School me on portable digital recorders

T

Thurgood

New member
Looking at doing some "field" recording of dialog and monolog in less than ideal settings, offices, hospitals, nursing home, residential settings. I want a high quality device, with multiple sample rates and bit depth. XLR, line in and outs (for possible use of external pre-amp/mic) would like your input on the quaility of the on board mics. Must have stereo capability. USB out. High pass filter would be helpful. I will be editing these on DAW later. Good battery life a plus but must be able to externally power. Oh, Phantom power a must. However, If I find a well reccomneded unit that does not have ph power I would have to use external pre-amp to feed line in to recorder which means more stuff to lug around. Also any thoughts on microphone types (other than on board eg. lavalier type etc. Any help is greatly appreciated. I have looked at the Zoom h4n (i think that is it, it look cool but I have NO experience with portable digital recorders. Have used old school Nagra but that was way back. Budget less than 500.00 less than 350.00 even better. Thanks in advance. Be well all.

Will R. Sevier
 
The H4n works well for me.

If your environment is really awful, you might consider an over-the-ear headset mic, assuming the people you're recording don't mind it. Because of its proximity, that will probably isolate their sound from background noise better than anything else. Just position it precisely to prevent plosive problems.
 
For the features you want, and the specified budget, you can't beat the H4n. As far as external mics, I like the discontinued mid side stereo mic SONY ECM-MS957. You can find them if you spook around on ebay a bit. The onboard mics are OK, but the SONY is better. For more serious remote stereo recording, where I can set up a mic stand, I use a pair of AKG C2000B's, which rock. Also discontinued, also still out there.
 
I'm rather fired up about the Zoom R24 myself, as it seems to fit my needs as an actor/ narrator for audio plays. After some hairy experiences with recording with a computer and it's attendant limitations regarding portability and multiple miking, this is what I've chosen to save up for.

While the Zoom products do feature integral mics, there's an advantage to be had in being able to hand pick external mic(s) to best suit the environment you're working in - such as the headset suggested above, for instance. Or maybe you could use a set of clip ons? I doubt I will be relying on internal mics so I wouldn't be inclined to use the quality of these to influence my purchase - instead, I would look more towards the quality of the external inputs. The Zoom R24 definitely has phantom power on 6 of it's 8 inputs, so you would be alright there.

There's also the R16, which is it's smaller brother. I don't know much about that, so you'll have to look it up.

Of course, if you know you will only want to record one subject at once, Zoom also make a mic with a built in recorder. I think this is about as portable as you can get, other than a standard dictaphone, except with the sort of quality you're after.

But if you want to record multiple subjects at once, the multi tracking unit would be ideal. You can actually create a rough mix on the stand alone unit before you take it to the PC for final editing.

In addition, the Zoom also doubles up as an audio interface for your PC so you won't have to purchase a separate sound card.

Just so you know, I'm not speaking from direct experience yet, so this can't be counted as a 'review' - this is just how I arrived at my choice of hardware.

Hope you find what you're looking for

Dr. V
 
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