Akai DR4vr

The latest in Akai's line of stand‑alone hard disk recorders, which also includes 8‑ and 16‑track models, sticks with the 4‑track format of its predecessor, the DR4d, but adds 250 'virtual' tracks to increase the flexibility it can offer. David Mellor checks out this low‑cost entry into the world of disk recording.

Two interesting statements: if you want to get into hard disk recording but finances are limited, the Akai DR4vr is probably your lowest‑cost option, unless you already have a suitable computer for which you can buy appropriate software and hardware; if you want to get into professional hard disk recording, the Akai DR4vr is probably your lowest‑cost option.

If you don't have a hard disk recorder already, you may be considering acquiring one — there's now quite a selection from which to choose, with models by Akai, Fostex, Roland, and Emu on the market. You might be considering the computer‑based hard disk system route, which certainly is a viable option, but since the focus of this review is a stand‑alone unit, I'll eliminate computer‑based systems from comparison.

I have already reviewed Akai's DR8 and DR16 in these pages (see SOS August 1995 and May 1996), and they are indeed thoroughly professional machines. I recently visited London's De Lane Lea film sound studios, which are stacked up to the ceiling with modified DR8s, a testimony to their worth. Fostex and Roland, too, have interesting models in their catalogues, Fostex's D80 8‑track machine showing the closest similarity to the Akai DR4vr. Compared to all of these alternatives, there is one inescapable fact about the DR4vr that you can't help feeling puts it one step behind the competition: it only has four tracks, rather than the eight or 16 that most users would undoubtedly prefer. I could spend the rest of this article saying that the alternatives are better simply because they have more tracks. I'm not going to do this, of course, because it would become tremendously boring, and I guess you know already how many tracks you need for your own particular application. If you need to have eight individual tracks all playing at the same time, then the DR4vr is not for you. But if you don't need eight tracks, I think you might find my opening statements worthy of close consideration. Compare the options, and I think you'll find that the DR4vr offers more intrinsic capability and more possibilities for expansion at a very reasonable price.

Who Needs It?

The Akai DR4vr is not a hard disk 'Portastudio', that's for sure. If you're a newcomer to recording, you should probably take a look at the Fostex DMT8 or Roland VS880, each of which incorporates a complete studio (bar amp, speakers, and mastering machine) in one compact box. The DR4vr is a stand‑alone recorder, and although it can do some mixing of already‑recorded tracks internally, you really need an external mixing console to get signals into the unit, and mix them on the way out too. You could hook up something like a small Soundtracs Topaz to the DR4vr, but you'd then have brought up the cost to something similar to a DMT8 or VS880, and you'd have to wonder whether this was worth doing. I feel that the ideal customer for a DR4vr is someone with a complete studio setup already. If this is the case, the DR4vr has a number of applications:

• As a mastering machine. If you mix directly to DAT, almost inevitably there will be some editing left undone. It's a rare multitrack recording that starts completely cleanly with no hiss, hum or other noises before the music. With a DR4vr, you can edit the track to within milliseconds for a clean start and finish. Also, many engineers like to mix in sections if an automated console is not available. With a DAT you can't edit the sections together; with a DR4vr it's a doddle. When the mix is finished and edited, the result can be transferred via the digital output to DAT with no quality loss.

The virtual tracks feature is certainly entirely usable and very valuable.

• As a tool for improving multitrack recordings. If you use an analogue multitrack, which the majority of professional music recording studios still do, you'll be aware that the punch‑in performance of analogue machines is not nearly as good as digital multitracks. Some analogue multitracks punch in quite nicely, but leave a gap at the punch‑out. By syncing a DR4vr to the analogue machine, using the optional SMPTE/EBU interface card, you can get perfect punch‑ins — using a footswitch, if need be — and then transfer the finished track to the tape. Similarly, if you want to compile several vocal takes into one, the DR4vr is the machine for the job. You could even take it home with you and avoid spending expensive hours in the studio doing this time‑consuming work.
• For working to picture. Music to picture composers enjoy working with MIDI‑sequenced systems because they can sync the sequencer to the video quite easily and cheaply, and chop and change the music around to follow the whims of the director. But as soon as you want to incorporate even one traditional instrument, all of these advantages disappear. You need an complex and expensive synchroniser to sync analogue or digital tape to video (or use a basic synchroniser and work at a snail's pace), and editing becomes very difficult. With a DR4vr and the optional MIDI card, your audio recordings will be as malleable as your MIDI data, and as quick to respond to the video as your sequencer.
• As a substitute for analogue stereo tape. Believe it or not, this has been the toughest nut for digital audio to crack, and the DR4vr still hasn't quite cracked it — but it's halfway there. Analogue tape is still widely used in broadcasting because it's quick to edit, and you can record, edit, and archive on the same piece of tape without having to wait for any copies to be made. You can certainly record and edit on a DR4vr; you can also copy the recording faster than real time, from the internal hard disk to an external removable disk, for long‑term storage using the optional SCSI card. (Backup to DAT is also possible). The DR4vr isn't quite as simple as analogue tape, however, and I suspect it will be some time before any hard disk recording system is.

