Alesis HD24 question

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"Kurt Albershardt" <kurt@nv.net> wrote in message
news:3bgs72F6io4avU1@individual.net...

> Just find out what kind of caddy/tray system Alesis is using and buy some
> of those.

The caddy/tray system that Alesis uses is known, although not by me. I
think it's one of the ViPower setups (I don't know if all ViPower
caddies/trays are the same). A perusal of the HD24 group at
groups.yahoo.com will produce the info eventually (the Yahoo Groups search
mechanism is quite pathetic).

Hal Laurent
Baltimore

 

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"Hal Laurent" wrote ...
> The disadvantage to the Fireport is that it's a kludgy little thing
> that plugs into the back of the drive caddy, and there are four
> separate plastic foot thingamajigs (that's the technical term) that
> you attach to the sides of the caddy to give it airflow underneath.

Which is goofy if you think about. There is no airflow under the
drive caddy when it is plugged into the HD24.

 

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In article <1gujym7.1bog1em345z7sN%walkinay@thegrid.net> walkinay@thegrid.net writes:

> And now I wonder if one could use a Wiebetech FW DriveDock along with
> the Alesis software to do what the Firedock does, or if the software is
> tied to the Alesis gizmo.

If Hal's explanation is accurate and complete, probably so, but I'll
bet the only way you can get the software legitimately is to buy the
FirePort. It's like the Mackie HDR Pro. You get a Firewire dock for
the removable disk drive, together with a version of the operating
system that adds "Import ProTools Session" and "Export ProTools
Session" to the menu. A lot of people wanted to buy the software
without buying the Firewire dock, and some wanted to buy the Firewire
dock without the ProTools software (to make transfers to other DAW
programs easier) but Mackie wouldn't sell one without the other.

Now, it's been discontinued as a Mackie product (they never kept up
with ProTools 6) and at least one person (http/www.firedock.com) is
offering a Mackie drive bay in a Firewire case.



--
I'm really Mike Rivers (mrivers@d-and-d.com)
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me here: double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

 

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In article <1112761281.747767.308550@l41g2000cwc.googlegroups.com> peakester@earthlink.net writes:

> I've been trying to sort out what you and Mike are saying. Are you
> using the IDE to firewire gadget from smalldog with the Alesis HD-24 or
> are we still in theory.

In theory, and bantering about buying somnething sight-unseen on line
vs. the desire to look at it before buying. From what I can tell from
the Weibetech (don't trust my spelling) web site it plugs directly on
to a bare drive. So in order to use it with the Alesis drive (or in my
case, the Mackie) it would have to be removed from its carrier. That's
only a couple of screws and takes just a few seconds, but it's one
more tug on the ribbon cable inside the carrier, so it probably takes
a little off the life of the carrier assembly. That may or may not be
significant. I haven't had one fail yet.

> Are you using it just as a general data transfer unit?

That's how the discussion started. I was asking about how to clone the
drive in my laptop computer if I wanted to replace it and not have to
re-install everything. The suggestion was to use Norton Ghost and back
up the drive using a Weibetech firewire adapter.

> About how much was it?

I saw it for $100 at eCost.com but it's not clear what package that
is (what software, if any, comes with it). Direct from Weibetech, it's
$139 with some sort of backup program.

--
I'm really Mike Rivers (mrivers@d-and-d.com)
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me here: double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

 

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Mike Rivers wrote:
>
> at least one person (http/www.firedock.com) is
> offering a Mackie drive bay in a Firewire case.

Which you can build for yourself quite easily, BTW.

 

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"Mike Rivers" wrote ...
> ...but it's one more tug on the ribbon cable inside the carrier,
> so it probably takes a little off the life of the carrier assembly.
> That may or may not be significant. I haven't had one fail yet.

I have. :-( The IDC (insulation-displacement connector)
finally let go and I was left with an unterminated ribbon
cable. ~Fortunately, it was one of my $14 generic carriers,
and not the sexy gray one with "Alesis" on it.

As for alternatives to the FirePort 1394, it can be done in
software if only we knew the disk/file format. All my
computers have plug-in drive bays identical to the ones in
the HD24 and I can plug the Alesis drive carriers into any
of my computers.

But, of course, the drives are not formatted in anything that
MSwin recognizes, so it just ignores them. But I can access
each sector and decode the data with software if I only knew
how to interperet it. One could concievably write a driver
that would make the Alesis drive look like a regular MSwin
drive with a bunch of AIFF or WAV or whatever files. You
could drag-n-drop just like any other drive in Windows
Explorer.

And the hardware part of the FirePort 1394 *appears* to be a
conventional drive-bay to Firewire adapter made by someone
else, but OEMed to Alesis in their gray color and with their
name screen-printed on top. As others have observed, Alesis
sells it only bundled with their FST/Connect software (a
standalone application).

 

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Mike Rivers wrote:

> peakester writes:

> > I've been trying to sort out what you and Mike are saying. Are you
> > using the IDE to firewire gadget from smalldog with the Alesis HD-24 or
> > are we still in theory.

