How to prepare samples from field recordings?

Gygaxian · Post by **Gygaxian** » Mon Nov 21, 2005 2:21 am

I would definitely stay away from built in mics.

elemental · Post by **elemental** » Mon Nov 21, 2005 11:56 am

I've heard that the built in mics of the R1 are decent .. obviously not gonna be as good as a dedicated mic but could be v. useful to just carry around and pick up random sounds.

Still ... looking at the Hi-MD option, its half the price of the R1, could spend the rest on a decent stereo mic.

If anyone has any opinions on the M-Audio device I would like to hear (read?!)

Cheers

sans soleil · Post by **sans soleil** » Mon Nov 21, 2005 1:25 pm

elemental wrote:
If anyone has any opinions on the M-Audio device I would like to hear (read?!)

Cheers

well the microtrack has a built-in battery, which sucks...once it runs out, you have to stop and recharge the unit...i think they run out fairly quickly too. on a minidisc (as well as on the edirol) you can just pop in a fresh set of AAs and keep recording.

even for casual field recording this can turn out to be a major pain in the a**.

elemental · Post by **elemental** » Mon Nov 21, 2005 3:48 pm

I'm currently pondering over the Sony MZ-RH10 Hi-MD, or the Edirol R1 ... the R1 seems to get good reviews in terms of sound quality, that is quite important for me ... so is it about spending another £150 for better sound quality and 24bit recording??

gaspode · Post by **gaspode** » Mon Nov 21, 2005 3:56 pm

If you can get a decent price on Compact Flash cards, the M-Audio Microtrack 24/96 allows you to record .wav files from 16-bit 44.1khz up to 24-bit 96khz. You can use either the bundled stereo electret mic, buy a new stereo electret mic... or it supports phantom power off it's 1/4" connections. The nice thing is that it finds quite nicely in the pocket.

I was looking at the MiniDisc recorders at the same time as this device. They are both roughly in the same price range, though the media for the minidisc is substantially cheaper. The reason I went for the Microtrack? No moving parts, so much less wear and tear on the device. It has many more features for powering external mics, or hooking up spdif connections, etc. Even though I normally avoid M-Audio gear like the plague, this little beast has almost all the features you could ask for in a field recording device and it works great in the studio as well.

Anyway, for anybody that is looking around, it is food for thought I suppose. I actually picked up the electret mic that comes bundled with the sony MiniDisc... the ECM-DS70, and actually much prefer the sound of the mic that is bundled with the microtrack 24/96... go figure.

Greg