Had my first time out with the device last weekend.
in a very small jazz hall (An Die Musik in Baltimore). Band was the Paul Carr Legacy Quartet.
Recorded with Line Audio OM1 (48V) in Healy Technique, mounted to a stationary
"object" @ DFC, approximately 2 feet away from stage lip and about 3 ft high with no obstructions. Show was about an hour and a half and I appeared to have about 50% battery left when done (but recording was inadvertently stopped for a while, see point below).
Overall experience with the device was good, however the slide start / stop record thing is decidedly poor. Especially in a
situation, given the very minor amount of force required to activate the slide function, there is a significant potential for a minor bump or even cables settling in a bag to stop recording inadvertently. This occurred during this outing, and I lost a portion of the show on this device as a result. Not a fan. A simple update requiring a 2 second hold slide would greatly reduce what seems to be a pretty significant risk to me (have a high number of
shows under my belt and have a well worked out "system" - in spite of that this happened to me on the first outing). I can't recall the last time I've had an issue with a recorder being stopped when I was able to check it (other than perhaps a dead battery).
Re: Tone - To my ear it is definitely brighter and lacks some of the warmth I am used to in this hall with these mics wired into a SD MixPre3/6-ii. I would say there is plenty of bass there and the recording is pleasing enough, but something is off and weighted toward what I would describe as bright as compared to several previous recordings with the same rig into the MixPre. Certainly "correctable" with EQ in post but it does reinforce my affection for the "out of the box" SD sound. Obviously I need some more shows under my belt with the device to corroborate these initial thoughts. These things are hard to nail down - it could be entirely placebo effect.
As mentioned previously by myself and others, the size of this thing is tiny and this is its biggest asset. Since I purchased my first fully digital recorder (Sony PCM-D1) I have been longing for something very small, with no (inevitably poor) internal mics adding to the footprint, and including XLR connectivity as I have always loved the simplicity of a single reliable cable in between the each mic and the recorder. Lately, after using other 32-bit devices, this requirement has also made it on to my list. Especially for
or even semi-
the ability to completely ignore gain settings on the device has been a game changer for both me and my setup / ease of deployment. With those requirements in mind, this device comes closest to a realization of that dream, and as a result I will likely be using this for any place where
and security is a concern.
At some other venues I frequent where it's not explicitly open taping but more of a "be discrete" policy, I think I would still be more likely to bring out the SD as it is more tonally pleasing direct from the device (to my taste) and the slight increase in size doesn't matter to me as I'm not trying to crotch the thing.
I'll report back again after another go at it this weekend in a large opera hall setting from FOB with the CM4s. Eager to see how it performs with those mics as well.
Hope this is useful others. Let me know if you have any questions. Raw from device WAV sample of a track can be found grabbed here for a week:
https://we.tl/t-1IxD6OpCMm