Pro Features

Serious users are usually most concerned with the basic details, rather than the fancy features that advertising copywriters often tend to home in on. In no particular order of importance, let me confirm a few points that will set your mind at ease:

• The Akai DR4vr has four inputs and four outputs and records full 16‑bit digital audio (32, 44.1 or 48kHz) with no data compression. That certainly puts it ahead of models that don't have an input and output for every track, and models that have to compress the data to achieve their maximum quota of tracks!
• An internal hard disk is available as an option — one which most buyers will want to take up, I imagine. The DR4vr isn't limited to this one disk, however. It is supplied as standard with a SCSI connector, to which a further six disks can be connected. Note that there is a greater choice of SCSI drive types than there is IDE. An additional SCSI card can be fitted for backup to a fixed or removable disk.
• Digital input and output is provided as standard, both on consumer SP/DIF phono connectors andprofessional AES/EBU XLRs. If four channels of digital I/O are required, an additional card can be fitted. Analogue inputs and outputs are balanced, and can be switched to +4dBu or ‑10dBV standards.
• The DR4vr supports MIDI Machine Control (MMC). MMC is fast becoming a standard in the recording world, and the DR4vr can be operated via MIDI from sequencers such as Cubase, Logic, and Performer, and also external controlling devices such as, to give just one example, the Soundcraft Ghost mixing console.
• The DR4vr offers a total of 108(!) locate points, even without the DL4d remote controller. Pre‑roll is adjustable, and playback is immediate.
• Last but not least in my list of desirable pro features (maybe not unique, but certainly not ubiquitous in the disk recording world) — the Akai DR4vr has instant, on‑the‑fly as well as programmed, punch‑in!

Operation

Perhaps the easiest way to describe the operation of the DR4vr is to go through the process of what might be a typical application — producing a simple radio commercial with a voice‑over and pre‑recorded music bed. You could do all of this with the DR4vr, a CD player, mic and preamp, mastering machine and monitoring — no mixer involved. The first step would be to copy some music (taking out the necessary copyright clearances, of course!) from the CD to tracks 1 and 2. A domestic CD would probably give enough level to drive the inputs when set to ‑10dBV. Like most multitrack recorders, the DR4vr doesn't have any input or output level setting controls. Recording is as simple as pressing the record and play buttons simultaneously — no program to load, no files to open, no network, screen‑saver or email software to shut down (and some people ask me why I have become cynical about computers in audio!). You can, of course, set the sampling rate, and which disk you want to record onto if you have more than one. If the commercial needs to fit into a certain time slot, as it almost certainly will, you'll need to edit the music to fit. You can't fade it within the DR4vr.

Amazingly enough, you can alter the level and pan of tracks mixed any number of digital generations ago — the DR4vr simply recalculates the data.

Let's suppose it's an easy edit and all you want to do is cut out a section from the middle of the track. Play to the start of the section, and as soon as you hear your edit point, hit stop. Carefully turn the jog wheel anti‑clockwise to scrub the audio backwards. The audio quality of the scrub is pretty good — not as good as some high‑end systems or analogue tape, but much better than a mouse, and certainly accurate. When you've located your edit point precisely, hit the Store button, then the In button. This marks the beginning of the section to be edited. Do the same to find the out point and store that in the Out location. You can easily check your edit points using the In and Out locators, the Play button, which will play the entire section for you, or the Play‑to‑Out button, which plays the last few seconds up to the out point. Since in this instance you want to cut out the section, press the Edit button repeatedly until the Delete function is indicated, and then press Enter. It's now done, and if you don't like what you have achieved, there's always the Undo button to turn to. In a similar fashion, you can move and copy segments to different time positions on the same tracks, or to different tracks. You have to specify which tracks you want to copy from and to; these are selected straight from the buttons on the front panel. An interesting point is that unlike the Akai DR8 and DR16, copies on the DR4vr are made by physically duplicating the data on the disk, rather than just pointing to the same blocks on the disk. This takes a little time, but it's faster than real time and in practice I didn't find it a problem.

