Topic: What to use for recording a concert?

[Giant_Rick]

Everybody will disagree for sure.. but a Hi-MD + mikes would be nice.
I have a Sony NH900 and a Sony DS70P, paid 160€ (mint condition + other things..) this summer, and I recorded Springsteen in a stadium from the pit area. It came out nice, beside some songs were I sang all the time. PM me if you want an exampe to listen how it sounds.

In my opinion, for the beginning, a Hi-MD recorder is nice; if you look on eBay you can find some Sony NH700 for less than 100$. You can record up to 94 min. in WAV quality, up to 7 hours @ 256kbps, which it's a restpectable quality. Let your ears judge and not the others' comments.
For the mikes.. the Sony DS70P is obiviously not a nice deal if you look at Church's products.. I have never tried any of these, but according to hours of listening they are worth every cent of their price. A nice set of CA11 costs about 120$, add 30$ for the battery box (as the mikes and condenser mikes and they work with electric power, which is given by the battery box.. for almost every Sony mikes of the ECM series the power is given by the mic in of Sony MDs or DATs).

By the way the more I tape the more I understand that you can make a great recording (..and I mean a very great one) even with a  bad equipment, if you know how to do your job.

[darktrain]

Everybody will disagree for sure.. but a Hi-MD + mikes would be nice.
I have a Sony NH900 and a Sony DS70P, paid 160€ (mint condition + other things..) this summer, and I recorded Springsteen in a stadium from the pit area. It came out nice, beside some songs were I sang all the time. PM me if you want an exampe to listen how it sounds.

In my opinion, for the beginning, a Hi-MD recorder is nice; if you look on eBay you can find some Sony NH700 for less than 100$. You can record up to 94 min. in WAV quality, up to 7 hours @ 256kbps, which it's a restpectable quality. Let your ears judge and not the others' comments.
For the mikes.. the Sony DS70P is obiviously not a nice deal if you look at Church's products.. I have never tried any of these, but according to hours of listening they are worth every cent of their price. A nice set of CA11 costs about 120$, add 30$ for the battery box (as the mikes and condenser mikes and they work with electric power, which is given by the battery box.. for almost every Sony mikes of the ECM series the power is given by the mic in of Sony MDs or DATs).

By the way the more I tape the more I understand that you can make a great recording (..and I mean a very great one) even with a  bad equipment, if you know how to do your job.

That mic might be alright sometimes but it will absolutely clip in a really loud rock/metal show unless you are in the back of the venue maybe, trust me been there done that with that mic

[Giant_Rick]

That mic might be alright sometimes but it will absolutely clip in a really loud rock/metal show unless you are in the back of the venue maybe, trust me been there done that with that mic

I don't want to argue, but what if you use a battery box? It should raise your limit of maximum sound pressure.. you can also set the levels (a bad thing is that, on the NH900, you have to press ''pause'' to set the levels!).

[darktrain]

That mic might be alright sometimes but it will absolutely clip in a really loud rock/metal show unless you are in the back of the venue maybe, trust me been there done that with that mic

I don't want to argue, but what if you use a battery box? It should raise your limit of maximum sound pressure.. you can also set the levels (a bad thing is that, on the NH900, you have to press ''pause'' to set the levels!).

Nope, doesn't matter, that mic can only handle a SPL of if i remember 110 or so which if you are in a small venue or close to a stack, will without a doubt clip with or without a bb, been there done that, the recorder is fine, its the mic that is limited, pick up a set of church cards and you will see, not to mention that sony mic is limited sound wise as well.

here is the info from sony: •Frequency Response : 100-15,000Hz  , those #'s are not ideal for concert recording, lot of frequency getting cut off, look for something with a range of at least 40-20,000

[fmaderjr]

By the way the more I tape the more I understand that you can make a great recording (..and I mean a very great one) even with a  bad equipment, if you know how to do your job.

IMO, that's a huge overstatement. But you can make a great recording with good but inexpensive equipment (like the Church Audio stuff) that will sound better than recordings made with thousands of dollars worth of equipment if you were in a sweet spot and the owner of the expensive stuff wasn't.

You'd be hard pressed to make a great recording with a cheap no bass Sony mic like the DS70P and you would also be in danger of overloading the mic at any loud concert, resulting in a recording that would be truely terrible.

When you can get a system capable of making great recordings for $300-$400, I would't try to with a really cheap system featuring a mediocre mic like that Sony. Save up a couple more months and get something decent.

[rhinowing]

I've heard plenty of good tapes made with DS-70Ps, ECM-717s, or what have you

[fmaderjr]

Why make things hard for yourself by not spending a few bucks more? I can still enjoy some of my recording today made with a Sony ECM-MS907 (a much better mic than the DS 70P but still limited in bass response), but they would have been even better if made with the slightly more expensive CA-11's.

here is the info from sony: •Frequency Response : 100-15,000Hz  , those #'s are not ideal for concert recording, lot of frequency getting cut off, look for something with a range of at least 40-20,000

[Giant_Rick]

IMO, that's a huge overstatement. But you can make a great recording with good but inexpensive equipment (like the Church Audio stuff) that will sound better than recordings made with thousands of dollars worth of equipment if you were in a sweet spot and the owner of the expensive stuff wasn't.

You'd be hard pressed to make a great recording with a cheap no bass Sony mic like the DS70P and you would also be in danger of overloading the mic at any loud concert, resulting in a recording that would be truely terrible.

When you can get a system capable of making great recordings for $300-$400, I would't try to with a really cheap system featuring a mediocre mic like that Sony. Save up a couple more months and get something decent.

Perhaps I used the wrong words, what I mean is that the equipment is important, but not as the experience and knowledge of the taper!
It's like guitars (I'm a guitarist).. you can start with a 2,000$ Fender and sound like shit.. and in the meantime a good guitarist can sound like God with a 200$ Fender clone.
Obiviously sooner or later the good guitarist will buy a better guitar.. like me, who'll buy a set of new mikes soon.

[fmaderjr]

I see where you're coming from, Rick, regarding guitars. I bet the $200 fender clone sounds a lot closer to a Fender than a $35 mic does to an excellent buget mic like a CA-11, so if played by a great guitarist, the Fender clone is cabable of sounding great. It's hard to make a great recording with that $35 mic though.

I respect your ability to play the guitar. I love recording a good guitarist, but can't play anything myself.

[martinlan]

Hello all!

I'm quite new to this forum, so please excuse me for potentially dumb questions. I noticed this post, and I'd just like to comment on your statements about the Zoom recorders. I have an H4 myself, and I've successfully taped several shows with it. It's NOT phantom powered (although it is an option), and its internal mikes give a pretty decent result. It's easy to use too. Also, this is a digital recorder, so I don't have to worry about getting tapes (this may be like swearing in church, but I reckon tapes to be a quite dated medium in 2009). A high quality SD card is all you need.

Btw, I also read some things about the Zoom H2/H4. What about that?

If you want to keep things simple, you could just get a Zoom H2 and record with the internal mics, many people out there seem to like that approach and it gets reasonable results if you're not too serious about taping yet and just want to try it out.  Don't know much about the H4 but I think it is a larger, phantom power supplying recorder that isn't too popular.

[fmaderjr]

I have a Zoom H4 and hate it. I used it twice and both recordings came out fine (one using the internals), but it's a pain in the ass to use and has a wide variety of potential limitations. At the present time, if you don't need phantom power, there are many much better options for a similar or lower price (the Tascam DR-07 for one). If you do need phantom the Zoom is even a worse choice. It is very noisy with most mics. I hear the Zoom H4n is much better, but of course costs more.