Craig Hissett
The aim of this project is to continue working towards a solid, slick setup for recording audio.
My previous build for a recording setup centred on a 4U shallow rack case. The case consisted of
consisted of a Behringer UMC1820 Audio interface paired with a Behringer ADA-8200 ADAT expansion unit to give a combined total of 16 mic inputs, an custom 1U panel which routed the ADAT expansion ports to the front of the case, and a 1U power strip for powering the multiple devices. A LattePanda 3 Delta ran the recording software in that build.
The setup worked well, but struggled with heat build up due to the cramped nature of the case; internal cabling between he custom panel, ADAT cables and Power supplies left precious little room for airflow. It was also incredibly difficult to get the Lattepanda out of the case to access it's external hard drive for getting the audio to another machine for editing.
That rig focused purely on recording, and left room to be desired.
This new version is to be built around the Behringer XR18, a fantastic 16 input digital mixer that also can operate as an audio interface. The mixer footprint is smaller than the UMC1820 + ADA-8200; those devices consumed two rackmount unit spaces and the full 19" width of the rack - the XR18 stand as 3U tall but takes up just over half of the rack width. The XR18 requires no internal cable runs; all ins and outs are found on the front of the unit. The XR18 comes with rack mounts to fit into the 19" rack; the rackmounts leave plenty of space either side of the unit to mount small SBC without being engulfed in cable spaghetti.
For the SBC choice here I opted for Icewhale's Zimaboard 2 to focus my build around. I was able to pick up two 8Gb RAM review units to try out my concept, but upon completion I will be purchasing the 16Gb variants to improve performance.
While intended for homelabbing and DIY NAS use these boards are perfect for low intensity audio work; passively cooled they will not make a sound, which is perfect for situations where the unit may be positioned close to the audio source.
This project will in two parts; first is the audio recording side, and second is the Music editing home server set up to ingest audio from the audio recorder when connected to the home network.