Topic: Sony D50 in the field ?

[Nick's Picks]

so who's got one, who's using it ?

1. how are the mic preamps ?  good enough to not run an outboard preamp (outboard phantom required, I know).

2. digital in stable ?

3. battery life ?

4. metering any good ?

5. whats it *sound* like ?  good, bad, cheap, grainy ??

just curious.  It would be nice to run a small(ish) deck w/digi in and good mic preamps...that is less than 500.

[SClassical]

I tried the mic preamps using the built-in mics and was not very happy. I will never use the built-in mics to record music. The hiss is very audible when the mic vol is set above 4.5. Never done a mic-in recording with external mics.

Regarding digital in...you have to be careful where the digital signal is coming from. There is a problem with this machine accepting 24 bit digital signals from a lot of AD converters. Many AD converters are not compatible with the D50. Grace Design is working on a V3 AD chip up-date so the D50 can be used with it (I will be helping them test the chip this week).

I'm planning to do a comp of the internal AD converter with the 722 and V3 later this month in a concert. If someone else does it before me, it will be great.

Metering is really good!

Are you planning to get it? If I were you I will wait for the fixes and the comp before getting it because it is sort of pricey if you consider the problem with the digital in. You might want to consider the MTII, too.

[Nick's Picks]

the MTII would be my bucket of choice probably.  I just want to gut that sony.
:-)

[spyder9]

I have a D50.  Recorded with it last Friday.  Flawless operation.  Easy to set up and use.  Metering is fantastic.  Ran Aerco > D50.  The show has not been pulled from D50 and worked on yet.  Will have more thoughts of the AD later this week when I give the show a listen through some decent speakers.  Headphones never tell me anything.   

[udo]

I was too busy lately to post any more, so a delayed report on my experiences:
I am really happy with the machine, on of the best purchases for recording I have ever done!
Since it is so small, I have it with me most of the time and use it for "snap shots" all the time. (E.g. my kids holiday singing, some piano ideas, a strange siren here in our town etc.). I know, the microtrack could do the same (and it is even smaller), BUT the quality of the machine seems to be much better then the microtrack, I love the metering (Also the green light / red light indicators are helpful), the microphones are not matched but much better then I expected (good enough for these kind of snapshots). I tested the battery life once with  4 rather old maha 2500 AA (internal mics on 5, headphones on 4), and gave up after 6 hours, when the indicator showed still batteries half full.
I got my mixpre back and the sound of the line in is great, at least as good as the marantz pmd670. So it gives me the high-profile option with an external preamp as well. (not a bit bucket since the mixpre has no a/d but I am happy with the sound of the sony a/d - though I am curious to hear some comps of that).
But for me the biggest plus is to have a small, "stealthable" machine, that is not a "toy" as the MT - to put it with Doug Oade. The sony feels to me (and sounds so far) as a professional tool adequate for what I want and not like a cell-phone turned into a audio recorder.
I am still waiting for my Church audio omnis to arrive, then I can post some recordings with the internal mic-preamp with external mics.
To sum it up: the 300 $ Difference to the Zoom H2, and the 200 $ to the MT II for me are worth having the feeling of a professional audio recording tool in the smallest possible size. I believe sonically the Fr2-le is probably better (better preamps, phantom power, remote control etc.), but I really wanted to have something small, that still does the job adequately, and when I need better sound, I hook up the mixpre and go line-in (and hopefully beter mics then the C4s will come at some point as well.)
Hope that helps ...
Udo

[mrsoul]

I have not run the external mic preamp yet but so far, I am very pleased with this machine.  I was in experiment mode at the Christmas Jam, which is perfect when there are a zillion other rigs flying high. 

For the Derek and Susan Soul Stew Revival at the Fox, I think I got it right.  I totally blew the same sweet spot location last year due to poor metering on the Sony RH1 (they are just too small to have value) and running too hot.  I think I got it right this year.  This recording really showcases the Busman mod on the card Avantones too.  Metering is great and I really use that green and red for the peak levels, it's made all the difference for my level setting.

http://www.archive.org/details/dtb2007-12-31.flac24_soul_stew_revival_avantoneCK1b

The 16bit is up now too. 

The battery life (even if it is 4 AA) is great, I am using the Rayovac 2000 mAh rechargeables that are a few years old and I recorded Scrapomatic, NMA and the 2 hour Soul Stew Revival set at 24/44.1 with 1/2 meter still showing on the battery. 

Very quiet on the line input as you will hear. 

I have used it to record my kids putting on a "rock" show in my living room with the built in mics and it serves that purpose without a hitch, they didn't even notice I was recording them because I didn't have any mics in my hand like the old days :-)

I have some decent little Audio Technica mini-omnis that I plan to run at the Jeff Sipe Trio show in Greenville to compare with the internals at the same show later this month. 

So far, I agree with udo that it's the best recorder I have bought.  I have had 5 Sony MD/Hi-MDs and I am glad to have made the upgrade.  I don't have a digital preamp yet, so the optical input issue is a non-issue for me but YMMV.  Might consider a UA-5 with digi mod one of these days...but for now, it's the cat's meow in my universe. 

