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Gear / Technical Help => Recording Gear => Topic started by: Industrial on July 20, 2008, 09:03:20 PM
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I am looking to buy a new recorder for concerts. Recently my minidisc recorder just died and some venues it is too hard to video tape from. So I am looking for suggestions on new audio recorders. I do like to have the master tapes which as far as I know you only get with Cassette, Minidisc and DAT. I want something that can show me different levels and let me adjust them for better sound.
Any suggestions/help would be greatly appreciated :]
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I am looking to buy a new recorder for concerts. Recently my minidisc recorder just died and some venues it is too hard to video tape from. So I am looking for suggestions on new audio recorders. I do like to have the master tapes which as far as I know you only get with Cassette, Minidisc and DAT. I want something that can show me different levels and let me adjust them for better sound.
Any suggestions/help would be greatly appreciated :]
Don't :)
The present and medium-term future are memory-card recorders -
Some good flash-recorder options are...
Edirol R09HR
Marantz PMD620
Olympus LS-10
Sony PCM-D50
Tascam DR-1
BTW: This site has a nice comparison of features and inboard/outboard mics etc...
http://www.wingfieldaudio.com/compare-portable-recorders.html
digifish
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He wants something that will give a physical copy of the music.
Hi-MD is still supported and will give about 94 minutes per disc in 44.1KHz/16 bit mode.
Look in the yard sale here or eBay. The Sony MZ-RH1 is one of the best models.
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There was a M100 HI-MD in the yard sale for $200.00 just a little bit ago. That's my primary recorder,illuminated display,black aluminum casing,ect.
The only real difference between it and an RH1 is the "record levels" can be accessed immediately on the RH1 and on the M100 you have to go into a few menu options, and then the RH1 has the ability to digitally transfer your old standard minidiscs.
So,if those things are important to you,the RH1 would be the way to go,if not get an M100.
Either unit will get 90+ minutes of PCM recording on a single 1gb disc.
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I have an RH1 and it is the best I have had. It does the jobs the big boys do and has a good front end (pre-amps). It is reliable. And it will upload every digital non-commercial MD you have. SonicStage sucks. So what? It works alright for me. It could be way better, yes, but it does work.
PM me if you think I can help.
Cheers
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I am looking to buy a new recorder for concerts. Recently my minidisc recorder just died and some venues it is too hard to video tape from. So I am looking for suggestions on new audio recorders. I do like to have the master tapes which as far as I know you only get with Cassette, Minidisc and DAT. I want something that can show me different levels and let me adjust them for better sound.
Any suggestions/help would be greatly appreciated :]
Don't :)
The present and medium-term future are memory-card recorders -
Some good flash-recorder options are...
Edirol R09HR
Marantz PMD620
Olympus LS-10
Sony PCM-D50
Tascam DR-1
BTW: This site has a nice comparison of features and inboard/outboard mics etc...
http://www.wingfieldaudio.com/compare-portable-recorders.html
digifish
please go with a CF or otehr Card recorder... no moving parts
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you'll get better copies (masters)
go for a 24bit unit
the korg 1 bit units are very nice
think 2x before you get a (nother) mini disc recorder
you'll be very glad
peace
-- Ian
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CD recorders are great. I use a Sony D50 and iRiver H12 & 320 but having a physical copy to store is important to some old schoolers. Every proejct I do is for video so what I record always gets stored back to MiniDV and I am able to have a long lasting copy. The problem with hard drive and CF recorders is having to make mulitple back ups of what you record for safety. With a Hi-MD or other physical mediums you have the assurance that your recording will likely still exist in 10 years without needing to have it backed up in 3 different places. I'm certainly not knocking solid state users but you have to look at both sides of a situation.
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"The present and medium-term future are memory-card recorders "
Yeah,for everyone except people that use MD. I went to see WSP friday in cleveland. While I was sitting in the TS chatting and looking around I noticed that 4 out of the 7 tapers there were using MD recorders,to say I was surprised would be an understatement. I was the only one running a HI-MD deck though. The two guys. Immediately next to me (they are actually from this area but are low-key tapers and I had not ever met them before) specifically said one of the reasons for their MD use was the removable media,the other reason being they preferred the sound they got compared to other types of recorders. The Sony preamps are the cats-ass. I agreed with them on both points. And all three of us said as soon as blanks are impossible to get,it will be time to retire. and since I've been stockpiling blanks for a while now, retirement is not coming anytime soon.
