Topic: ADAT to MOTU 8 channel via light pipe to capture multitrack wav

[Photon addict]

Hi
    I have not used Laser boy as of yet but think it may work for this I would like to take some show tape on my ADAT capture them as multi track wave files X Y R G B and convert them to ILDA files can this be done with Laser Boy? and if so how? also can I play back the wave files out of the MOTU with out worry of AC coupling like with the ADAT? I had to modify that years ago to out put laser display.


Cheers
Michael

[BlinkenLights]

laserboy CAN do that. just save the multi channel wave and then open it as unformated wav.. james is the one to answer the rest of this tho

[Photon addict]

Thanks for the reply


James can you advise on the rest?  I am going to capture 7 tracks through MOTU to Nuendo 3 then I am going to open them in laser boy and save them as an unformatted wave file...  Then I open it and set the O to  .lld but then there are t are several choices as I recall  save all frames I would think options 4 and 5 can you give some more detail on those?

[James]

I'm not sure what you will end up with from your transcription process, but, you will most likely get 7 mono tracks. That's fine. You can use the beta version of Audacity to arrange them in the correct order {X, Y, r, g, b, nothing, L_audio, R_audio}. You can also use Audacity to trim out any junk that might be at the beginning or end of the waves. Be sure you chop the exact same number of samples from all of the waves. Then you can save this as a single 8 channel wave. Now you are ready to open this in LaserBoy. In case you haven't noticed yet.... LaserBoy is in its own little world! That means that it cannot see any hard drive storage space outside of its own directory. So, you have to put the wave into a folder called unformatted that is inside of a folder called wav to be able to find it in LaserBoy. You can also set the number of samples that will be converted into frames in menu option [Tab], g unframed wave samples per frame. Or, if you think the show might have been made from a recording of a very popular laser DAC [name omitted] you can try to import the wave with a good guessing algorithm, folling the menu items as i (file input) 3 (wave) 6 reframe based on blanking.

James. 

[Photon addict]

Ok I have tried to save just the XYRGB tracks that I created in MOTU loaded the tracks into audacity and exported as a wave file I tried to load it into Laser boy by putting it the unformatted folder there are several choice for unformatted to choose from which one would be the correct choice? so far whatever I choose give me and error and Laser boy never sees the unformatted wave file also there seems to be several choice on the Ilda output side. Do you have any tutorials for newbies on the process? I may not be saving this correctly in audacity.


Michael

[James]

Do you Skype?

Look for james_laserboy.

I'd be glad to chat with your about all of this AND, with Skype you can open LaserBoy on your computer and share that portion of your screen with me so I can see what you are doing.

Let me know when you want to chat.

James. 

[Photon addict]

James
    Just to be sure I recaptured the laser module its apprx. 3:30 Girls just want to have fun Cindi lauper I made sure it was captured at 16 bits 48khz then I opened the 8 mono tracks in Audacity 1-8 exported as a single 48khz 16bit file placed it in unformated in laser boy I, 3, 6 first letter of the file it asks if its inverted tried both yes and no now this is wear I get lost I went to O 1 3 save all frames the program chugged away for a couple of hours crunching frames and created a Ilda file that would not open in LFI and crashed LDS. I did notice when I looked at a frame as a wave it was just a horizontal line with some colors in it but that may have been on the first frame there was a couple of seconds before the show starts.   What am I doing wrong? I can provide the file I made in Audacity on my FTP site if you would like to peek at it . Let me know what you think is going on here I would really like to master this so I can back up some shows.


Thanks
Michael

[Photon addict]

I just saw your reply as I was typing the last one chat would be good I have not done anything with Skype I use Yahoo IM but will set Skype up later tonight and send you a message when I have it up and working
thanks
Michael

[James]

If you want to play these waves through any kind of multichannel sound device, you will most definitely have to be sure it is DC coupled!

If not, it won't hurt anything. It will just look terrible.

James.   

[Photon addict]

[size=78%]Yes scanners wont return to o vdc it will just be a [/size]spaghetti mess AC dont know positive  negative  voltage with ground as 0 reference, just line and ground, and how to make ground loops so your sound system buzzes LOL.[size=78%]  My first deal with this stuff was a FM encoder decoder hooked up to a 4 track RtoR back in the day kinda sucked but it did the job, still have the relic in my attic should donate it to the laser show museum if any one ever opens one. [/size]   As I understand MOTU has dc coupled outputs I have not had the time to make up a 1/4 inch jack to ILDA connector to see if thats true as of  yet need to get the O scope form my dads basement and take a look. However I did make the files though a light pipe from the ADAT so they should be good

[polishedball]

Does this still work in the new version? 
 
 I followed your instructions and made an
8 channel wav, put it in the unformatted file it see's it there fine,
but after I tell it to load (option 4 i think)  the program completely
exits after a few minutes, both windows just disappear without any
notification.
Ideas?  Thanks
 
I know my wav is good because I can play it back directly to the sound card and see the show.

[James]

How long of a wave file was it?

You might need to chop it up a bit in Audacity.

I'm testing the current version of the code I have on my machine.

I don't have tons of stuff to test with. That is, I don't have loads of ADAT recordings.

I am noticing that weird things can happen if the file is really long, as in the entire length of the ADAT tape.

James.