- Can someone give me a quick guide on the setting of the mic level (Hi vs Low), and the recording level (auto vs manual). Which setting should I use? I am going to use this mainly to record violin solo (couple of feet for just violin or maybe 3-4 feet with the piano) and chamber music such as a string quartet ( maybe 3-4 feet away from each player) all using just internal mics.
Use manual level. Auto is for something unmusical like speech, where it's not important to preserve dynamics. Do put the Limiter on, just in case you do briefly overload, but it's better if you never need it.
Use low sensitivity just to give you more headroom if things get loud. High is most useful for speech.
You're going to need to do some tests on what the best level is, which will depend on how close the unit (since you're using internal mics) is to your music, how resonant your room is and, well, how loud you play. Classical music has a wide dynamic range, so set your levels to work at fortissimo. Even with the unit at a little distance, you should be able to see green lights go on when you are getting a nice full signal and red lights when you overload. But you didn't even really need the green light--just under the green-light level will give you a good recording.
Start testing at about 6, which is unity gain--playback is the same level as what goes in.
You also need to test where you place the unit for recording. Placement makes a huge difference. You don't want it right next to one particular instrument (unless you're trying to hear your violin part within the quartet), and if it's too far away in a resonant room you're going to get a blurry sounding recording. This is why there are recording engineers (who often blend close-miking for clarity and more distant miking for warmth). As your own engineer, you can learn a lot from a little bit of testing. Try just speaking the labels when you test--"5 feet from quartet," "10 feet from quartet," "at center of quartet"--or make sure you're taking good notes so you can make sense of your test samples.
What are you doing with your recordings? If they are just rough rehearsal tapes for further practice, you could even record mp3 at 320 kbps, and that 4GB will give you a whole lot of recording time. If you are planning to do something further and more professional with the recordings, or you want as much detail as possible, then yes, move on up to .wav. There are lots of programs to convert .wav to .mp3. Media Coder at
http://www.mediacoderhq.com/ is free and handy.