> In theory, and bantering about buying somnething sight-unseen on line
> vs. the desire to look at it before buying. From what I can tell from
> the Weibetech (don't trust my spelling)

Wiebetech

> web site it plugs directly on
> to a bare drive. So in order to use it with the Alesis drive (or in my
> case, the Mackie) it would have to be removed from its carrier. That's
> only a couple of screws and takes just a few seconds, but it's one
> more tug on the ribbon cable inside the carrier, so it probably takes
> a little off the life of the carrier assembly. That may or may not be
> significant. I haven't had one fail yet.

> > Are you using it just as a general data transfer unit?

> That's how the discussion started. I was asking about how to clone the
> drive in my laptop computer if I wanted to replace it and not have to
> re-install everything. The suggestion was to use Norton Ghost and back
> up the drive using a Weibetech firewire adapter.

> > About how much was it?

> I saw it for $100 at eCost.com but it's not clear what package that
> is (what software, if any, comes with it). Direct from Weibetech, it's
> $139 with some sort of backup program.

Here's a link to Wiebetech's page of their Drivedock products.

<http/www.wiebetech.com/products.php#drivedockproducts>

I bought the FireWire Drivedock without the backup software from
Smalldob Electronics for $115 + shipping. This included one HD cover
plate with screws and little rubber stick-on feet.

--
ha

 

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In article <3bitj7F6i61t1U4@individual.net> kurt@nv.net writes:

> > at least one person (http/www.firedock.com) is
> > offering a Mackie drive bay in a Firewire case.
>
> Which you can build for yourself quite easily, BTW.

Of course, but one of the nice thing about these recorders is that
they are being used by people who aren't computer geeks and aren't
even sure which end of a screwdriver to blow into.

It's a service, and the guy is making a few bucks.

--
I'm really Mike Rivers (mrivers@d-and-d.com)
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me here: double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

 

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In article <1158t0egtsh73f1@corp.supernews.com> rcrowley7@xprt.net writes:

> As for alternatives to the FirePort 1394, it can be done in
> software if only we knew the disk/file format.

> But, of course, the drives are not formatted in anything that
> MSwin recognizes, so it just ignores them. But I can access
> each sector and decode the data with software if I only knew
> how to interperet it. One could concievably write a driver
> that would make the Alesis drive look like a regular MSwin
> drive with a bunch of AIFF or WAV or whatever files.

So pay the damn $139 already. Or use the Ethernet. Some people just
want to make things hard for themselves. <g>



--
I'm really Mike Rivers (mrivers@d-and-d.com)
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me here: double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

 

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"Mike Rivers" wrote ...
> So pay the damn $139 already. Or use the Ethernet.
> Some people just want to make things hard for
> themselves. <g>

Oh, I paid the $199 already. My FirePort is sitting right
here next to the keyboard. I'm just whining about not having
an "open-source" solution.

 

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Here's an interesting location I was guided to by an engineer friend
tonight:
http/www.vipower.com/product/SmartFamily/Smart_Dock/vp_8059/vp_8059.htm

 

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peakester wrote ...
> Here's an interesting location I was guided to by an engineer friend
> tonight:
> http/www.vipower.com/product/SmartFamily/Smart_Dock/vp_8059/vp_8059.htm

Appears to be a $14 drive carrier bundled with the OEM firewire
coupler which Alesis sells (in a different color). These are both
standard items available in many places.

Alas, without the special software that also comes with the Alesis
bundle, it cannot be used with HD24 drives. And as others have
already observerd, Alesis doesn't sell the software unbundled from
the hardware.

 

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In article <1112952030.381737.57440@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> peakester@earthlink.net writes:

>
> Here's an interesting location I was guided to by an engineer friend
> tonight:

That's similar to what Mackie and Firedock.com have for the Mackie
hard disk recorder external drives. I may have missed all the subtle
details of this one because I don't have the Chinese character set
installed in my web browser. <g>

When I was shopping at Micro Center for the Weibetech, I saw a couple
Firewire removable drive assemblies, perhaps even the one you found
here - handy if you have all the mating parts, not as useful as being
able to connect the bare drive if you don't.



--
I'm really Mike Rivers - (mrivers@d-and-d.com)
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me here: double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

 

[CaffeineHyway]

Hello Internet Ghosties of the Past. I'm a little late to the party, but this is the first place I've seen this reference: >> "~Fortunately, it was one of my $14 generic carriers, and not the sexy gray one with "Alesis" on it." << further up the page. I've been wondering and searching for quite sometime for an alternative PATA drive caddy of the generic sort to use with my HD24. These older ones are scarce and the new SATA ones (which I don't presently need) are pricey. What are these "$14 generic carriers" that anonymous speaks of ?

[as a side note, I've seen so much about people with drive troubles, real or alleged incompatibility issues, and drives not mounting. Indeed, that's true enough, but I've yet to see anyone mention caddies-gone-bad, which anonymous above seems to allude to (aside from his yanking out wires). I've had some drives that I thought were either bad or incompatible, only to find that by fudging with the caddy a bit, (not just the jumpers), I've had them kick in, likely due to intermittent ghost-in-the-machine wiring issues. blahhh

All of this said, who/where can I get reasonably priced PATA caddies for running my old school PATA drives on my HD24???? thanks