1814 overture
For the past week I’ve been trying to buy the M-Audio FireWire 1814 from Turnkey, but it has eluded me so far. Last Tuesday I was told that they didn’t have any in stock, but they were getting new stock on Wednesday. On Wednesday it hadn’t arrived, so I should try on Thursday. On Thursday it was supposed to have come in on Wednesday, so would therefore probably arrive some time today (i.e. Thursday). On Friday I couldn’t go to Turnkey anway, so on Saturday morning I phoned them, to discover that this particular item hadn’t arrived but should be coming as part of another stock delivery this Wednesday. So, I’m being optimistic (for a change) and hoping that tomorrow evening I will be able to buy it at last.
“What the hell is it?” you ask me. Or not, but I’m going to tell you anyway. It is an audio interface that will allow me to record from multiple audio inputs onto multiple tracks in some audio application on my computer. Right, glad that’s clear now. :)
Work (still training) was quite good today; I got the latest program to compile cleanly before lunch, put together the JCL to run it (JCL really is awful!), worked out what results I should expect from my test data, and finally ran the program. I had to follow a windy path through multiple error output files to find the source of the problem, but it wasn’t too awful once I found out where to look. Didn’t actually get it all finished and tested until about 4.30, though.
Time for dinner.
Update: Do leave a comment, especially if you know me in person!
So, what do you need this Audio Fire Wire for?
Glad you don’t dislike COBOL as much as you thought :-)
Comment by Julia — 22nd October, 2005 @ 7:49 am
Well, my computer has only one audio input and one output, and they take stereo mini-jacks (like on headphones). If I want to record from 2 sources at once I’d have to use a special cable to put one on the left channel and one on the right – and that’s not ideal. If I want to record more than 2 sources I’d have to mix them into a single channel first, and then they’re all stuck together. With this interface I can record with up to 8 inputs, and keep them as 8 separate tracks on my music software so it’s possible to change the tracks selectively rather than all at once. I can also get digital audio in but I probably won’t use that much at the moment.
There’s more to it than that but I can’t type a lot, and you’re probably already wishing you hadn’t asked! ;)
Comment by Michael — 22nd October, 2005 @ 10:55 am
So are you recording stuff then?
Comment by Julia — 23rd October, 2005 @ 10:20 am