Topic: Edirol R-44 - 4 Channel Recorder (Part Tres)

[kgreener]

i have no idea how much power these pair of mics draw, but fwiw i have run a pair of DPA 4060's and a Schoeps CMXY4v stereo mic more than once into my R-44 without incident.

ymmv

[kirk97132]

I'm planning to record tomorrow night's concert with the first two channels fed via S/P-DIF from a Grace V3, which will power the main pair of mikes. The second pair of mikes will be needed only for the first half of the concert; I'll connect that pair directly to the recorder and power them from it. I think I should be OK that way.

--best regards

From what I'm reading about available amperage I'd agree with you.  The Digi & Analog in is how I am usually running mine too.  I like running it this way and maybe it's just luck but seem to end up with the best results too.  I wonder how that full load of amperage draw on the phantom circuit would affect battery life especially if you happened to be running AA's?

[Scooter]

Lets hope that they did it the sensible way 

[DSatz]

Just to answer a previous question, in general when too heavy a load is placed on a regulated power supply, its regulation stops being effective. The output falls below the intended voltage, and often there will be significant amounts of noise (hum and hash) riding on the DC output.

The spec in the manual for the R-44's phantom powering is 48 Volts +/- 4 Volts, 8 mA maximum per channel with 20 mA as the maximum total.

--I made my first recording with the R-44 tonight. It worked out well in the end, but I'm glad I had enough time to set up carefully before the concert and listen to some room tone. I had the weirdest experience I've ever had with RFI. I'm too tired to write it up right now, but it could really have been a problem if I hadn't eventually lucked into one physical positioning for each item (preamp battery, preamp/converter, recorder, and microphones) that stopped the buzz somehow. And I was running everything on batteries--there was no connection to any AC outlet.

I hope that isn't a recurrent problem, because I'd far rather record on the R-44 than on my laptop computer with a M Audio "Quattro Pro USB" interface (which is line-level only, and thus requires four outboard mike preamp channels as well).

--best regards

[BayTaynt3d]

Hey folks, long time no speak...

I've been loving my R44 for a while now, damn fine machine, heh...

But I've got a question I should probably already know the answer to, and it's probably buried in here somewhere, but I can't seem to find it, so sorry for the repetition.

I never use the limiter for music, but I'm going to be doing a bunch of interviews soon, and I was thinking about possibly using the limiter for some of the more unpredictable stuff.

So, has anyone figured out the definitive answers to these questions yet (on the R44):

1. Is the limiter analog?
2. What's the threshold?
3. What's the ratio?

Thanks in advance for any help...

[Ozpeter]

The R-44's limiter is analog and digital mixed like the R-4Pro. When you turn on the limiter, analog gain goes automatically -12dB down for prevention of digital distortion and after that passes through the digital limiter. After that the signal level goes +12dB back up  again for matching total signal level.

The limiter threshold is -10 dB relative to digital full scale.

I had that from the mouth of the horse some time back.

[Ozpeter]

I had the weirdest experience I've ever had with RFI.

I had some strange noise happen when I was doing some experiments.  I was running the R-44 and another device off the same battery pack, and noticed some weird noise issues.  Then I noticed the R-44 was dead - its power input had fried, because the other device was, I think, sending extra volts out of its power input because it had its own battery installed.  Thus the R-44 got more volts than it could handle.

Your problem could be quite different, but if you were using one power source for multiple devices, be careful!

[DSatz]

Just to nip this in the bud, no--I wasn't using one battery to power more than one device. The R-44 was running on four AA cells in its underbelly (I changed them during intermission), while the V3 was running on a separate rechargeable battery of its own.

The interference problem, if that's what it was, first appeared as a buzz in one channel of my stereo mike, which was plugged directly into channels 3 and 4 of the R-44, running from the R-44's internal phantom powering. I swapped the two XLR plugs and the buzz changed to the other channel, so I thought at first that either the mike (an older model which was recently overhauled) or the cable was defective. I found an odd way of looping and running the cable from that mike so that the noise was minimized, but it was still audible over headphones.

