Topic: Old taper going digital

[bodegahwy]

Money's worth?  Now there is a subjective issue.  If I have fun doing it, I'll be covered on that front.  At least it's cheaper than guitars!  (LOL,  I know the sky is the limit...  If I get recordings that sound as good as my D5 with 451e mics I'll be a happy camper)

I am still tempted to get a unit that has Phantom Power like the 670 and run with that for while and add the UA5 later if I get more serious.  At least I could make the CD of myself that my mother has been asking for these many years.  She is about 70 now, so I better not put it off too much longer...

Seriously though,  Thanks again everybody for all the help and advice.

[dnsacks]

1) if you're really set on the pdm-670, note that doug oade (@ www.oade.com) sells these and performs some modifications to the front end to fix their inherent sonic shortcomings (alluded to by Tim, etc.) --

2) I'd also look strongly at the Fostex FR2 (also sold and modified to improve the analog front end by doug oade) -- costs a bit more than the pdm-670, but also supports solid state media (which can actually be read directly by computers using cheap card readers).  The main advantages being that it's supposed to be a better sounding unit than the marantz and, unlike the marantz, it supports 24 bit recording (which can pretty easily be burned to dvd and played back in dvd-a players) as well as standard 16bit/44.1k (i.e. audio cd standard).

3) not sure you're 100% clear on everybody's attraction to the mod ua5/jb3 combo (as I still feel it gives the most bang for your buck).  Start with the jb3 -- The JB3 is a portable-cd-player sized hard-drive-based mp3/wav recorder/player.  In this situation, it simply serves as a digital recorder, reading and storing to its 20gb internal hard drive the zeros and one sent to it by the ua5 (in 16/44.1k cd-ready format).  The jb3 then connects to a pc (via usb or firewire -- firewire's a lot faster) and, after a few mouse clicks, your recording's transferred to your computer for tracking and burning (just about as easy as transferring from the pdm-670 or fr2).  The UA-5 serves as a one box setup providing phantom power, a nice sounding mic pre (especially with one of the oades' analog line stage mods), and an a>d converter.  The weak links with this setup are a) metering sucks -- but it's easy to add an external meter for around $100, and b) the initial learning curve's a bit steeper than the 2 above.  However, there are a TON of folks running this exact combo in the field and you therefore have a huge "fan base" that can get you up and running (as well as fairly detailed instructions on this site -- I think)

Mics -- I'm going to throw out another suggestion in your price range -- the studio projects LSD2, a one piece stereo large diagphram microphone containing 2 LD capsules stacked on top of oneanother -- the caps are modeled after the classic german LD capsules (i.e. neumann u87 or akg 414) -- I run one and think it sounds amazing (especially for the price) -- to me it sounds more like a LD AKG than a LD neumann -- besides sounding great, it's also really easy to set up, dial in the angle between the caps, select pickup patterns (omni, cardiod or figure , mount its included shockmount onto your stand and you're ready to go.  Though it seems pretty large at first (at just over a foot tall), since it's not pointing out at the sound source (like a pair of sd mics), it actually is a pretty low profile setup. 

the following link will send you to a boatload of samples doug oade made of the above mic, the studio projects c4 (small diagphram condensors) and a schoeps mtsc64 (schoeps mk4 card caps in ortf configuration) through a variety of mods made to the above gear (fr2 and ua5).  This should give you some idea of the different sound these combos could provide. -- http://www.oade.com/Tapers_Section/Forum/dcboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=100&topic_id=1553&mode=full#1576

[bagtagsell]

If you like the windows explorer type transfer system, Red Chair software makes a program for the JB3 that will give you windows explorer on your jb3

[Brian Skalinder]

The weak links with this setup [ UA5 / JB3 ] are a) metering sucks -- but it's easy to add an external meter for around $100

Just a quick note to say that while this setup would benefit from external meters, I had no trouble running it without meters.  Just takesa  little practice - took me all of a couple shows to get the feel for it.

[caymanreview]

The weak links with this setup [ UA5 / JB3 ] are a) metering sucks -- but it's easy to add an external meter for around $100

Just a quick note to say that while this setup would benefit from external meters, I had no trouble running it without meters.  Just takesa  little practice - took me all of a couple shows to get the feel for it.

same here, i ran that rig for quite some tiem w/out meters

[sexymexi]

i might try to stay away from the 2 gig flash cards for media.  I know in the FR-2 they burn up.  If you don't plan on running 24/96 i think it might be ok.  i would just be cautious using them for that.  Anyone have any other problems with CF cards??