Recommended SD cards for the X-Live card?

[KMaxwell]

Recommended SD cards for the X-Live card?

I know that the specifications are to use SDHC cards no bigger than 32gig. I also know that there is a way around this size limitation, but I am not interested in discussing that in this thread.

I just want to know in the USA what standard commercially available 32s SDHC cards do any of you recommend buying. What are the brands and the exact model #s? And if there are any that should never be used for something like this I would like to know that also.

This is for a musical that will be shot with a few cameras and edited later. There will be an X32 Compact mixer in the pit to multitrack the pit orchestra (around 15 mics) plus one track that will be a sub mix of the vocal mics sent to the X-Live card from the FOH mixer. The vocal mics will be going into the FOH mixer thru a Midas DL32. We have done this a few times before but we haven’t recorded the pit multitracking them. The pit is large enough that we won’t be micing them for amplification, only for the recording for video.

[GaryH]

I have had good luck with Pny micro sd Elite xc cards 64 gb and Wintec filemate 32 gb micro sdhc. I also have used Sandisk ultra 128 gb micro sd for the Wing. The deal is as you likely know, you can't format on the machine itself larger than 32. Format larger elsewhere like a pc and then put in. 64 is pretty safe imo. My 128 is also just fine.

[KMaxwell]

I have had good luck with Pny micro sd Elite xc cards 64 gb and Wintec filemate 32 gb micro sdhc. I also have used Sandisk ultra 128 gb micro sd for the Wing. The deal is as you likely know, you can't format on the machine itself larger than 32. Format larger elsewhere like a pc and then put in. 64 is pretty safe imo. My 128 is also just fine.

@GaryH Please forgive me if this is a little bit broken up it is kind of a streaming thought post.

Thank you for the reply. I don’t like the Micro SD cards with the full sized SD adapter. Sometimes the micro SD just doesn’t feel to me like they are as tight as I think they should be. And I figure why introduce another connection point. I am looking at the full sized SDHC cards. I am thinking of getting some of these cards - SanDisk 32GB Ultra SDHC UHS-I Memory Card - 120MB/s, C10, U1, Full HD. I understand that the Class 10 (C10) is a fast card and should be good for this kind of use.

The video guy usually only records 2 shows (with 2 other camera people) because there are a bunch of people that are double cast so this is to get all of them. I really wish he did more of the shows in case there is a problem in one of the shows he is recording. But he will also for practice sake and testing things out probably record a rehearsal or 2 with just him and one camera. I was thinking of using 2 cards and setting it to rollover to the second one (if I can figure out where to do that) so we will be all set if it doesn’t all fit on one card. I am hoping we can fit all of the pit mics and my mixed vocal feed into 16 tracks.

If I can fit the whole show which is usually (at the most) about 3hrs with intermission on a 32g card I would really like to do that. I just looked at the YouTube video of this show from when they did it in 2009 and it was (without intermission) about 2hs and 17 min.

I would like to use the standard 32g card. If I try to do something that is outside of the manufacturer recommendations and we have any problem it would not be good for us. Even though we told them that for this show we will be experimenting to see if we can do this going forward.

I was looking at an app (AV Tools) that I have that has a disk space calculator to figure out how much audio recording can fit on a card. And just as I am writing that I am not sure if the way that the X-Live records to the card would be the same as a multitrack recording. One of the variables in this calculator is the Bit Rate. Do you know what Bit Rate the X-Live records at?

According to this calculator 16 tracks to a 32g card at 44.1k and Bit Rate of 16 would give me about 16hrs and 17min. At Bit Rate of 24 it would give me about 4hrs and 11min. either of them should be enough pre roll time and even counting letting it run thru the intermission.

The X32Compact with the X-Live card in it will be in the orchestra pit. I will have control of it from FOH hard wired thru a dumb network switch (I have done that part before a few times) so if I am looking right on X32Edit I can start and stop the recording with used assigned buttons. So I assume that I would assign a button as SD Recorder, SD Record and another button as SD Recorder, SD Stop. So I hit Record to start the show and for the intermission am I right in assuming that I would hit Stop and then just before we start again hit Record? And of course I will hit stop when the show is over. I already have a CR123 battery to put in the card.

If I have to I will get some 64g cards and format the card as FAT 32.

Can I record to 2 cards at once and can I do that with one being a 32g and one being a 64g? I would assume if I did that I would want the 64g in card1 slot and the 32g in card2 slot.

[pvannatto]

Hey Kevin @KMaxwell, for 32Gb SD cards, 16 channels provide approx 3 hours (SanDisk 32Gb = 3h 8m, Kingston 32Gb = 3h 3m). 32 channels will half that and 64Gb will double that (at 16 channels). This is for both the X32 X-Live and Wing W-Live.

