Handheld Mobile Recorders

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aaronmcoleman

aaronmcoleman

The truth is out there!
Hello,

I'm looking for a nice hand held recorder. It's not for music, although it may be used to record some ideas.

I'm a linguist and I'm looking for something to accurately record spoken language for later transcription. Here is what I would really like: something accurate that will capture everything clearly and sound natural, I want at least two mics for stereo so I can listen to the speaker in space and related to the other speakers, I would prefer additional jacks to plug in my mics, and I'd really like something with 360 omni sorta pattern, battery life of at least 5 hours, and it's gotta be durable because it's going to travel a lot.

What I've looked at so far is H4N (has everything except omni mic options, but I can get that with my own mics), H2N (cheaper, but doesn't seem to have jacks for external mics, but does do 360), Tascam DR100 (more expensive than the rest, but has everything...even phantom power).

any advice, or experience would be appreciated, or if you have another one you like. Budget, lets say $350 or less.
 
Thanks. That's what I was leaning toward anyway. After writing all that above, I realized it's pretty much everything I'm looking for anyway, so I think I'll go for it.

quick question, are the mic jacks powered so I can run my condensers?
 
Yes they are!!!

If you have any questions once you get one give me a PM for the manual is a bit whacked.


There is just so much more that you can do with the unit.
 
Cool, thanks. Hopefully I'll get it this week so I can start doing some field work. I'm glad the XLR are powered, I really want to be able to use it with the two built in x/y, an omni NT5 for the whole room, and something like a SM57 for me to do narration from another room/area while I'm recording. Seems like H4N is the only one that has 4 simultaneous inputs for something like this.

Another question, when I'm done recording will all four tracks be linked together so I can import them to reaper as separate tracks (i.e. to edit dead space, mute my narration track etc.)?

The other upside is I'll be able to use it for music whenever the team isn't out with it!
 
Cool, thanks. Hopefully I'll get it this week so I can start doing some field work. I'm glad the XLR are powered, I really want to be able to use it with the two built in x/y, an omni NT5 for the whole room, and something like a SM57 for me to do narration from another room/area while I'm recording. Seems like H4N is the only one that has 4 simultaneous inputs for something like this.

Another question, when I'm done recording will all four tracks be linked together so I can import them to reaper as separate tracks (i.e. to edit dead space, mute my narration track etc.)?The other upside is I'll be able to use it for music whenever the team isn't out with it!



Yes very easy to do with any DAW that your farmilar with
 
Yo Aaron Coleman! Mostly- what Moresound said. The H4n provides phantom power to both XLR inputs, and can be configured for 24V or 48V. It'll do the 5 hours you want running on lithium batteries, if you have at least a 16 gig SD card (it supports 32 gigs as well, but they are hard to find). It helps to disable the backlight. In order to use all 4 mics and separate the tracks, you have to be in "4-track" mode, which limits you to 16bit/44.1 kHz, which is no big deal. You can mix in the H4n, or export the tracks as WAV. files to the DAW of your choice- pretty much anything that supports WAV. files. You can use the H4n as the SD card reader, or feed the SD card to whatever reader you have. For the kind of stuff you are talking about, there is another option that works for me. There is a 3.5mm stereo mic input on the bottom that accepts most stereo mics intended for handheld recorders or camcorders. This disables the onboard mics and replaces them. I often use a SONY ECMMS-957 for that, which is a little better than the onboard stereo mics. This makes it easier to place the stereo mic where I want to, and still have access to the recorder for monitoring and control. The alternative is to use the remote control card (an available option), so you can place the H4n where you need it, and control it from somewhere else. Of course, for monitoring, then you need a headphone extension cable. I find it easier to just run a stereo mic cable to wherever I want the mics, and then the XLRs for spot mics or whatever. For what it is, what it does, and what it costs, the H4n is revolutionary.

Here's one caveat emptor- the H4n is something else that's revolutionary- an actual attempt by the manufacturer to correct the problems that made an otherwise cutting-edge machine a piece of junk, namely, its predecessor, the H4. The H4 (not to be confused with the H2) did everything the H4n does for less money-very badly. It was fragile and delicate, famous for dropping files and shutting down for no known reason. The buttons were wicked cheap and guaranteed to fail. Worse, it had the compressor/limiter after the preamp in the signal chain, so if you engaged the compressor on loud sources, you got quieter clipping! How useful. The H4n is an obvious attempt, and a fairly successful one, at correcting the major problems with the H4. They upgraded the chassis and rubberized it, used better buttons, upgraded the electronics hardware, and fixed the signal chain. This turned a $200 recorder that really sucked into a $350 recorder (with all the accessories) that really doesn't suck. My point is- no matter how good it looks on paper, don't buy an H4. There's still a lot of them out there on ebay for cheap.-Richie
 
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I'll use the 3.5 stereo microphone input jack to get a board feed with the appropriate cord adapters as well as using the XLR jacks for my favorite stereo microphone pair or stereo microphone.
Again have it in four track mode. Bring it back to the studio and mix those four tracks to taste! ;)
 
Cool. Thanks. I can't wait to get it. It's for research, but it will likely see a lot of music too!
 
Bump- so did you get it? Inquiring minds want to know.-Richie
 
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