[udo]

Got my church audio omnis in the mail today, and made a quick entirely unscientific comp:
internal mics
church omnis
studio projects c4 omnis through mixpre (line in on sony)
The room is bad, I put the mics on a small table-top tripod, with lots of reflections from the table, and I am playing bad .... also its three times playing (I obviously have no three sonys do to a real time comp.).
Also, I normalized them all to 100%, but had to cut down the file-size several times to comply with th 516KB restriction, and so the gain is quite different on all three recordings. But one can get the idea ....
- The internal mics are not too bad.
- The church audio mics have audible self noise, but I bought them for outdoors, windy situations, so this will not be an issue. But they have a great frequency response, nice lows in comparison to the brighter (more metallic) sony internals.
- and then I realize once again, what great microphones the C4 omnis are, especially with the warm mixpre
Udo

[Outrageous]

Nice playing, and thanks for the comparison.  I've recorded my wife playing piano with the internal mics on the D50 and thought the sound was quite good--perhaps a bit bright compared to reality, but with a very realistic presence.  As one might expect, your result sounded very similar.  I must say, I wouldn't be satisfied with the self-noise on the Church omnis.

[shaggy]

Anybody have any issues with this and a UA-5 outputting a 24bit signal?

[SClassical]

I'm preparing for tomorrow's first stealth recording with my D50. So I connected my mixpre/DPA4052 with my recorder. The problem is I can hear the hiss from the recorder at REC pause mode using my headphones. The noise seem to disappear when I set the REC vol at "3".  So it is actually worse than I thought. Before I thought it was fine when I set the REC vol @4 or 4.5.

Has anyone here actually used the D50 in a live music event yet and was happy? I'm sure someone here must have recorded a concert rather than just recording room/street noise or people chatting. My problem is if I set the REC vol at level 3 the music turns out to be very soft during playback. Even if I turn up the phone vol to "10" (max).

I don't want to turn up the mixpre too high just in case I get brickwalling. BTW, how do I know what is the max I can go with the mixpre before I reach brickwalling?

If I end up recording at setting "3" and increase the vol at home I'm sure the background noise will increase, too. So what is the best thing to do? Use the D50 as a bit bucket with my V3 or just try out the Mixpre>D50 setup or forget about all this and take the trusty 722?

[mrsoul]

I'm preparing for tomorrow's first stealth recording with my D50. So I connected my mixpre/DPA4052 with my recorder. The problem is I can hear the hiss from the recorder at REC pause mode using my headphones. The noise seem to disappear when I set the REC vol at "3".  So it is actually worse than I thought. Before I thought it was fine when I set the REC vol @4 or 4.5.

Has anyone here actually used the D50 in a live music event yet and was happy? I'm sure someone here must have recorded a concert rather than just recording room/street noise or people chatting. My problem is if I set the REC vol at level 3 the music turns out to be very soft during playback. Even if I turn up the phone vol to "10" (max).

I don't want to turn up the mixpre too high just in case I get brickwalling. BTW, how do I know what is the max I can go with the mixpre before I reach brickwalling?

If I end up recording at setting "3" and increase the vol at home I'm sure the background noise will increase, too. So what is the best thing to do? Use the D50 as a bit bucket with my V3 or just try out the Mixpre>D50 setup or forget about all this and take the trusty 722?

Maybe my ears are burnt but I don't hear much hiss from my recorder and feel the noise level on the line in and the mic preamp to very quiet, almost non-existent.  I have recorded some good shows and have posted a few on the archive but haven't had problem with the noise level running into the line input. 

Do you think it might be the headphone amp and your headphones?  I have found the headphone amp to very quiet as well.  YMMV of course, just my experience...

[SClassical]

Hmm I don't know maybe something wrong with my D50 or maybe I got used to my old setup (DPA4052/Schoeps CCM2S>V3>722). What REC vol are you using? Total silence (rests in music) in classical music is important so it really has to be as noise-free as possible. Curious to know at what REC level can you start to hear noise from your D50 when your preamp and mics are connected and powered up? For me anything above 3.5 I start to get something. I know people posted some tracks but most of it is continuous  music so the signal will always be above the background noise. Anyway tomorrow I will use it and see how it sound in a real life stealth situation.

[guysonic]

I've already done full input measurements on the D50.

LINE input allows up to +24 dBu full pro levels!  Just like SD 700 series decks.

LINE input clipping level is getting max'd out 0 dB VU full scale overload indications with REC knob at or below 2.5.  So if getting below 0 dB VU indications, with REC knob at or above 2.5, you're NOT clipping the input of the D50.

This means you can run your high output preamp AT FULL SCALE OUTPUT into the D50's line input without fear of ever clipping the input of the D50.

Same 2.5 or above knob setting for avoiding input clipping applies to the D50's MIC input.

[arrowman]

I tried out the D50 last night at band practice and had great results.  We used the internal mics.  They worked great. 

We play loud folk rock, and it worked well for that.  I could only set the level at 1.5 because of how loud we get. 

I tried to post a sample, but it was too large.

[mrsoul]

I tried out the D50 last night at band practice and had great results.  We used the internal mics.  They worked great. 

We play loud folk rock, and it worked well for that.  I could only set the level at 1.5 because of how loud we get. 

I tried to post a sample, but it was too large.

You might consider using the mic attentuator and the limiter for your loud sources.  Look on the left side of the recorder or read the manual 
And welcome to the forum!