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Having just transitioned from MD to a solid-state machine, my reaction is pretty much the same as digifish's: don't bother.
I can understand the psychological "need" to have a physical representation (a "master copy") of the recording. It really did feel "wrong" to not have an object to connect with a recording. It was strange not to put "the recording" on a shelf (where, in all likelihood, it would collect dust until my heirs are forced to deal with it).
Then I learned the mysteries of CD-R burning, FLAC, checksums, and Tyvek sleeves. >:D
Seriously, though; I tried to cling to MiniDisc, too, but solid-state is the way things are headed with good reason. Take, for instance, the fact that solid-state media is actually less expensive now than MD (even if you only use it once and then shelve it). For instance; you can buy a 2GB SD card for $5 if you try hard enough. To contrast, Hi-MD media can be found for the same price (if you're buying a 10-pack) and is likely to get more expensive as supplies dwindle (as happened with MD-Data before it). Twice the capacity for roughly the same money? And it's not as if the superiority of solid-state (compared to MiniDisc) ends there.
I use a solid-state (Songcatcher PMD660) machine which has removable media. Unlike Sony's current MD device, it can use off-the-shelf batteries if I need it to. Granted, I paid something less than twice the price of a new RH1 for my PMD660. But I'll not have to concern myself with proprietary Sony batteries or locally scarce media. And I definitely won't worry about fragile disc transports (or repair or maintenance costs for said moving parts). I can record non-stop from sunrise to sunset (with an 8GB card and external power). And the icing on the cake is that the machine has XLR inputs. I think those advantages are worth a few extra dollars. And if money is a concern, a used PMD660 (sans modifications) can be had for about the cost of a new RH1.
@ nameloc01:
I know what you meant but it's really odd that you'd use that term to describe Sony's MD preamps. You see; MiniDisc (and particularly ATRAC) has always sounded like a certain special type of ass to me. Thanks so much for quantifying that for me. :clapping:
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These days you can use SD recorders like mini-disc. A 2 GB SD card runs as cheap as $5 - you can use a new card for every recording and keep em all on that book shelf. You should be able to get about 3 hours of 16/44 on that 2 GB card.
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These days you can use SD recorders like mini-disc. A 2 GB SD card runs as cheap as $5 - you can use a new card for every recording and keep em all on that book shelf. You should be able to get about 3 hours of 16/44 on that 2 GB card.
there ya go. best of both worlds.
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These days you can use SD recorders like mini-disc. A 2 GB SD card runs as cheap as $5 - you can use a new card for every recording and keep em all on that book shelf.
I was just about to say the same thing.
Here's another vote for solid state. Trust me, I was taping with legacy minidisc for many years up til 2005, and I'm slapping myself for not switching earlier! So many messed up recordings due to MD-flips, trouble with the levels and reading the meters, TOC errors due to being pushed while recording etc...
Sure, in a best case scenario the RH1 can stand up against most of the stealth recorders and give equal results or better. But remember you're buying into a dying technology, which will no longer be developed or supported by Sony.
Get over the paranoia about having master tapes. Or buy a stack of 2GB cards and start working ;D
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Meh.
There's several reasons which I pointed out as to why a lot of people still use MD/HI-MD...the media,the Sony preamps. Its a pretty much universal concept. Now,I'm not saying there're the best portable stealth deck,but (as far as HI-MD) if you know what you're doing there're great.
- loss of music flipping discs...
* run two decks. Second deck in "rec/standby,levels already synced to deck#1..swap the mic cable, you might lose 4 or 5 seconds.this is what I do. 3+ hours of PCM recording. Loss of 4-5 seconds of crowd noise, big deal.
- availablity of media?
* it'll be avaialable for quite some time. Look at DAT tapes. When did Sony stop making DAT decks?
