the gears starting to turn. This year for "Little Shop of Horror's", we are using a CD because there is a new tech director that uses common sense (me!). lol. But CD's are really the way to go.

Yeah, you can really tell the difference between something recorded on a tape and something recorded on a CD.
 
For the longest time I have run shows off mini-disc but now that CDs are so inexpensive and easy to use I have switched to CDs for playback. I try not to ever use tape because of tape hiss which tends to be noticeable no matter what deck you have.
 
I am in the process of trying to step up to SFX. But thanks to the infinite wisdom of Jeb Bush, it looks like it isn't going to be possible for next season. I still prefer Mini Disk. CD's may have gotten cheaper but the on-board editing capability of a MD makes them far superior in my eyes. I have also noticed that CD players sometimes have a little lag time in starting the playback. I know I'm talking about fractions of a second. But my sound designs are tight I usually have very few cues that I allow this kind of error on.
 
We use SFX at my school, and it works just great for surround as well. I mix the surround in Adobe Audtion and downmix to 6 mono channels and import to audition. There are freeware programs like Q-manager that serve as stereo playback engines.
 
we just use cd and tape. we used to use reel-to-reel.
 
We own four Mini-disc decks, so that's what I design on. I like the onboard editing capabilities of the MD's and the ability to title tracks, cue them precisely, program fades, and run them with computer keyboards.

We also have tape, CD, and turntables. Our DAT machines haven't been seen for a couple of years.
 
We have a tape dual tape deck and a 5 disc CD player. Unfortuneatly they are both really basic, off the shelf home models and really dont get the job done.

Our schools concert band has it's own Mini-Disc player/recorder that the band director usese to record the band, but it doesnt get used much for anything except that. The annyoing thing with it though, is the band director has to give it to me to transfer onto a computer to record to CD b/c as far as i can figure, the sony mini-disc player that he has will not let us transfer the files out digitally, i have to push the play button on it and the record button my laptop and record the songs to my harddrive that way. (It's annoying when copywrite protection goes so far that it causes problems with legitimate things!)

If you didnt guess from the last paragraph, I use my laptop to record and run all sound cues. I have a good USB 2.0 sound card (Audigy 2 nx) that sounds really good. For the most part I simply use Windows Media Player 10 for playback and the Audigy's recording software, if anyone else has software suggestions I wouldnt mind looking into them! (as long as they are very cheap or free!)
 
goldwave editor is a good sound program
 
Does it have playback capabilities that are good for using in a live show? I am really looking for something like windows media player, but that will let me push play on a second track and fade out the first track. I have seen one plugin for windows medai player that does something like this, but it wasnt too relyable.

For my show tonight, I used Windows Media Player 10 on my laptop, and a computer running "G-Force" (a visualization program) running our projector.
 
Sound Cue System is a really great program. It's quite inexpensive and very well built. On low budgets, i'd consider nothing else. I would never use a windows media player. It's clunky and slow.
Pc's jsut make all the sense in the world for running sound. You get a good D/A, a cue program like SCS and an editor like pro tools or audition (I greatly prefer audition).
For visualizations, the very best is the Milkdrop plug-in for Winamp. It's free, it's open source and it has video routing functions. not to mention the visualizations are out of this world. They're really the best i've ever seen.
 

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