Recording a voice‑over should be quite simple, technically, but these things often need a lot of takes and sometimes the best performances come just a few words at a time, so you may need to edit between several takes. The original Akai DR4d was a 4‑track recorder and that was it, so you would have had just two tracks for the voice‑over — although you could have shunted takes further down the track as a temporary measure, to make more recordings. The DR4vr, however, offers up to 250 virtual tracks, of which up to four can record or play at any one time. This makes it far easier to go for lots of takes, up to the point where the disk is full. I would imagine that 250 virtual tracks would be enough for any user, unless you know different! Portions of takes, by the way, can easily be edited together to create the perfect voice‑over.

The next step in our fictional commercial would be to mix the music and voice‑over into stereo, which you can do internally in the DR4vr. In fact, you can mix together as many tracks, from the 250 virtual tracks, as you like, as long as you do it no more than two additional tracks at a time. You'll have control over level and pan.

You might be thinking that this sounds great as far as it goes, but what happens when you decide that a track you mixed ten layers ago now seems to be too loud? There's nothing you can do about it, apart from go back and do all that work again, is there? Well, amazingly enough, you can alter the level and pan of tracks mixed any number of digital generations ago — the DR4vr simply recalculates the data. You can't add external signals to the mix, but there's no reason why you shouldn't record some reverb onto virtual tracks and mix it in as appropriate. This new mixing feature is certainly very clever, but to be blunt, I would find it too much bother, and I would rather have spent more money on a machine with more tracks. That's my personal view, however — you may see it differently. The virtual tracks feature is certainly entirely usable and very valuable.

Summing Up

Right now I'm enjoying using the Akai DR4vr on a real project and I'm doing things with it that I wouldn't be able to do otherwise. In my home project studio, I have so far resisted buying more than eight tracks of digital multitrack because the right combination for my needs isn't yet available (since you ask, I want at least 16 tracks on a single machine, or instant synchronisation of multiple machines, and archivable media rather than fixed hard disks). I'm quite content for the moment making stereo premixes of backing tracks and adding additional tracks onto a new tape — in fact, there are certain advantages to working in this way that I might cover in a future article. But up until now, when I copy my stereo premix onto a new tape, I lose the ability to synchronise my sequencer accurately without much fiddling about, particularly if I have made the premix in sections and edited them together, which inevitably changes the duration slightly. The DR4vr, however, will synchronise perfectly to the multitrack (with the SMPTE/EBU card option), so that when I copy the premix to a new tape it will start at exactly the same timecode position. I can mix in sections, either dropping in on the DR4vr, or recording onto a different pair of tracks and editing, and the piece will stay the same length exactly. This way, I can continue to use my sequencer, and since any new tracks I record will be in sync with those on the original tape, I can hire or borrow another multitrack when I do the final mix if I feel the need to. In fact, I could make a recording of virtually any number of tracks, up to the limit of my mixing console, without having to own more than one multitrack recorder. The DR4vr also gives me the ability to lift guitar tracks off the tape, correct them where necessary for timing, and copy them back to tape again. With a digital interface for my multitrack I would be able to do this without any generation loss.

Are four tracks enough? Well, for multitrack music recording, other than simple demos, I would have to say no, so if this is your intention you should really be looking at a Fostex DMT8, Roland VS880 or Akai DR8. Four tracks, however, are great for stereo editing, multitrack manipulation, voice‑over work, sound effects, adding to MIDI systems, and a potential multitude of other applications. Add 250 virtual tracks which can be assigned to the four outputs and you have a great deal of flexibility in a reasonably‑priced package. If you had one of these in your studio, you'd use it all the time.

In conclusion, the DR4vr may not look too exciting on the surface, but there's a lot to get your teeth into. Every studio should have one, or something with at least equivalent capability, and Akai deserve continuing success with this update of the DR4d for years to come.