I have only used my internal mics once in the past 5 years, and that was out of desperation.
I have another situation where I want to record a local act but have to travel really lightly (the show occurs right between me taking my wife to a theatre matinee and then a dinner for our 35th wedding anniversary).
I have an Edirol R-09HR and a Sony PCM-M10. I plan to stand up by the speakers with the deck in my shirt pocket. Which of the two decks has the better mics?
Any help here on the deck or recording location would be appreciated.
Thanks
I'm 100% sold on the internals on my DR-2D. (I own 4, and am about to buy 2 more)
they have 'lo', 'med', and 'high' gain settings, then 100 levels for each of those 3 settings.
around 88 to 92 on lo-gain, and 66 to 74 on med-gain is the best for "rock" music (and I tape a *lot* of it)
I'd imagine "high" gain would be for if you were at a Henry Rollins spoken word show, away from talkers and clappers.
I've had artists let me set them on the stage by their feet on 'low' gain, and come away with some pretty amazing stuff. mini-tripods aid greatly in that.
the other sweet part about the DR-2D is the "dual" record mode, in that it will record a 2nd stereo track simultaneously anywhere from -6 to -12db (you can preset what level it's at in the menu before recording), so it's virtually impossible to get "too close overload", unless you set your levels way too hot.
I like to have my bounce anywhere from -3 to -6dB for a well mixed show, to -8 to -12dB for a show that's poorly mixed that may need post-show equalization (more headroom).
I did *hate* the internals in my R-09 (1st generation, WAY too tinny and harsh), but the DR-2D internals, when set correctly, are very hard to discern from my Sonic Studios stealth mics, and on occasion they exceed the Sonics in quality.
so I'd stay away from the Edirol (unless that 2nd gen HR machine had improvements made) based on my experience with the internals on the *different* machine and go with the Sony, unless you can find a DR-2D