Portable stereo mic recordings

[darrvid]

I'm looking to do some portable sound capturing, not recording actual musical performances necessarily, but getting 'sounds'. I'd like to be able to capture this in stereo, so 2 mic inputs would be necessary, as well as phantom power if the mics need it. I currently use a laptop with a firebox, however, the firebox can't be powered by my firewire port as its through a pcmcia card. Soo, kind of odd question here. Is there some sort of portable generator I could use to power the firebox? Otherwise, I'm thinking a usb interface might be needed that can be totally bus powered. I'm not locked into using the computer as well (in fact, I'd just as soon not, I'll be doing this in a city and don't feel like getting mugged). A smaller self contained audio recording device might actually work better for me, such as a portable DAT recorder or something.

My only requirements is that its totally portable, and has 2 mic inputs with phantom power. Oh yeah, and if its digital 24bit would be nice, but seeing as the ultimate destination is a CD, 16bit is acceptable.

I'm sure I'm not the first to need this, so what do you all suggest?

Edit: I looked at the Edirol R1 per a similar previous thread posted on here, but it's out of my price range, which I should state is $200 max.

 

[dgatwood]

If you don't have to be physically mobile while recording, you can always power the FireBox externally with the included power supply. (If you do, you'd run your laptop's batteries down pretty quickly.)

If the device doesn't draw to much power, you should be able to get a cable that adapts 4-pin to 6-pin FireWire with a Y cable that taps power from a USB or PS/2 port. I can't find any of them commercially, but I got one for free with a $30 portable FireWire drive case, so they have to be out there somewhere.

Another possibility, assuming you don't mind the weight, is one of those emergency start batteries that you hook up to your car to give yourself a jump start. They charge off of 110VAC and the one I have provides both clip-on connections and a pair of 12V cigarette lighter sockets. I've plugged a voltage inverter into it and used it to power my Korg N1 and a pair of powered computer speakers for several hours (and still showing a full charge at the end) for our department picnic the last two years in a row. This would provide you with AC to power both the laptop and the audio interface... pretty much anywhere... probably for the better part of a week.

Finally, you could make a custom FireWire cable and route the power connections to a jack, then hook that jack up to four 9V batteries in series-parallel. 18V bus power is well within the specs, and you'd have about 550 mAH (assuming rechargeable 9V batteries) to play with, so even if the FirePod drew the maximum current that most Mac laptop FireWire ports allow (doubtful), you'd still probably get about an hour of battery life off those four 9V batteries, though I don't know the voltage curve for NiMH, so I may be overestimating.

That said, if I were doing it, though, a portable DAT would probably be my choice.

 

[stalemayte]

M-audio microtrack

I don't have one of these, but am looking forward to getting one. I am planning on using this for capturing sounds/dialouge for indie films.

24/96 recording, comes with a stereo electret mic, also has two 1/4 balanced inputs, and built-in phantom power.

follow that link, and listen to the soundclip they have posted. The video is also kind of neat.

 

[Agent47]

Hi-MD

I seem to be the only Hi-MD fan on this board, so I feel it's my duty to promote the format whenever the need arises...

Buy a Hi-MD recorder, they cost around $100-150 and will record UNCOMPRESSED (yes, lossless, uncompressed, you read that right) PCM 16Bit 44.1kHz stereo for 1hr 35mins on a (removable) Hi-MD 1Gb disc.

The battery life is pretty cool. it's infinitely cheaper than an archaic DAT machine, plus with the bundled software you can transfer the audio 100% digitally to your PC via USB. The latest version of the software apparently allows you to load them in as wav files to, which is obviously quicker than real-time. (I'm still on an older version of the software.)

It's small and discrete, lightweight so very portable.

Seriously, I use the format myself for all my outdoor recording, and I couldn't imagine getting anything else.

Downside - the inputs are generally stereo minijack, so you'd have to get a Sony stereo mic or some proper mics, a pre-amp and an adaptor that converts to stereo minijack.

Look up some Sony Hi-MD units, they should be pretty cheap.