Topic: Question about which field recording device to go for.

[hatchelt]

Evening all, I'm after a bit of advice about portable digial recorders.
I'm off travelling in a few weeks and have had this idea to make a collection of 5 minute soundscapes from various places; streets in Bali, the outback at night, Sydney subway, drinking at the OFS, etc.
Anyone know what the best device for this kinda project would be? Obviously I'm not going to be able to download anything onto my pc for 4 months so it'll need a fair bit of storage/battery life and good sound quality is a must.
Any ideas? At the moment I think I'm torn between the Edirol R-09 or the new Zoom H4, but I'm pretty new to these things so any input would be a great help.

[pgoelz]

The R9 is a lot smaller than the Zoom.  With 2 GB card and MP3 at 192kb that is about 20 hours of recording time.  In addition to real time timestamping, you can also rename the files right in the R9 if you want to better remember where they were recorded. 

I find the small size a major selling point, especially if you want to carry it around a lot.  Put it in a small belt pouch or the see through Treo case and clip it to your belt and you hardly know it is there.  I would think that would be ideal for your trip. 

Speaking of the Treo case, I found a whole shelf full of them at the local Meijers store for $14 each.  Meijers is like Kmart here in Michigan. 

Paul

[hatchelt]

Thanks Paul. Ideally I'd like to be recording at the highest rate possible, so I'm guessing I'd need 2 or 3 cards?

[hatchelt]

Also, can anyone tell me which device has the best built-in mic?

[pgoelz]

You can of course record at higher bitrates and bit depths but unless you are a purist, there are diminishing returns the higher you go.  For field recordings of music, I'm quite happy with 192kb.

The only portable recorders I have used with built in mics have been the R1 and the R9.  They are very sililar but there is "something" about the R9 recordings that I like a little better.  Smoother? 

[terrapinj]

Also, can anyone tell me which device has the best built-in mic?

very few of us use the built in mics as they tend to be limited. I recorded an acoustic performance where the guy was using the internals on a Sony PCM-d1 and seemed to be quite happy with them.

also, if you are wanting the highest quality possible avoid mp3 at all costs as it is lossy compression, you will save on file size but trade off on some quality.

at 24bit 48kHz you get about 1 hour of recording time per GB of file space. you could bring a few extra SD cards with you for the R-09, or if you find a used R-1 you can get higher capacity Compact Flash cards.I grabbed an 8GB card for about $175 recently from newegg, which would give you about 7 - 7.5hrs of 24/48 of recording time.

[hatchelt]

Thanks for the replies! So would I be able to get away with the built-in mic on the R-09 or will I need a separate one for my recordings?

[terrapinj]

Thanks for the replies! So would I be able to get away with the built-in mic on the R-09 or will I need a separate one for my recordings?

is it just for personal use or will this be some sort of professional project? also a key question is what's your budget?

i have heard that the internals on the R-1 and R-09 are actually pretty decent. if you are just interested in ambient type sounds i would think that the R-1/R-09 internals would be fine. the main reason they aren't commonly used in concert recording is that they likely overload fairly easily with high SPLs and a lack of ability to change stereo pattern. the other really nice factor is the fact that it runs on AA batteries.

I think the R-1 has an advantage because of larger storage mediums, but the R-09 is much smaller

[hatchelt]

Thanks for the replies! So would I be able to get away with the built-in mic on the R-09 or will I need a separate one for my recordings?

is it just for personal use or will this be some sort of professional project? also a key question is what's your budget?

Just personal really. I figured it'd be a nice little souvenir, everyone takes photos but I find sound's better for putting you back in a certain place and time. I *might* see if one of my labels would be interested in putting it out as a soundscape cd, but I think that's getting a little ahead of myself.
As for budget...uhh, as dangerous as it sounds, I guess I don't really have one 

I think I am leaning towards the R-09. It sounds like something I can just take out of my pocket, hit record and get a decent result.

[pgoelz]

Here's a sample I recorded at a fiddle festival this summer up in Canada:

http://www.pgoelz.com/recorder_audio_samples/r9.mp3

R9, internal mics, outdoors but under a large canopy, manual level control, 192kb/S MP3.  Since I can hear me in the background playing pizz cello, I think for this recording it was lying on the ground but I can't swear to it.  It might have been on a chair next to me.  In any event it was about 10 feet from the bulk of the fiddles. 

Paul

[hatchelt]

Many thanks for that pgoelz, it sounds great!

If I were to get an external mic for outside nature records, which one would you lot recommend for the R-09?

[Jamos]

My friend just got back from spending 3 weeks in Morocco and he brought his R-09 with him.  He used the internal mics and recorded all kinds of streetscapes, music that he happened upon, and nature sounds.  All of it sounds really great.  IMO, unless you are going to go all out with a shotgun/preamp/mixer ENG-type setup, then the R-09 internal mics will suit you really well.

We had fun listening to his recordings on my home stereo...sounded like you were right there.  The quality of the mics is quite good, and you can't beat the ease of use, esp. walking around in a foreign country.

Good luck!

/james

[Scuba Jeremy]

The R09 internal mics are just fine for what you're looking to do. Hassling with an external mic would make the process less enjoyable if you're just trying to get soundscapes. Last year I went to Disney World and brought along my old MD wth an external mic, and I found that the self noise on my hand held mic really annoyed me. I had to hold perfectly still or else all I would hear would be the sound of the mic rubbing up against something.

I bought my R09 when my PCM-M1 DAT recorder died this summer. I liked that there were no moving parts (the death of my M1), the 24bit recording ability and the drag and drop ease of data transfer. I don't even really burn discs anymore, I archive the 24bits, upload Archive friendly artists to the Archive.org, and make a personal copy for my iPod. It's wonderful.

Once I found out how good the internal mics were for on-the-fly recordings, I started taking it around more often. I brought it to a travel convention earlier this year, and captured a Fijian band playing a traditional song called "Bula Malaya". I wouldn't have bothered bringing my MD, but the R09 did a great job recording the song.

http://www.scubajeremy.net/Fiji_Singers_Compressed.mp3

I did compress the track to balance the clapping vs the guitar work, but the track still sounds pretty good. The R09 is excellent in terms of self noise. Just holding the unit will not cause noise on the internal microphones.

For what you're looking for, I'd say the F09 is an excellent choice. Go with a Transcend 4GB card, and you'll have over 4 hours of 24bit 48 Khz. At 24bit 16 Khz, you'll have over 4 hours, and I think you can get just over 5 hours at CD quality, 16bit, 44.1Khz. If you start to step down to MP3, you can get more time, but I would reccomend getting another SD card. You can get the Transcend 4GB card for under $100, probably even under $75, it's been a while since I've looked.

I hope I've helped. I know I'm bringing my R09 when I travel to Argentina next summer. I can't wait!