Ephys recorders are meant to connect to recording hardware (typically a TDT RZ2) and to record data into a data format called MCsweep. Each multi-channel (MC) sweep contains a time-by-channel "signal' matrix of recorded voltages, along with additional info, such as sample rates and time stamps. Unlike BrianWare, ephys recorders are supposed to operate in a "gapless" fashion, i.e. the signal of MCsweep(N+1) should follow immediately from MCsweep(N) so that the signals can in principle be reconnected for filtering without "onset" transients or whatever. The idea is that the start of each MCsweep is synced to something, some kind of epoch. Ephys recorders come in two types:
- The "standard" type of ephys recorder TDT_RZ2_Cont_Recorder will start a new sweep each time it receives a zBUS A trigger. Thus, if you trigger stimuli with a zBUS triger, your sweeps will automatically be locked to the onset of each stimulus.
- The "fixed sweep length" recorder TDT_fixedSweep_RZ2_Cont_Recorder needs to be told how many samples each sweep is supposed to contain and how many sweeps are to be recorded.