Making its debut at this year’s NAB Show in Las Vegas was Sound Devices’ new 970, the company’s first-ever audio-only rack-mountable recorder boasting 64 channels of Dante and MADI. The half-rack, 2U device is designed to simplify applications requiring high-quality, high-track count audio recording, such as drama and reality production, and live concert recording.

Sound Devices’ 970 records 64 channels of monophonic or polyphonic 24-bit WAV files from any of its 144 available inputs. Inputs available include 64 channels of Ethernet-based Dante, 64 channels of optical or coaxial MADI, eight channels of line-level analog and eight channels of AES digital. Any input can be assigned to any track. In addition, 32-track recording at 96 kHz is supported.

The 970 records to any of four attached drives, which include two front-panel drive bays and two rear-panel e-SATA connected drives. Material can be recorded to multiple drives simultaneously or sequentially. This eliminates time-consuming post-record copying and allows for continuous long-form, high-track count recordings.

The unit can operate as a master clock with its built-in Ambient Recording Lockit time-code technology, or alternatively, it can also slave or be jammed to any other time-code source (all common production time-code rates and modes are supported). The 970 also supports word clock synchronization from external word clock, video sync, MADI or AES. To simplify the connection of multiple digital inputs, SRCs are available for all MADI, Dante or AES inputs.

The 970 also supports word clock synchronization from external word clock, video sync, MADI or AES. To simplify the connection of multiple digital inputs, SRCs are available for all MADI, Dante or AES inputs.

www.sounddevices.com