Recording (Alt+4)

The desk's own recorder, which writes to a memory card, or to a USB drive in the desk's second USB port. Recording started or stopped on the desk itself shows here too. The desk's internal storage holds the pad sounds and cannot take a recording.

• Start and stop: Start recording becomes Stop recording once a recording is running, and Pause becomes Resume while one is paused. They change the same way when you press the record button on the desk itself. The Now box below them says what the recorder is doing and how long it has been going. Drop a marker puts a marker at that moment, which your editing software shows so you can find it again.
• The record button on the desk: On a Pro 2, the circular REC button to the left of the touchscreen. A Duo has no physical record button: its REC button is at the top left of the touchscreen, so on a Duo this page or a keyboard shortcut is the way to record without the screen. Either way, a press starts a recording. While recording, a short press pauses and pressing and holding stops, and a press resumes a paused recording. Set What the record button does when pressed to Press to stop, on Device, Desk settings, and the two swap: a short press stops and pressing and holding pauses.
• Tracks: Decide this before you record, because it cannot be fixed afterwards. Mixed track only is one stereo file. The separate-track choices add one file per channel alongside that same mix, taking about seven times the space. Pre-fader ignores your faders, so a guest who was too quiet can be brought up later; post-fader keeps your fader moves. This is what goes on the card or drive; what this computer receives over USB is set on Routing, Master Mix.
• Save recordings as: WAV or MP3, for the mixed file only. WAV is full quality and about eighteen times the size; MP3 is fine for speech. Separate tracks are always WAV, so MP3 with separate tracks gives you a small mix to listen to and full-quality tracks to edit.
• Record the separate tracks raw: The separate tracks without the desk's processing, so you can do that work yourself later. The mixed file keeps its processing either way.
• Silence other announcements while recording: Your mics can pick up spoken announcements wherever they play, so this pauses them during a take. Turn it off if they go to headphones the mics cannot hear. Your screen reader is separate: if it speaks through the desk, it goes into the recording.
• Recordings: What is on the card or drive, newest first, with the date and length. You can delete one, which cannot be undone. To copy recordings off, take the card or drive out and plug it into a computer, since the desk does not make them available over USB.
• Card and drive: Eject a card or drive before pulling it out, so nothing is lost mid-write; Reconnect puts it back in use without unplugging it. Erase deletes everything on it.