Got my PR-4 today and have spent a couple hours with it. First impressions:
What I like:
- Size. A little wider, but the same height as a deck of playing cards. Maybe twice the thickness of a deck of cards.
- Digital inputs in a really compact size package. WOW! LOVE THIS.
- Dual recording...it records to both SD and SSD at the same time.
- Space saving 3.5mm connector for channels 3/4. I know some (probably most) people would want these to be XLRs, but I appreciate that the mini-jack saves space on this thing. For me, I can use that interface as the input from my riotbox, which is how I'll mainly be using it. If I want to use these channels with XLR mics, all I need to do is connect my 3.5mm > Stereo XLR y-cable.
- The NP550 battery that powers this thing is a common battery and readily available on Amazon. No proprietary battery or connectors on this thing that cost triple so that the manufacturer can suck money from its loyal customers.
- On/Off switch. Slides easily but virtually impossible to accidentally shut off since the yellow button needs to be depressed to change the slider switch position.
- Interface controls. Very simple and accessible for menu access and navigating through the menus. Absolutely intuitive and much MUCH better IMHO than the SD mixpre series interface.
- Touch screen. The touch screen has only one function, which I love. The only thing the touch screen does is toggle back and forth between channels 1/2 and 3/4. When 1/2 are selected, the fader and level controls are controlled by the knobs on the left side. Touch the screen and it switches to Channels 3/4 with the same controls used to change 3 and 4. There's nothing on the touch screen that I can see that would cause a recording to be messed up simply from a 'butt dial' type tap of the screen. I LOVE this. Touch screens are cool and modern and all, but I've got fat fingertips and I just prefer knobs and buttons. (By the way, you do swipe left/right/up/down on the touch screen as an alternative/quick way to access logical menu's, but otherwise the only real function of the touchscreen is to toggle between channels 1/2 and 3/4.)
- Screen is really nice and bright, even though it's quite small. I don't see it being a problem seeing in any recording scenario, unless you have poor eyesight.
- You can toggle off the 'Deity' LED on the back that lights up whenever you're recording. This is nice for the videographers that this unit was targeted to, so that the people can know when you're recording, but a literal waste of power for us audio recorders.
- Three powering options...internal (optional) NP550 battery, USBC port, 4-pin Hirose connector. I'll be using the USBC port with NP550 as backup in case the USBC cable gets accidentally pulled out. Whichever power is being supplied to the unit is displayed on the screen, so it should be easy to tell if a USB cable accidentally gets pulled if this is sitting in the bottom of your bag.
- Access to the SD card doesn't require removal of any other stuff. We all know what I'm referring to here...the SD Mix-Pre 3 (and I think the 6) requires removal of the battery to access the card slot.
What I neither like, nor dislike:
- You have a choice between basic and expert mode in the menu. Basic mode disables some of the controls and makes this thing operate kinda like a press and play cassette deck. Meh. Basic disables a few functions...like the fader/gain knobs (gain levels are selected from the gain control in the input menu). I understand the point because in 32-bit float everything is kinda recording on autopilot anyway so faders and gain knobs aren't really needed (except if you inexplicably use this thing as a 24-bit recorder), but 'BASIC' does nothing for me. I'm pretty sure that literally all of us in taper world will be choosing Expert, although I suppose "BASIC" make it operate similar to a Zoom F3. I don't particularly see the point of 'basic', but what the heck.
- The NP battery that powers the unit is NOT included. I wouldn't necessarily have expected it to be included, but it's kinda weird opening this thing up and having that big old empty space behind the battery cover.
- It's weird to me that, from what I can tell, you don't have an option to toggle the SSD off to save power. With this thing using so little power anyway, it might not be a big deal, but I'm thinking that if you get 8 hours from the NP550, you could longer run times if you could turn off the SSD, but maybe SSDs draw so little power it's a moot point.
- I haven't tried the app yet. Not sure if I'm even going to use that. I don't use and never particularly cared for the SD wingman app. I don't like the thought that my phone can accidently fuck up a recording if a butt dial happens.
- The record button is kinda funky, but I kinda like it. An instant press starts recording, but you have to press and hold for a second or two to stop recording. I think I prefer double press to stop the recording, but long press effectively does the same thing to prevent an accidental rec button press.
What I don't like:
- It's not that I don't like this...I ABSOLUTELY HATE IT. There's no way to delete a file from either the SSD or SD Card from the User Interface. I suppose it's nice so that you don't accidentally delete something, but having to connect the USB cable simply to manage your files is going to be a real PITA. What happens in the field when I'm at a festival on Day 4 and discover that I'm about to run out of disc space and I don't have any extra SD cards with me?? Normally, I'd go into the interface and delete old recordings to make space. Not on this thing. Changing this MUST BE INCLUDED IN THE FIRST FIRMWARE UPDATE. FWIW, I put a 256gb SD card in it to hopefully avoid any space management issues until a firmware update is done.
- This could have been in the 'indifferent' category, but I decided to include it as a negative because it makes no sense to me. The card format selection IS NOT in the system menu. Throughout the history of mankind, 'format' is under the system menu, why not here? You have to search for it and finally find it buried on the second page of the REC menu. Weird.
- The default Timecode mode is a blinking red rectangular square on the base screen. It's a HUGE distraction because of both the size of the rectangle and ESPECIALLY that its default mode is blinking. It's the only blinking item on the screen! The icon itself isn't useful at all for us audio tapers that don't use timecode. First off, I'd prefer the real estate on the basic screen not to include timecode information. Second change the default setting. That said, it's probably not a big deal in the long run. It annoyingly took me any hour to figure out how to get the blinking to stop...the blinking is SOO distracting.
That said, the blinking is easy to fix, even though I spent an hour trying to figure it out. From the timecode menu, select the Deity as the MASTER and the icon will stop blinking. As a personal preference, I also changed the color to purple which makes that icon much less prominent on the base screen. However, my personal preference would be to remove the timecode from the base screen altogether and bury it one level down in the menu.
- So far, from messing around with it and skimming through the manual, I'm not seeing a HOLD function. I hope I'm going to update this post and remove this comment, but for now I don't think it has one. EDIT: Thankfully there IS a hold function, but Deity calls it LOCK, which is why I didn't find it searching the term 'hold'. While recording is on, press the menu button three times in succession to toggle LOCK on and off. Whew!
