{"id":1088,"date":"2011-02-13T22:58:43","date_gmt":"2011-02-13T22:58:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/labrigger.com\/blog\/?p=1088"},"modified":"2011-02-14T09:53:07","modified_gmt":"2011-02-14T09:53:07","slug":"repurposing-audio-recording-products","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/labrigger.com\/blog\/2011\/02\/13\/repurposing-audio-recording-products\/","title":{"rendered":"Repurposing audio recording products"},"content":{"rendered":"

Scientific research equipment is expensive. Partly because the markets are often small, so product development budgets and manufacturing set up costs have to be split over a comparatively small number of units. In addition, the customers are typically more concerned about reliability and service, rather than price.<\/p>\n

However, there are other markets where these issues are not a concern. These markets are so large, and price driven, that the products are great values. In some cases, these products can be repurposed for scientific research. One market I keep an eye on is audio recording equipment. <\/p>\n

Desks with integrated racks<\/h3>\n

One segment that can be repurposed is the furniture, for example, desks with integrated racks for standard, 19″ rackmount equipment. By moving the rackmount equipment to the desk, and getting rid of a standalone rack, the rig’s floor footprint is reduced.<\/p>\n

Omnirax<\/a> has an extensive line of studio furniture. Purchases can be made directly from their website.<\/p>\n

Omnirax Presto 4<\/strong>
\n(about $600)<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Omnirax Force 24<\/strong>
\n(about $1400)<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Omnirax’ web site has helpful PDFs showing the measurements of the desks.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Studio RTA has some inexpensive products.<\/p>\n

Studio RTA Producer Station<\/strong>
\n(around $500)<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Studio RTA Creation Station<\/strong>
\n(around $200)<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Studio RTA Mix Station<\/strong>
\n(around $120)<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Audio interfaces<\/h3>\n

Multichannel recording devices have been used as inexpensive DAQs. They have top quality A\/D converters, but they’re designed to give basically no DC signal, if that matters in your application. And they may require custom coding, since they’re not specifically designed for use with MATLAB or LabVIEW. Despite all that, they’re still intriguing choices. The 96kHz sampling rate is good enough for most electrophysiology applications. And 8 analog ins and 8 analog outs all running simultaneously at 24 bits of resolution is something that no NI board offers, especially not in a sub-$500 package.<\/p>\n

M-Audio Fast Track Ultra 8R USB Interface<\/strong>
\n(under $500)<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Soundproof booths<\/h3>\n

Soundproof booths can also be repurposed from the music recording market. I recently visited Mike Wehr’s lab at U Oregon in Eugene. His lab is making beautiful whole cell recordings from auditory cortex in vivo<\/em>, and he’s found that products like these offer a cost effective way to acoustically isolate a rig.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Retailers<\/h3>\n

Retailers for recording and other pro audio gear: Guitar Center<\/a>, Musician’s Friend<\/a>, Music123<\/a>, Sweetwater<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Scientific research equipment is expensive. Partly because the markets are often small, so product development budgets and manufacturing set up costs have to be split over a comparatively small number of units. In addition, the customers are typically more concerned about reliability and service, rather than price.<\/p>\n

However, there are other markets where these issues are…<\/p>\n

Read More<\/a><\/div><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[14],"class_list":["post-1088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hardware","tag-construction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/labrigger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/labrigger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/labrigger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/labrigger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/labrigger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1088"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"http:\/\/labrigger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1088\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1114,"href":"http:\/\/labrigger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1088\/revisions\/1114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/labrigger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/labrigger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/labrigger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}