maximum record time in sonar?

ORIGINAL: djkepi

I know that the WAV file format has a maximum record length that it supports (due to the byte length of the header data).
Is there a maximum recording time that Sonar can handle?
I am planning to record a 3.5 hour live show multitrack, and want to make sure I don't run into issues.

Not that I know of, however, I have not tested it. As long as no screen saver or power management kicks in you should be good to go for as long as each clip can be at the sample rate you select. I think it's 2 gig per clip so do the math at the sample rate you want to use and that should give you the time you can record. If you get a chance to stop and restart at any point that would be good because that would start a new clip set and you would bump back up to the max time per clip again. Maybe you can stop it between sets ?

http://www.musicforthemedia.com/mftmv2/Helpful_Stuff/DA-file_SizeCalc.htm

Here is a handy calculator, looks like at 24bit 44.1 you can get about 44 hours per clip (mono) before going over the 2 gig limit, if you have any stereo tracks you could only go for 22 hours.

I've done very very long classical recordings - however an intermission usually has broken the piece down. I believe I have exceeded 2 hours and 20 minutes on a single run - 48/24 - fortunately when you stop recording a new clip gets started and that prevents a single file from being that large.

-D

I don't know if its just me but I find the calculator confusing. For 44.1/24 I just use the ballpark 7.5 MB/Min multiply that by the number of tracks to get total MB/min. 2048 divided by total MB/min gives the max time in min for a 2 GB clip. Anyway, there are 273 track min in 2 GB for 44.1/24. This yields 2.276 hrs for stereo. That is, assuming you assume that there are 2048 MB in 2 GB, which now, quite frankly, has me confused

ORIGINAL: Junski

ORIGINAL: ohhey

ORIGINAL: djkepi

I know that the WAV file format has a maximum record length that it supports (due to the byte length of the header data).
Is there a maximum recording time that Sonar can handle?
I am planning to record a 3.5 hour live show multitrack, and want to make sure I don't run into issues.

Not that I know of, however, I have not tested it. As long as no screen saver or power management kicks in you should be good to go for as long as each clip can be at the sample rate you select. I think it's 2 gig per clip so do the math at the sample rate you want to use and that should give you the time you can record. If you get a chance to stop and restart at any point that would be good because that would start a new clip set and you would bump back up to the max time per clip again. Maybe you can stop it between sets ?

http://www.musicforthemedia.com/mftmv2/Helpful_Stuff/DA-file_SizeCalc.htm

Here is a handy calculator, looks like at 24bit 44.1 you can get about 44 hours per clip (mono) before going over the 2 gig limit, if you have any stereo tracks you could only go for 22 hours.

To me that same calculator gave



which feels quite right since 'bout 74 min CD @ 16-bit/44.1 kHz (stereo) is about 650 MB (as it says on CD too).

From Wikipedia:

ORIGINAL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WAV
The WAV format is limited to files that are less than 4 GiB in size, due to its use of a 32 bit unsigned integer to record the file size header (some programs limit the file size to 2 GiB). Although this is equivalent to about 6.6 hours of CD-quality audio (44.1 kHz, 16-bit stereo), it is sometimes necessary to go over this limit. The W64 format was therefore created for use in Sound Forge. Its 64-bit header allows for much longer recording times. This format can be converted using the libsndfile library.

If Sonar has no 2GB nor time limit, you should be able to record your session @ 24-bit/44.1, 48 or 96 kHz using mono tracks.


Junski

Ooops.. I was way off.

ORIGINAL: mosspa

ORIGINAL: gbarrett

Don't forget that the way Sonar works with files is that each track is recorded to it's own *.wav file. Because of that, Each track has a limit of 2gb - that makes for a potentially HUGE project.

Yes, of course. But the original question is how long can SONAR record unattended.

There is no limit designed into the code of Sonar that I know of, if it fails at some point it would be for a reason other then Sonar. For that matter I don't remember ANY audio recording software with a limit built in.. anybody know of one ?

ORIGINAL: mosspa
Well if SONAR doesn't set the clip size limit, then it must be the 4 GB .wav size limit apparently imposed by .wav file header, no? See, junski's post earlier in the thread.

If this is the case, couldn't Djkepi attempt a very quick stop-start between songs (if there are breaks long enough for a couple of clicks)?

ORIGINAL: ohhey

For that matter I don't remember ANY audio recording software with a limit built in.. anybody know of one ?

Funny you should ask that Frank. I grudgingly use Logic at work. Turns out they limit the project length to 8550 quarter notes.

From page 93 of the logic reference pdf

A song can therefore last a maximum of around 70 minutes at a tempo of 120 bpm. At 95 bpm, the maximum length is over an hour and a half. If you need to increase this length, for film synchronization as an example, just halve the tempo. You can achieve the same result by using 4/8 time instead of 4/4 time, and treating quarter notes as eighth notes. A 4/8 song at a tempo of 60 bpm (equivalent to 4/4 at a tempo of 120) has a maximum length of more than 4273 bars, or over 2 hours and 22 minutes.

I learnt my lesson while recording a podcast. I don't think I've ever been so angry with a program.

Back on topic, I've recorded at least an hour and a half in Sonar without a hitch. I really would like to find out if that max file size is though and if it applies to the program or wavs in general. Don't you think there would be some simple way around the problem of the header information?