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Portable WAV Recorder
Posted: Thu May 22, 2008 12:29 am
by burun_Archive
At school, we have these wafer-thin Olympus flash recorders that have T-mics on them. The students seem to like them, so I'm going to road-test one to see if it works for me. I like the stealthy aspect, but I still have a setimental attachment to my MD recorder.
Portable WAV Recorder
Posted: Thu May 22, 2008 1:25 am
by kerble_Archive
kerble wrote:
anyone know somewhere in chicago/sw suburbs that sells the zoom h4 that is not a guitar center?
the zoom/samson site was no real help.
Portable WAV Recorder
Posted: Sun May 25, 2008 12:26 pm
by Guthrie_Archive
burun wrote:At school, we have these wafer-thin Olympus flash recorders that have T-mics on them. The students seem to like them, so I'm going to road-test one to see if it works for me. I like the stealthy aspect, but I still have a setimental attachment to my MD recorder.
I believe I've used this same recorder as well as older Olympus recorders. I recorded several speakers - by which I mean people - and they seem to have decent clarity in big or small rooms. As for stealth, I brought one into a concert I went to in Las Vegas - it was at the Hard Rock hotel - and security missed it. However, a big negative was that there wasn't much bass to the recording - not really a surprise - and when I listened to it afterward, it unfortunately managed to pick up most of the whispering my friend and I were doing - and it was a loud concert.
Portable WAV Recorder
Posted: Tue May 27, 2008 5:32 am
by skinny honkie_Archive
At my work we have a bunch of these:
Pic of connectors
They'll record at 24/96, provide phantom to two mics, and they're built out of chunks of solid fucking steel. You can, in fact, throw one at a wall, really hard, and hurt the wall.
HOMEPAGE
Also, I have a distaste for zoom gear, it's generally flimsy and makes me feel like I have a sick baby in my kitbag to look after, so I just wanted to put another recommendation out there.
Portable WAV Recorder
Posted: Tue May 27, 2008 11:02 am
by endofanera_Archive
skinny honkie wrote:Also, I have a distaste for zoom gear, it's generally flimsy and makes me feel like I have a sick baby in my kitbag to look after, so I just wanted to put another recommendation out there.
That is my one area of dislike for the Zoom recorders -- they do not feel substantial or real. I will say that we have had no problems with the Zooms we bought at work and they have been moderately abused, but they certainly dont fill me with confidence.
Also, I dont know how much the Sound Devices rigs cost, but my guess is it would have been a lot more of an uphill battle to get them bought than the relatively cheap Zoom boxes.
Portable WAV Recorder
Posted: Tue May 27, 2008 5:07 pm
by skinny honkie_Archive
Not so hard. They're fairly readily available. They did cost more than some of the other options we looked at, but we weren't buying according to price tag. We do a lot of field recording, and these things have been worth what they cost so far.
The only minor downside was the fact that because there's only one supplier in this country they can charge pretty much anything they want for these, so we did pay proportionally more than what you might in america or europe.
Portable WAV Recorder
Posted: Tue May 27, 2008 9:38 pm
by endofanera_Archive
skinny honkie wrote:They did cost more than some of the other options we looked at, but we weren't buying according to price tag.
That is a remarkable luxury you have. I know of no one in the nonprofit world who is not faced with the "cheaper than that and get it done now, please," mindset. If I could have gotten the folks in the big offices to spend more, I probably would have recommended that we get a few of the Sony PCM-D50 recorders that I linked in my earlier post. Theyre much better than the Zoom in almost every way and have the advantage of built in mics, an advantage that should not be underestimated when dealing with users who are not particularly audio savvy.
The Sound Devices boxes definitely look like great alternatives too.
Portable WAV Recorder
Posted: Wed May 28, 2008 11:11 am
by gio_Archive
skinny honkie wrote:At my work we have a bunch of these:
Pic of connectorsThey'll record at 24/96, provide phantom to two mics, and they're built out of chunks of solid fucking steel. You can, in fact, throw one at a wall, really hard, and hurt the wall.
HOMEPAGEAlso, I have a distaste for zoom gear, it's generally flimsy and makes me feel like I have a sick baby in my kitbag to look after, so I just wanted to put another recommendation out there.
These are great pieces of equipment.
Have a zoom... prime gripes: cheap/flimsy, high self-noise in the XLR inputs, picks up RF interference, phantom power kills batteries in two seconds.
It is very portable and pretty easy to use... just not good for really quiet stuff. It's cheap.
Portable WAV Recorder
Posted: Wed May 28, 2008 11:50 am
by Big John_Archive
Electronic Musician has a article on small hand held recorders this month. I don't realy trust their reviews that much but they usaly have information and the web links all in one place.
If I had the cash I would think about the Korg 1bit.
My band uses a H2 to record it is not bad for what it does. A bit more convient than mini disk recorders. I still use mini disk players myself. The new ones finaly let you record howeaver you want and lets you dump to computer easly.
One of the big differences between the recorders are the internal mics. Most are small condencers but some have better specs than others I would look there unless you want to use a separate mic. That is why I use a mini disk I use a better mike and get nicer results.