I've been recently using Kingston 64Gb SD cards (100Mb/s speed) with the Wing with great success. Fortunately these Kingston cards already come formatted with FAT32, meaning they can be used without re-formatting. I also have some SanDisk Extreme 64Gb (150Mb speed) that come formatted with exFAT, meaning that they had to be re-formatted to FAT32. Fortunately the linux utility Disks does this without issue. I would recommend any brand name SD cards with recording speed at 100Mb/s or greater.

Regarding your suggestion/question about using assigned buttons to start and stop the X-Live recording, that will work fine.

Regarding your last question, yes you can mix SD card sizes, since you have to choose which side (A or B) to record to.

[KMaxwell]

Hey Kevin @KMaxwell, for 32Gb SD cards, 16 channels provide approx 3 hours (SanDisk 32Gb = 3h 8m, Kingston 32Gb = 3h 3m). 32 channels will half that and 64Gb will double that (at 16 channels). This is for both the X32 X-Live and Wing W-Live.

I've been recently using Kingston 64Gb SD cards (100Mb/s speed) with the Wing with great success. Fortunately these Kingston cards already come formatted with FAT32, meaning they can be used without re-formatting. I also have some SanDisk Extreme 64Gb (150Mb speed) that come formatted with exFAT, meaning that they had to be re-formatted to FAT32. Fortunately the linux utility Disks does this without issue. I would recommend any brand name SD cards with recording speed at 100Mb/s or greater.

Regarding your suggestion/question about using assigned buttons to start and stop the X-Live recording, that will work fine.

Regarding your last question, yes you can mix SD card sizes, since you have to choose which side (A or B) to record to.

@pvannatto Thank you for the reply.

Regarding you last answer "yes you can mix SD card sizes, since you have to choose which side (A or B) to record to." I thought that that was only for the WING but on the X32 Compact it could be set to spill over to the other card as soon as the first one is full.

Do you know of the recommended utility for a Windows 7 PC to format a 64g card to the FAT32 standard?

Also were do you get the Kingston 64g card formatted as FAT32?

[pvannatto]

I thought that that was only for the WING but on the X32 Compact it could be set to spill over to the other card as soon as the first one is full.

By default, the X-Live is not set to spill from one side to another. I do remember setting it to do so. But I don't see anywhere in the console's X-Live interface or with X32-Edit to set that. You can do it with OSC command (/-urec/sessionspan). You can also manually set which side you want to record to (in both interfaces)

Do you know of the recommended utility for a Windows 7 PC to format a 64g card to the FAT32 standard?

One of the utilities is found here. Here is another one.

Also were do you get the Kingston 64g card formatted as FAT32?

I got it from PrimeCables. But it is also available at Staples, Best Buy, etc.

I got the SanDisk 64Gb from Amazon.

[KMaxwell]

I bought 4 of these cards to start with - SanDisk 32GB Ultra SDHC UHS-I Memory Card - 120MB/s, C10, U1, Full HD. I then ran the speed test using AJA_Systemtest and the results I got using the built in SD card reader in my computer was a write speed of 30MB/SEC and a read speed of 80MB/SEC. I am finding a lot of information about recording speeds for Video but not for Audio. But from what I can find this looks like it is more than fast enough for recording the Audio using the X-Live card in the X32 Compact. And it looks like this is also capable of recording 16 tracks for just over 3hrs, as you said. And I can always use 2 cards in the X-Live just to be sure I have enough space.

The X-Live card Quick Start Guide from Behringer says

5.2 Recording and File Management
Audio recording on the X-LIVE card can accommodate either 8, 16, or 32-channel sessions of 44.1/48 kHz / 32-bit PCM WAV files. As soon as recording is initiated to one of the SD cards, a new session is automatically created, allowing the entire take to be organized cohesively. To ensure continuous recording of the entire performance, a recording session that has started on one card can seamlessly span over to the other card slot when the first becomes full. In this case, the same session name will appear on both cards.

[DAG]

You have to be clear that the X-Live only records in 32 bits, you can't lower the rate.
As has been commented, you can only record in blocks of 8, 16 or 32 tracks, you cannot choose another number of channels.
If you are going to edit with video, record at 48Khz.
It is not possible to record in the two cards in parallel (backup), when the first SD is full, it automatically continues in the second, there is no loss of signal.
In a 32Gb SD you can record 16 tracks for almost 3h, theoretically there are 31.641 Gb and since the card once formatted will have less than 32Gb, the recording would continue in the second SD.