Topic: What was your first recording device?

[Sunday Driver]

I only started taping in early 2005, but my first two recorders were cassette recorders. The first was a Sony voice recorder, which broke after one use. The tape of course sounds like utter crap. I didn't know anything yet about portable mini disc, DAT, or flash recorders at that point, but thankfully I found out soon enough.

[tim in jersey]

Some sort of mid-70's RatShack cassette recorder.

First real rig: 480's>Denecke PS-2>Oade-mod SBM-1>D8 circa '98 or '99.

I remember setting it up X-Y 90* in my driveway the night it arrived and recording traffic as it passed by. I was particularly amazed and blown away by the stereo seperation and panning of a Harley accelrating hard L>R through the stereo field.

I've been hooked ever since.

[live2496]

I had an earlier model to this (around 1977) but I don't recall what it was.  I think that one had mono mic only.
Here is a link to a TCS-300. http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/images/I012/10252789.aspx

My first home deck was a TEAC A-170. http://www.vintagecassette.com/Teac/A-170
I put a lot of hours on that one. I liked in particular the toggle switch that switched between mic/line. I could make some pretty sharp edits with it. Better than pressing stop if you wanted to stop recording at a certain spot. Switch it over to mic with the slider set to zero and let the tape roll for a few seconds extra.

[bonghitwillie]

ghetto blaster aka boom box. 

[leehookem]

My first was a JB3 in 2004.  Loved that thing.

[raymonda]

I used tons of crap to record albums and radio during the 70's but I'll assume the OP was referring to concert recorders.

In 1982, for $200.00, I bought this Sony Walkman WMR2 for the sole purpose of recording concerts. I used it for 4 shows and quickly bought a D6. The internal mics overloaded quickly and the line in recording was automatic, which meant that the recording volume increased with softer passages. Also, since the mics were directly coupled to the body it had a high noise floor. The frequency response was limited to mostly the mid frequencies, meaning that it was bandwidth limited and recordings sounded hard and, well, like crap. The D6 gave me the oportunity to get real on location quality.

In 1984 I got a D5. In 1989 I bought Panasonic SV250 which was replaced under warranty with a SV 255. In 1996 I got a Sony D10 PII and used it until I went to laptop recording in 2005, which I currently use for multi-tracking. A few years ago I bought a M-Audio MII as a bit bucket, which works extremely well for 2 track recordings.

[splumer]

First was a Voice of Music reel-to-reel that was my grandfather's. He bought it to record radio commercials for his leather tannery back in the '50s. I used it to record stuff off the radio, first with a mic (that had awful handling noise. Even as a kid I recognized it.), then later I cracked open my radio and ran a cable with alligator clips from the speaker terminals to the line-in on the recorder. I remember it sounding fantastic, but time tends to blur such things. Here it is:



The case was wood. It had vacuum tubes and weighed about 50 pounds. When I actually started taping shows, I started with a WM-D3 that I still have. Great little unit. Then I graduated to digital:



The Aiwa AM-F70 minidisc. Great features on that little sucker. Also still have it. It was my stealth recorder until just recently. I now use a PMD660 as my main unit.

[Teen Age Riot]

I had a JVC cassette deck in the mid 90's which I used to record stuff from the radio.
The first portable was a Sony MZ-R30 minidisc in 1999.

[adrianf74]

Love the thread.

Used an AIWA recorder with lav clip mic (had AGC) for the first few shows I did.  Dropped $400 and bought a WM-D3 and recorded about 30 shows.  Bought a TCD-D7 ($1000 back in' 94) via grey market means because they retailed for $1500 + tax in Canada.  Recorded about 40 shows with it before having a major accident with it (got drop-kicked in a mosh pit) and a friend gave me his old WM-D3 when he bought a TCD-D8.  Retired between '98 and '02 when I picked up a Sharp MT-877 (with adjustable recording levels) and used that through '05 when I retired.   Became a little active in '08 when I bought my R09 and just replaced that with a PCM-M10 last month.

Mics... AIWA Lav > Sony Lav > Sony ECM-907 > Core Sound Binaurals > AIWA stereo lav ... retirement ... Giant Squid Audio Lab Omni's > Sound Professionals CMC-8 (AT-933/c) > Church Audio CAFS-OMNI with CA-14/o and /c.

[notlance]

The first recorder I used a lot (but did not own) was a Ferrograph Series 7.  My high school owned it and I did all the recording for them for four years starting in 1971.  That was one heavy SOB, about 55 lbs, and I’d carry it up a set of almost vertical steps (more like a ladder) to the light/sound booth in the auditorium to record every concert.  It had ¼ track heads, which was really stupid, so I tried to talk the school into buying some ½ track heads and letting me put them in; they never went for it.  I would have bought the heads myself but I was constantly broke in HS.  Maybe that’s why I buy too much gear now.

The school did have a pair of Neumann KM84s which was extremely cool of them.  I used to hang them from the catwalk in front of the stage in something resembling ORTF.  The school must have bought them about 3 years after they first came out because they were there when I got to HS.  I’d kill to have those mics now.