-the Sony preamps. Many,many people will agree on the quality of them. And that even by people who don't themselves use them. And I'm not just saying that because that's what I happen to have, I could have bought ANY recording deck I wanted, I chose the Sony MDs for that exact reason.
So,I see where you guys are coming from, but you might as well try to convert a hardcore DAT taper.
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I very generally recommend getting both. Both are cheap and you will have the best of both worlds. a hi md recorder is probably $150 (or less) used and an iriver h120 is about that used as well. Of course, the h120 has a hard drive so you will have to back this up anyway.
What do I like? I like recording. :-D I am not that dedicated to a medium but when I did get my h120 (about two/three months ago) I loved it since there wasn't a long delay to start & stop recording. As soon as you press record, its recording PLUS you can even have a buffer of upto 30 seconds. That's impossible on a hi md. The pre-amps in my sony are awfully good and I don't need a pre-amp with any of the mics I have tried. Like I said, the only thing I don't like about the HI MD is the long wait times to read write and even skipping track to track can be slow sometimes.
Just get both. :D
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lol
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These days you can use SD recorders like mini-disc. A 2 GB SD card runs as cheap as $5 - you can use a new card for every recording and keep em all on that book shelf. You should be able to get about 3 hours of 16/44 on that 2 GB card.
there ya go. best of both worlds.
While on the subject...
SanDisk has recently introduced a Write Once Read Many (WORM) SD card
http://www.sandisk.com/Corporate/PressRoom/PressReleases/PressRelease.aspx?ID=4353
this is said to have an archive life of up to 100 years. Standard SD cards may start to lose data at around 10 years (apparently). That said, I remember people would only guarantee CDs for 10 years when they first came out.
Capacities for the WORM card are only 128 Meg at the moment, with larger capacities to follow. You know they won't be cheap either :)
EDIT: although I could be wrong...
http://www.engadget.com/2007/11/20/1gb-write-once-sandisk-memory-cards-to-cost-5-99/
digifish
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Nice find, +T
These days you can use SD recorders like mini-disc. A 2 GB SD card runs as cheap as $5 - you can use a new card for every recording and keep em all on that book shelf. You should be able to get about 3 hours of 16/44 on that 2 GB card.
there ya go. best of both worlds.
While on the subject...
SanDisk has recently introduced a Write Once Read Many (WORM) SD card
http://www.sandisk.com/Corporate/PressRoom/PressReleases/PressRelease.aspx?ID=4353
this is said to have an archive life of up to 100 years. Standard SD cards may start to lose data at around 10 years (apparently). That said, I remember people would only guarantee CDs for 10 years when they first came out.
Capacities for the WORM card are only 128 Meg at the moment, with larger capacities to follow. You know they won't be cheap either :)
EDIT: although I could be wrong...
http://www.engadget.com/2007/11/20/1gb-write-once-sandisk-memory-cards-to-cost-5-99/
digifish
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This is why the argument of solid state vs. tape is significant to me. No medium alive today besides tape is meant to store data long term. I consider long term more than 10 years. Hard drives have a typical life span of 3-5 years. Some do last much longer but some die sooner. Recordable optical media like CD-R and DVD+/-R can go bad even quicker than a hard drive or can last longer. It's a crap shoot, even using top grade blanks. SD and CF cards have not been around long enough in the consumer market to prove their reliability for 10-15 years of storage. The article above states that SD cards will start to lose data after 10 years. Now they're developing cards that this, hopefully, won't happen to.
I know the argument of redundant backups very well and I'm not trying to argue against the convenience of solid state and hard drive recorders. I love my iRivers and D50 but I like to be able to put my project back to a tape and know that it will most likely be viable in 10 years without having to back it up in 3 different places numerous times over that 10 year period.
These are just my thoughts on the matter. I try to look at every side and hope others do the same.
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This is why the argument of solid state vs. tape is significant to me. No medium alive today besides tape is meant to store data long term. I consider long term more than 10 years. Hard drives have a typical life span of 3-5 years. Some do last much longer but some die sooner. Recordable optical media like CD-R and DVD+/-R can go bad even quicker than a hard drive or can last longer. It's a crap shoot, even using top grade blanks. SD and CF cards have not been around long enough in the consumer market to prove their reliability for 10-15 years of storage. The article above states that SD cards will start to lose data after 10 years. Now they're developing cards that this, hopefully, won't happen to.