I promised some weirdness and here it is: I moved some of the stuff around (R-44, preamp, preamp battery and the respective cables between them), during which time I powered down the recorder. When I powered it back up again, suddenly the buzz was in channels 1 and 2, which were being fed into the recorder digitally from the outboard preamp/converter. Channels 3 and 4 were perfectly quiet; it was as if the poltergeist had simply moved over.

Eventually I moved the preamp/converter's battery, the preamp/converter and the R-44 as far apart from one another as their cables would allow, and at that point I no longer heard any buzz, and I left things that way for the whole concert.

--best regards

[BayTaynt3d]

The R-44's limiter is analog and digital mixed like the R-4Pro. When you turn on the limiter, analog gain goes automatically -12dB down for prevention of digital distortion and after that passes through the digital limiter. After that the signal level goes +12dB back up  again for matching total signal level.

The limiter threshold is -10 dB relative to digital full scale.

I had that from the mouth of the horse some time back.

Ah, yes, now I remember some of this. So, unless I'm missing something here, this is basically pointless isn't it? I mean sure, it gives you 10 db more headroom, but hell, I can get that by turning down the gain myself. So, it seems like if you actually needed more than 10db of headroom, you'd end up still clipping before they even apply the digital limiter anyway, no? If true, that's just stupid, lol.

[Ozpeter]

Any limiter when recording should be used only as a longstop, not as an effect.   So in this case, you'd set levels so that it looked unlikely that any peak would exceed -10dB (I think.....)  But if you wanted to be quite sure, you'd then use the limiter to catch the totally unexpected.   However, indeed you could alternatively back the input sensitivity down by two clicks (if available) and then digitally limit in your DAW afterwards - same difference.

[BayTaynt3d]

However, indeed you could alternatively back the input sensitivity down by two clicks (if available) and then digitally limit in your DAW afterwards - same difference.

That's my exact point, that with their system it seems COMPLETELY POINTLESS to do it in the recorder --  you absolutely get NOTHING out of doing in the recorder except to limit (pun intended) your options in post. I'm still not entirely sure that's true, but if so, my main point stands, LOL, that their limiter S-U-C-K-S, it basically isn't really a limiter IMHO. The limiter in my FP24, now that IS a limiter, this one is a complete joke. (Don't get me wrong, I LOVE my R44, just saying...)

[Will_S]

However, indeed you could alternatively back the input sensitivity down by two clicks (if available) and then digitally limit in your DAW afterwards - same difference.

That's my exact point, that with their system it seems COMPLETELY POINTLESS to do it in the recorder --  you absolutely get NOTHING out of doing in the recorder except to limit (pun intended) your options in post. I'm still not entirely sure that's true, but if so, my main point stands, LOL, that their limiter S-U-C-K-S, it basically isn't really a limiter IMHO. The limiter in my FP24, now that IS a limiter, this one is a complete joke. (Don't get me wrong, I LOVE my R44, just saying...)

Ummm, if you run 10 dB cool and then a spike bigger than that hits you, you're screwed either way.  You have to add 10 dB of digital gain either way.  So you get NOTHING more by running 10 dB cool and applying a limiter in post.  So you don't lose any flexibility by running the limiter, and it saves you work in post.

I wouldn't use the limiter, but it seems like it has an obvious utility, really it doesn't seem like you should need more than 10 dB of safety anyway, so I think for some users this limiter is handy and saves them work in post, while a more sophisticated (ie expensive) limiter would be wasteful.

[kirk97132]

Just to nip this in the bud, no--I wasn't using one battery to power more than one device. The R-44 was running on four AA cells in its underbelly (I changed them during intermission), while the V3 was running on a separate rechargeable battery of its own.

