I'm not sure if this has been asked before, but for those who use the DR70D to make 4 channel recordings, what is your method for playing back those four tracks from four separate speakers? I have an A/V receiver with separate analog inputs. But the deck only has stereo out.
You're describing something like Quadrophonic, which was a fad surround-ish technique that required 4 speakers surrounding the listener. There are certain modern surround / ambiance recording techniques that may benefit from similar playback.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but you're not making recordings such as these; you're just using two stereo mic arrays for a concert, correct? I do this sometimes, and you load them into your DAW and mix away but the end result is always a 2-channel stereo file.
The 70D only has the stereo out, and regardless of the number of tracks you have or the configuration of them, that output is being fed a 2-channel stereo mixdown of everything. It's not possible to do what you're suggesting direct from the 70D, but I don't see why you'd want to.
Thanks for your reply. Yes, I'm trying some Quadrophonic recordings with 4 microphones that put a listener in the center of four surround speakers (which many people have in their home theaters). I have to load the 4-Track recordings into Audacity and burn it as a 4-channel Audio-DVD in order to review the recording on a multi-speaker setup.
But since writing my question, I remembered that you can play the DR70D recording back on a DR680 (which has six individual track outputs) if you modify the file or the folder that it's in -- I can't recall. I'll have to look it up.
Hmm, OK - I didn't expect that's what you were really doing! Pardon me for making the assumption. What mics and array are you using? Something like an IRT Cross? Also, this has to be tricky on the 70D with the lack of ganged gain controls.
The DVD-A solution is what I was thinking you'd have to do, or some other kind of surround encoding. I didn't know about the 680 workaround. If you have one of those, wouldn't that be easier to use for this kind of recording since you'd have the channel ganging?
All my good mics are only pairs and I wanted to have four mics of the same brand and model. I bought four used Behringer B-5 mics being sold locally for $40 each, as I figured it would be a good place to start experimenting, not worrying too much about the quality. Also, the B-5's have both omni and card capsules, so that was another option to be able to work with.
They are mounted in a square, about 8 inches apart, aimed outwards from each corner.
I'm currently just recording outdoors, so it's easy to get a fairly equal level on all channels because the usual basic ambient noise is about the same loudness in all directions.
Using the DR680 would of course be the best method, but it's currently in a semi-permanent installation for recording my piano. So rather than remove it for these trials, I figured I'd use the DR70D (which I enjoy using).