I know the argument of redundant backups very well and I'm not trying to argue against the convenience of solid state and hard drive recorders. I love my iRivers and D50 but I like to be able to put my project back to a tape and know that it will most likely be viable in 10 years without having to back it up in 3 different places numerous times over that 10 year period.
These are just my thoughts on the matter. I try to look at every side and hope others do the same.
So just keep your tapes away from magnets, right?
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This is why the argument of solid state vs. tape is significant to me. No medium alive today besides tape is meant to store data long term. I consider long term more than 10 years. Hard drives have a typical life span of 3-5 years. Some do last much longer but some die sooner. Recordable optical media like CD-R and DVD+/-R can go bad even quicker than a hard drive or can last longer. It's a crap shoot, even using top grade blanks. SD and CF cards have not been around long enough in the consumer market to prove their reliability for 10-15 years of storage. The article above states that SD cards will start to lose data after 10 years. Now they're developing cards that this, hopefully, won't happen to.
I know the argument of redundant backups very well and I'm not trying to argue against the convenience of solid state and hard drive recorders. I love my iRivers and D50 but I like to be able to put my project back to a tape and know that it will most likely be viable in 10 years without having to back it up in 3 different places numerous times over that 10 year period.
These are just my thoughts on the matter. I try to look at every side and hope others do the same.
Kodak claims their archival dvds are good for 100 years. That's better than DAT.
http://www.kodak.com/global/en/service/faqs/faq1629.shtml
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I'd also like to point out that Kodak warranties their archival grade cds to 100 years. They claim the actual lifetime should be much longer.
http://www.kodak.com/global/plugins/acrobat/en/service/cdrMedia/lifetime.pdf
Dats will slowly degrade especially if you do not keep them in a magnetically shielded container. I have tried to restore digital VHS data tapes from the 80s before and can tell you that if you keep them in a cardboard box, you may find it very hard to recover the data 25 years later...
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Hard drives have a typical life span of 3-5 years.
Since the fundamental storage principle is the same (magnetized particles), I would expect a hard drive that is stored to last as long as a tape, if you just filled up the drive and stored it. Indeed, the one big problem with tape is bleed-through over time (I don't know if this applies to DAT tape, but it certainly does to analog audio tape) - my dad had an extensive reel to reel collection that was rendered useless by bleed-through over a 30-40 year period.
IMO, the biggest problem with long term storage is not the stability of the storage media, but the increasing pace of obsolescence of the technology required to access it. How many of you have recently tried to access that data you backed up on 5-1/4" floppies?
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I actually haven't been as worried about minidiscs as backup. It's just nice to have the media that you taped the concert for. I would rather pay the extra amount and be able to look at the pile of MD tapes I have everyday when I pass them on the shelves. The RH1 looks pretty good and I think I am going to go for that. Now I was wondering if you could adjust incoming sound levels into the device while you already have mics or a cable from the soundboard in it?
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You can adjust levels on the RH1 on the fly. I believe it is the only SONY that allows this. It comes in handy. That said, set your levels low and leave them alone. You may want to lower them after the first number but do not fiddle with the gain after that. The recording will be all over the place. You can fiddle with that in post. 8)
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Sound advice from boojum. Remember, you can always add volume after the fact but you can't do much for a recording that is overloaded.
With the recent purchase of my D50 I've jumped into 24 bit and I'm amazed at how quiet it is. I recorded church service with the recorder set on stage front center. I had no idea how loud it would be so I set the level on 1 out of 10. I was recording at 24/48 and ending up having to boost something like 24-28dB. Surprisingly there was no noticeable noise added. I don't know if that is sepcifically because of it being 24 bit or if it had to do with the D50 mics and preamp being of good quality. Either way I am very pelased with the recorder.
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You can adjust levels on the RH1 on the fly. I believe it is the only SONY that allows this
My MZ-NH1 does so as well.