field recording

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jtunney

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I'm planning on some environmental field recordings -- oceans, forests, etc. and would appreciate suggestions on the best type of recorder. My budget is under $1,000.

I was looking at some of the digital multitrack recorders, such as the Fostex VF160 and the Tascam 788, but they don't come with battery power and the company techs were leary of using a car battery converter.

I was also checking out the Tascam PS5, but have doubts about the sound quality.


Any other ideas?

Thanks.

John
 
A portable DAT recorder is the tried and true method. If you prefer analog then look for a used Nagra. Those are the standard recorders for location film recording.
 
Nagra makes some cool reel type recorders.
Consider a minidisk recorder. They're small as a walkman and sound pretty darn good with a decent mic.

The Boss SP202 is a good battery powered recorder (sampler actually). It has 16 banks on a memory card. You can buy as many of these as you need for location recording. The "hi-fi" recording is only 32khz (like minidisc is I believe) but it sounds good through the onboard mic. I think it was like 4 min on an 4 meg card. Buy like 10 4meg cards and you are set. The 4 miniutes may be a hassle for you depending on the type of recording you'll be doing but I'm not sure about using larger mem cards. Heres a link anyway. Cheap!

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=914869771
 
On second thought for nature sounds I'd go with the Nagra or DAT recorder. The mic will be the important thing for quality with those options.
 
TexRoadkill said:
A portable DAT recorder is the tried and true method. If you prefer analog then look for a used Nagra. Those are the standard recorders for location film recording.
Click to expand...

Yeah I'd agree with Tex. Time code DAT and Nagra are the standard. Nagras used to be really expensive, I don't know if you can get one for under a $1000.
 
Marantz has a portable, battery powered CD-RW deck for about $700 mail order - has XLR's, phantom power, AGC or manual record level, small speaker/headphone jack, etc - saw them on Musicians Friend and a couple other places. Drooling over it already, but can't give any testimonials til I drop the dime... Steve

PS- There's a Superscope mee-too, same deck but with dual wells, add copy function and dual play, still under $1k...

Check 'em out, they're both on this page, top center...

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/srs7...02034060/content/g=rec/s=recorders/index.html

Whyn't cha buy one, be a guinea pig so the rest of us will know? (hehehehehe, but seriously if you go for it, post back. Non-commercial comments are ALWAYS welcome)
 
Damn, just noticed I'm now a force of nature - so why can't I get the weather to co-operate with MY schedule, 'steada the other way around?????
 
Just did some more checking on those two CD-R portables - apparently, Marantz and Superscope are now two separate companies; had to download the PDF manuals to find this out -

the single deck has phantom power, the dual does NOT. Both decks allow AGC or manual level control. Both decks SUCK as far as preamp quality is concerned, at least from their specs. Only 60 dB S/N for mic inputs on both - and at .2% THD... The aux in's are 85 dB, .05% THD.

Sooo, with either one if you want good recordings you would need an external pre. One more thing to carry/hook up...

If anybody's still interested, here's a link to the single deck for $699, includes a 50-pack of disks.

http://www.bswonline.com/prod_item.asp?item=CDR300

and the dual-well -

http://www.bswonline.com/prod_item.asp?item=PSD300

Since the pre's aren't apparently that great in either, unless you wanted the option of leaving your preamp home and still using condensers, the dual well has more whistles and bells for a musician.

If you follow the links from either item, you can download manuals for both. I did, and just cruised them for basics so probably missed a bunch. Even the dual well price beats a DA-P1 , Check 'em out if you're interested... Steve

PS- while you're at it, check out the PMD690U from Marantz - it's a stereo Complact Flash recorder with phantom power, under $1200 from bswonline.

I just got a catalog from these guys yesterday, they have some pretty good prices and some stuff you don't often see in other musician-oriented catalogs...
 
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