This page details the main features of the Metacorder window.

Beneath this the channels begin. On the far left is the input number corresponding to the stream channel id of the Core Audio device. Next is the label of the channel. These default to Input nn, but you should label them with a name for the connected source, since this information is embedded in the iXML metadata recorded into your files. Editors receiving your files will thank you when they see beautifully labelled tracks in your recordings.

Next come the meters. These are labelled with a dBf scale, and are color coded to designate a channel's status.
GREEN - normal channel, record armed
VIOLET-BLUE - normal channel, not record armed
PINK-PURPLE - Timecode source channel
GOLD - Slate Mic source channel
The Meters also feature a peak hold bar which falls after about 2 seconds.

Next we have the all important RECord arm buttons. These can be toggled with the mouse, or the FKeys (1-8 only), or an external controller. In Dual-Poly mode the rec buttons cycle between OFF, REC A and REC B, to determine if this channel is to record into file A, B or none.

After REC, we have basic pan control, to be used for stereo monitoring, and playback. When in M-S mode, SoundField mode, or Loop Input mixer mode, the pan controls are disabled. These are followed by the MUTE and SOLO buttons which should work like their equivalents on a traditional console. Solo is always safe and only affects the monitor mix, not the recordings. Underneath the channel strips is a master volume control and a pair of stereo meters for the monitor mix output.

In the top right of the Metacorder window you will see the status display. At this point, let's talk about media management. At any point, Metacorder can be writing to 4 different storage devices. These are Primary, Secondary, Mirror and DVD/CD Burn.
Primary Device - this is your main recording device. It should be completely reliable, and capable of easily handling the number of tracks you wish to record. You should also ensure that it always has enough disk space for a complete day's recording. When you record with Metacorder, it will always be recording to the primary media device. When you examine the SoundRoll later, it will also be looking at the files on the primary device. The secondary device is a real time mirror of the first. If you select a secondary device, anything which is written to the primary media will be simultaneously written to the secondary. Hence you should make sure the secondary device has all the same capabilities and space as the primary. The secondary device can either be viewed as a fault tolerant redundancy, or as an instant mirror for turnover. Metacorder can also mirror files non-real time (ie. after recording has finished, during time between takes). The Mirror media has the primary media's files copied to it as they are completed. Since writing to the mirror media is non-real time, you do not need to be very concerned about the speed of writing to the mirror, since it can take longer than real time to write if necessary. This is especially useful if you are recording large track counts, and you want to deliver slow to write media like DVD-Ram or Compact flash. The fourth device is a CD/DVD burn which Metacorder can perform in the background. This will be covered later.

In the left of the status panel, the 3 main media devices are shown with an activity LED which lights up when writing takes place to those drives. Each one also as a 'time remaining' display to show how much space is left on each drive, using the current samplerate, bit depth, and armed track count. Keep an eye on these and make sure you are prepared with new media well in advance. Underneath the three media displays is the soundroll size. As you record, this increases to show the current size of the sound roll in megabytes. If you are planning to burn your soundroll to CD or DVD, you will need to watch this to ensure that you dont record more into your soundroll than will fit on a CD or DVD. It is better to change soundrolls early and fit everything on one disk, than to try and span a single soundroll over multiple disks. For reliable post production, be very clear on your soundroll counting.

To the right we see the incoming timecode display. Normally you will be reading audio LTC through an audio input, and the decoded LTC will be displayed here, along with the frame rate. Make sure timecode is running and read reliably before you begin recording, since the timecode in digital files is only sampled at the start of recording. If you do not have an LTC feed available, you can choose to use the Mac CPU clock as a coarse time reference. This will give your files a unique timestamp, but you should NOT use this as any kind of relational reference to any other systems since the Mac clock is not precise, nor can it be synchronised. If you are using Mac CPU clock time, the timecode display will be red, with no frame count.

Underneath the timecode is the recording duration display. This is the duration of the current active recording. Since Metacorder has a pre-record buffer you will see the duration quickly increase as you begin recording, counting up to the pre-record buffer size, before settling to count one second per second.

At the bottom right of the Metacorder window you can see the transport buttons which initiate all the recordings etc. The record button will show 'No tracks armed' if you have not yet set the REC button on any of the record input channels. Pressing record will start a recording, and pressing Standby will stop the recording. You can also use keys and external controllers to perform these functions. The Review button is a one step function to quickly play back the last recording made. Bear in mind that if you have a large pre-record buffer size selected, you will hear that amount of recording prior to the point when you pressed record. Metacorder can also quickly break a recording to start a fresh fileset and also a new timestamp. This can be done by quickly pressing standby then record, or else just press the Break button which does the same thing. Metacorder can also automatically break recordings by detecting timecode jumps, but more about that later.

If after you start recording, you realise this is a false start, you can press the False start button instead of standby. This has the benefit that the recording will be marked as a false start (with -FS) and the take metadata will not increment - ready to go again for the same take. Finally, if you selected an input designated as a slate Mic, you will be able to press the Slate button - this puts the input from the slate mic across all channels, so that your slating comment will make it into every channel of every recorded file.