The interference problem, if that's what it was, first appeared as a buzz in one channel of my stereo mike, which was plugged directly into channels 3 and 4 of the R-44, running from the R-44's internal phantom powering. I swapped the two XLR plugs and the buzz changed to the other channel, so I thought at first that either the mike (an older model which was recently overhauled) or the cable was defective. I found an odd way of looping and running the cable from that mike so that the noise was minimized, but it was still audible over headphones.

I promised some weirdness and here it is: I moved some of the stuff around (R-44, preamp, preamp battery and the respective cables between them), during which time I powered down the recorder. When I powered it back up again, suddenly the buzz was in channels 1 and 2, which were being fed into the recorder digitally from the outboard preamp/converter. Channels 3 and 4 were perfectly quiet; it was as if the poltergeist had simply moved over.

Eventually I moved the preamp/converter's battery, the preamp/converter and the R-44 as far apart from one another as their cables would allow, and at that point I no longer heard any buzz, and I left things that way for the whole concert.

--best regards

It makes me wonder if Edirol has run into this on occasion seeing as the power supply and USB cable have chokes on them and they even provide one for the head phone cord.  Maybe they have had RFI issues?

I had a weird experience with my R-44 this weekend with it jumping into pause during the show about 40 minutes in.  It had showed levels at the beginning of the show but upon opening the wave it was flat lined for the whole 1st set. What makes it even weirder is that a friend running a 744 had some very strange issues with his deck too.  His tracks lost sync and the shortly after the signal flat lined on all four channels.  I was on battery he was on AC power.  We have no idea what caused it.  I do know that some of the light boards I've used you MUST turn your cell phone off or leave it very far away from the desk or else it can cause a reboot of the system.  Maybe some strong RFI signal messed us up?  And how does a 744 recording four track lose it's sync in the deck....very strange.  Yet the seond set came out fine for both of us and we didn't do anything different.

[andyjah]

Hi--just checking in. I bought an R-44 this afternoon, just got home, and am unpacking it now. I have a concert to record Friday night that'll need four microphones. My laptop computer setup for four-channel recording has been adequate but unweildy, and it ties me to AC power, so I hope this thing will work.

The 8 GB SDHC card that I bought with the unit is from Lexar, but isn't on the lists I see posted here--in fact I can't find a model designation at all, unless "SD8GB-711" is it.

The only bench test I've made so far is to see whether it can light up four Schoeps PHS 48 phantom power testers simultaneously. The answer is no--three's the limit. So if I'm recording with four CMC-series microphones I'll have to use external phantom powering for two of them, which ain't the end of the world; alternatively I could use one pair of lower-current microphones along with a pair of CMC-series mikes.

--best regards

A few weeks ago we ran 4 sets of Schoeps all CMC6/mk21/mk22/mk4/mk41 directly into two R-44s for a comparison. No outboard gear. They both powered the four mics with no issues.

[BayTaynt3d]

So you don't lose any flexibility by running the limiter, and it saves you work in post.

Not sure I agree because anything above -10 db is now being "digitally limited," so once you're in post, you have a signal that's already been messed with. Now, that would be fine and all if you actually got some more headroom for it, in this case you get really no advantage except maybe not having to do it in post if you wanted to. Thing is then, at that point, for me personally, I'd rather not even bother limiting at all, and I'll just customize the compression as need in post. There's no headroom benefit, and it DOES leave an impact on anything recorded above -10 db. Now of course it does, because you turned the limiter on after all, right, that was the point, you wanted the limiter. But, since you get no real benefit in headroom, it just seems to me that at that point you'd be better off just turning it down two clicks yourself and doing everything else in post. Personally speaking, to me, that makes it kind of useless. Or maybe pointless is a better word. But again, maybe I'm missing something? Haven't heard anything yet that makes me think otherwise.

Also, I do feel that there are times in field recording, maybe not in audience recording so much (or at all), where having an analog limiter than can handle well more than 10db gracefully is a nice thing -- that is if you're actually able to use it to get your main signal up in level without the use of digital tricks.