This was, of course, way before the internet, so I used to spend time at the local university library trying to find out as much as I could about recording.  The library subscribed to the Journal of the AES but most of the issues were missing and I only understood about 10% of what I did read.  I was a nerd before the word was invented.

[John Willett]

My first was the Tandberg 3321X:-



Not being able to afford a Revox or Ferrograph I went for the Tandberg.  The sound quality was about equal, though.  The Cross-field head gave excellent noise figures and the unit was cheaper due to the mechanical transport control and the smaller 7" reels - I researched this a lot before buying it.  Half-track stereo - of course.

My first cassette was the Nakamichi 550 (1978 I think):-



(I could not afford a cassette and a Uher, so I bought the best portable cassette on the market).

I upgraded the open-reel to the Teac A3321-2T, modified to IEC EQ (1979 maybe):-



And was one of the very first into digital recording with the Sony PCM-F1 system in 1982:-



(and it still looks good).

DAT era - my first was the HHB 1 Pro portable "brick":-



I then soon went for a pair of Fostex D-10:-



(you could do pretty accurate edits with a pair of these as they had a buffer memory and instant start with one unit controlling the other in the editing mode)  I think these retailed for over £2,000 each in the early 1990's when I bought them, equivalent to about 3-months wages at the time - I still can't fathom how I managed to afford them!

I then added a 24-bit DAT (Tascam DA-45HR, running the tape at double speed):-



24/96 - and I then went for the first 24-bit portable, the Fostex FR-2:-



This was upgraded a few years ago and I now use the Nagra VI:-


Click on the thumbnail to see the full sized picture

This last picture is my actual rig, complete with a pair of Neumann DMI-2P digital microphone interfaces.

And I still have all these recorders, with the exception of the Fostex FR-2, which I sold when I upgraded to the Nagra VI.

Phew!

[goodcooker]

I recorded stuff with a boom box as a kid and did board patches with my home cassette deck when I was in a band in high school but my first concert recorder was one of these

[Gutbucket]

Digging that Sony PCM-F1 system, John. Awesome stuff in '82!
Always wondered about those, but never used or saw one. 
Any comments about your experience with its use and sound?

Also cool to see those Neumann DMI-2P in your current Nagra rig.

Fun thread.

[John Willett]

Digging that Sony PCM-F1 system, John. Awesome stuff in '82!
Always wondered about those, but never used or saw one. 
Any comments about your experience with its use and sound?

I loved the PCM-F1 and it was my main recorder for over 10 years until DAT got established.

I had 1 x PCM-F1 and 2 x F-1 Betamax recorders.  You could go from one to the other through a single converter to build up tracks.  As it was all digital (even doing multiple D/A and A/D conversions) it was very much quieter than analogue tape which added 3dB of hiss on every pass.  "Music Week" in the UK did a write-up of me in 1984 (March 24 issue) as being the first to release an album I recorded doing digital overdubbing in this way.

I later added a couple of C9 transports and HHB's "CLUE" editing system - this was before the days of computer editing as we know it.  CLUE used a 5" floppy disk and a dedicated computer to control the two C9 Betamax units for editing.  I got the CLUE in 1992 if I remember correctly.

The PCM-F1 used emphasis and, in many ways, sounded better than DAT; but you had to be careful with record levels as the high frequencies were boosted on record.

Also cool to see those Neumann DMI-2P in your current Nagra rig.

Yes - very nice units.  I can record four digital mics at once into the Nagra, as well as four analogue ones (or one Soundfield mic.) at the same time.

Fun thread.

Agreed - great fun.  It's interesting to see how people started.  I am of the rusty plastic and razor blade era. 

[Gutbucket]

Great to hear your PCM-F1 tales, and pioneering digital track bouncings, thanks.

I spliced bits of ferrous oxide with razor and tape, but did most audio editing bouncing deck to deck, building hiss.  Did far more extensive editing of super 8 film, with a little editing block and adhesive tape splices with little spocket holes.  Some 3 minute films had so many splices they required larger reels to hold the resulting bulkier spool.  One fun trick was figuring out how to shoot reverse-time sequences on a standard super-8 camera. Barring fancy cameras that could run short segments of film the reverse direction through the camera, the standard 16mm zero-budget filmaker trick was filming with the camera upside down for the shot, then cutting the film and flipping the segment vertically (thus reversing the time-line and making the world upright again), then turning the film segment 180 degrees to keep the emulsion side on the correct side of the reel and to return things on the left to screen left and things right to screen right, before splicing it back in.  Problem with that was that all 8mm and super-8 film had sprocket holes only along one side, making the second flip impossible.  I found I could omit the second flip, let the world go mirror image left to right and allow the emulsion end up on the wrong side.  The resulting film was more fragile and went ever so slightly out of projection focus during the edit due to the thickness of the film backing, but was fantastic fun to pull off sucessfully.