Topic: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder for DSLR cameras

[Life In Rewind]

So cool - I was going to inquire too!

[F.O.Bean]

Thats a ridiculous price for this sucka

[jbosco]

If anyone's interested in my virtually brand new DR-70D for $250, let me know.
My work will be buying us another with the Soundforge bundle.

If you are still serious I'd love to take you up on that.

[Life In Rewind]

I love this fucking thing!!!

Listening to my NYE house party recording from last night...

Ran from around 9PM to just short of 3AM - my SCUD 13000 had just hit 2 bars (of 4)

This was my first matrix attempt with this device...playback out of the unit is outstanding.

Took the board feed (bass, vox, and some kick drum) in on channel 1&2 - 1/8 Line In from the mixers RCA outs.
And ran the Audix 1280s onstage, NOS into 3 & 4.

Samples will follow...

[2manyrocks]

I think this may be the most enthusiastic post about a recorder I have ever read. 

[jmerin]

I will call tomorrow, hope it works for me too!

[Life In Rewind]

I love this fucking thing!!!

Listening to my NYE house party recording from last night...

Ran from around 9PM to just short of 3AM - my SCUD 13000 had just hit 2 bars (of 4)

This was my first matrix attempt with this device...playback out of the unit is outstanding.

Took the board feed (bass, vox, and some kick drum) in on channel 1&2 - 1/8 Line In from the mixers RCA outs.
And ran the Audix 1280s onstage, NOS into 3 & 4.

Samples will follow...

http://rovingsign.com/dr70d/redeyeset0105.mp3

[2manyrocks]

sounds good.

Those who've used the 70d, any more comments on the overall build of the unit, the battery door, the screen, meter accuracy, the tilted screen, etc?  No zipper noise on the gain controls?  How is the XLR layout working for you?

[Life In Rewind]

A few impressions:

Solid metal casing. Only the bottom plate seems made of plastic. The photog-oriented, screw on gadget on the top is removable - and the unit comes with 4 rubber plugs to put in the screw holes if you choose to remove it. The battery/card-slot door is also plastic. It does seem a bit fumbly. All things considered, the little plastic hinge thing may be more durable than a mechanical/metal solution. The batteries actually have their own metal door under the plastic hood.(which has a solid hinge and closer) Since most of us will use an external battery, and getting to the card is easy.(compared to working with the battery door) - not a big deal. The red handles make nice stilts/stand for working on the battery side without hurting the screen or knobs.

Knobs move nicely, just enough resistance to make your adjustments smooth. I don't think I made enough adjustments to notice any unusual, though (re: zipping sound)

Unit recognized something on the USB and asked me what I wanted to do - Power or Data.

Backlight stays on continuously when on USB power. Cool. I like to watch. Titled screen seems fine - and at a good angle. Might be too extreme for those who want to run vertically, with your bag at your feet.

Meters combined with the LED peak light make it easy enough to keep a handle on things. There is a little indicator that shows the latest peak in the last X amount of time - but its not clear what channel its attributed to...and it's tiny!

XLR layout - angle/stubby plugs will be the best. Full size XLRs are half the width of the unit. Worked ok in my laptop bag - but will be getting some new cables! Nice combo XLRs take 1/4 inch inputs also. Ultimately, I will make ALL of my cables angle plugged for this unit.

The one dream feature this unit needs is a "solo" feature to make the screen display a single channel - and all of its (more detailed) gain info.

[Johannes]

Thanks for all the valuable posts in this thread. They helped me to decide and order one.

I'd like to share some battery tests:

4 new AA Panasonic NiHM 2600mAh
out of the box: hardly more than 1 hour
after first charging:  2 hours (2 channels, 1 with phantom)
after second charging: almost 4 hours (3 channels all with phantom)

I read somewhere that batteries need a few cycles to get to their strength, so this is probably not too bad.
The battery indicator goes down to half rather quickly and remains quit long in the lower quarter.

attached to an Anker Astro pro 20000 mAh
23 (!) hours of continuos recording (3 channels all with phantom)
This should get you even through a very long shooting day ;-)

I do some real world recording tomorrow and will share some more thoughts.

Johannes

[Life In Rewind]

One thing I wanted to mention - run temperatures.

My battery, (SCUD P130 13000mAh) and the recorder ran cool as a cucumber.

I didn't detect any heat coming from either!

[jmerin]

Thanks for all the valuable posts in this thread. They helped me to decide and order one.

I'd like to share some battery tests:

4 new AA Panasonic NiHM 2600mAh
out of the box: hardly more than 1 hour
after first charging:  2 hours (2 channels, 1 with phantom)
after second charging: almost 4 hours (3 channels all with phantom)

I read somewhere that batteries need a few cycles to get to their strength, so this is probably not too bad.
The battery indicator goes down to half rather quickly and remains quit long in the lower quarter.

attached to an Anker Astro pro 20000 mAh
23 (!) hours of continuos recording (3 channels all with phantom)
This should get you even through a very long shooting day ;-)

I do some real world recording tomorrow and will share some more thoughts.

Johannes

That's a lot of record time for the  Anker Astro pro 20000 mAh. Thanks for testing!

[F.O.Bean]

One question about the peak light on the front of the 70d. Is it user selectable? Meaning, I can choose what level I want the peak LED to go on at? Id like my peak LED to go on at about -6 or so. Or is it already a flat number that Tascam chose beforehand?

TIA!

Bean

[jmerin]

One question about the peak light on the front of the 70d. Is it user selectable? Meaning, I can choose what level I want the peak LED to go on at? Id like my peak LED to go on at about -6 or so. Or is it already a flat number that Tascam chose beforehand?

TIA!

Bean

No you cannot select what level you would like the peak lights to go on.

[404 Not Found]

Just got my DR-70D earlier this week and ran it last night for the Ed Palermo Big Band.  Loved using this recorder!  Was a snap to run, although I do run this from a Sound Devices 552 as my pre and mixer.

End result was a damn fine recording of a Big Band playing mostly Zappa music. 

The ergo factor for me, having this work with the bag I use, made it even better.

For the price, I am definitely a happy taper.

The screen is detailed pretty good in regard to where the 0DB mark would be and as I noted in running it from a mic pre, it was a pleasure using this unit.