Topic: Edirol R09HR + external mic, significant improvement?

[Arvid]

Hi,
I have been following the taperssection for a while now and I think it's very helpful and a good place to find information, thanks for that. I've decised to buy an Edirol R09HR, but I am still a bit indecisive about buying a external mic. My question is:

Would an external mic (±budget 100 dollar/euro's, for example an Audio Technica Pro 24) be a significant improvement, compared to Edirol's internal mics?

I want to use the mic without a preamp or a batterbox. I'll be recording environmental sounds and accoustic stuff most of the time, no loud rock shows.
Thanks in advance!

[digifish_music]

Hi,
I have been following the taperssection for a while now and I think it's very helpful and a good place to find information, thanks for that. I've decised to buy an Edirol R09HR, but I am still a bit indecisive about buying a external mic. My question is:

Would an external mic (±budget 100 dollar/euro's, for example an Audio Technica Pro 24) be a significant improvement, compared to Edirol's internal mics?

I want to use the mic without a preamp or a batterbox. I'll be recording environmental sounds and accoustic stuff most of the time, no loud rock shows.
Thanks in advance!

I have not yet used the R09HR but based on my experiences with the R09, definitely.

I do a lot of environmental field-recording, I often use a pair of Sound Professionals SP-TFB-2 Binaural Microphones (high sensitivity models) ~$70 and a pair of home-made mics with the same capsules ( http://taperssection.com/index.php/topic,94446 ) ~$20 plugged straight into the R09 with excellent results. Both sound identical (they use the same caps).

Here they are side-by-side...



I don't know what the internal mics are like in the R09HR, but if the R44 and R09 are anything to go by, then they will be far too noisy for field-recording.

Secondly, external mics will give you much better choice of mic-placement for better stereo and boundary effects.

Click here to pull up my Freesound recordings with the R09 + Sound Professionals binaurals... in particular here is a recording that pushes the noise limits of both the mic-in and SP-TFB-2 Rainforrest birds. Sounds very very good IMO. Note you will need to create an account on freesound if you want to download the high quality original files.

and

Click here for and example from my home-made $20 specials

So your choices are quite a few in this area, but the cheapest way to go is to build your own. The advantage of the SP mics are that they are 1. very reasonably priced. 2. The in-ear clips provide a nice mount 3. You don't have to fiddle with making your own

I'll now stand back and let the alternative recommendations flood in...

digifish

[soundpro]

Hello:

I would not suggest the PRO24......it probably won't sound any better than the built in mics. The Binaurals suggested would be a good choice, or a good set of cardioids.

BTW, if anyone is trying to get to our site, it's been down since yesterday, along with a few hundred thousand others, due to a fire in a data center in Houston, TX. Should be up Sunday night (hopefully).

Thanks!

Chris Carfagno
The Sound Professionals, Inc.
www.soundprofessionals.com
800-213-3021

[Nick's Picks]

so much for "disaster recovery"...
sorry to hear about the hassles Chris.

check out tzo.com and their "auto failover" widget.  right up your alley.

[Arvid]

Checked out the sound samples on Freesound, and I have to say they sound very good.
Even the ones, made with your self-made mics.

I live in the Netherlands, but condsidered buying binaurals from Microphone Madness in the US.
After the replies I wanted to check out the soundprofessionls site aswell, because I liked the sounds from the SP-TFB-2. Sorry to hear your site is down, Chris. Do you also ship to Europe?

[digifish_music]

Checked out the sound samples on Freesound, and I have to say they sound very good.
Even the ones, made with your self-made mics.

I live in the Netherlands, but condsidered buying binaurals from Microphone Madness in the US.
After the replies I wanted to check out the soundprofessionls site aswell, because I liked the sounds from the SP-TFB-2. Sorry to hear your site is down, Chris. Do you also ship to Europe?

Sound Professionals ship world wide. I am in Australia and have purchased the SP-TFB-2 and an Audio Technica AT3032 (pair) from them, no worries.

One thing tho, I thought the postage on the SP-TFB-2's was a bit steep Chris, seems silly to use a courier for such a small, light-weight and (relatively) inexpensive item. I think it was like $40 when it could have been $5.

digifish

[powermonkey]

I'm getting nice results with Church Audio CA-11s into my R09HR. Out again taping this evening, will try to get a sample or two up tonight.