Aphex Twin Portable audio recording

Hello

I'm very much interested in buying a portable digital recording device.

I'm interested in the M-Audio MicroTrack II, but I really have no experience in this area, so even shedding some personal knowledge of recording out of studio sources would be fantastic.

I do have a mini-disc but I am not sure if it would be better using that in-conjunction with a microphone than a dedicated portable audio recorder.

I'd like to record every-day sounds, but I'd like to get as much quality as I can.

I'm willing to spend about £250, ($500)

I am also highly interested in using this to record an Aphex Twin live set this summer.

Thank you.

you can use the minidisc with a condenser mic plugged in, it gets good results.

My friend did this altho he gave the small sony mic to me

  hellomynameis said:

you can use the minidisc with a condenser mic plugged in, it gets good results.

 

My friend did this altho he gave the small sony mic to me

As I mention, I'm going to try and record aphex twin's live set, so I need the best option available.

I'm not sure what kind of quality I should be expecting.. will it be acceptable quality? I guess it all depends on the recording environment.

Are mini discs generally better for taking in audio?.. or should I try and use my creative zen.. or rather an actual dedicated device.

I've been looking at the zoom h2. This looks like a decent device for me - it's flash based so that I can still dance around watching aphex twin - though I may end up like locking it to some platform or something, then picking it up when he's finished.

h2

It also accepts other mics too with a flash based SD insert, so it's very expandable.

I have the Roland R-09 and it's perfect. It has mic and line in options and also a built in stereo mic which does the job. I believe Adjuective has the same and I'm sure he has nothin' but good words to spill about it.

  goffer said:

I have the Roland R-09 and it's perfect. It has mic and line in options and also a built in stereo mic which does the job. I believe Adjuective has the same and I'm sure he has nothin' but good words to spill about it.

  Quote

Bottom line: I loved the form factor of the Edirol R-09 but didn’t like the sound quality. I loved the sound quality of the Zoom H4 but hated the form factor. Now, in the Zoom H2, we have the form factor of the Edirol with the sound quality of the Zoom H4 — better actually, because of the multiple microphones. And cheaper than either of them!! Awesome!!!

I have the R-09 as well and I used it to record Murcof live in Berlin about a month ago. I've uploaded a 15 minute sample, so you can hear what it sounds like. The sounds is okay but it's a bit muddy. I suppose some EQ-ing could help that.

R09_0006__partial_.MP3Fetching info...

ive owned the microtrack and had a play with the r9, i would choose the microtrack if you insist on using your own mic, the actual unit weighs almost nothing, i simply coudnt believe it was so light.

i bought the korg mr-1 (1-bit recorder) along with a rode NT4 just before leaving for europe at xmas. they sounded great but were too clumsy for the quick recording i like to do, so i sold the MR-1 and picked up this:

sony pcm-d50

ordered it from a US company called buydig (buydig.com) for $450 including a free set of decent headphones.

i've tried just about every portable recorder out there extensively, and this sucker FAR excels the competition. the built-in mics sound fantastic (moveable from x/y to 90-degrees or out to 120-degrees for a wider field, but you can still plug in something more swank if you need more fidelity. 4GB of built-in flash memory plus a memory stick slot.

no rechargeable battery, but i'm still running on the set of AAs that came with it and i've been using it for weeks.

HIGHLY recommended.

c

  maus said:

i bought the korg mr-1 (1-bit recorder) along with a rode NT4 just before leaving for europe at xmas. they sounded great but were too clumsy for the quick recording i like to do, so i sold the MR-1 and picked up this:

 

sony pcm-d50

 

ordered it from a US company called buydig (buydig.com) for $450 including a free set of decent headphones.

 

i've tried just about every portable recorder out there extensively, and this sucker FAR excels the competition. the built-in mics sound fantastic (moveable from x/y to 90-degrees or out to 120-degrees for a wider field, but you can still plug in something more swank if you need more fidelity. 4GB of built-in flash memory plus a memory stick slot.

 

no rechargeable battery, but i'm still running on the set of AAs that came with it and i've been using it for weeks.

 

HIGHLY recommended.

 

c

Yes, that was on my watch list too, but I thought it would be way too expensive. It looks the part (high quality), thanks for the post. I'll be checking this out before I go ahead with the zoom h2.

Shame it looks like something out of back to the future, or a device in doom 3

I did an entire album in Feb using all sounds recorded on an H2 Zoom.

  acid1 said:

I did an entire album in Feb using all sounds recorded on an H2 Zoom.

link?

It will be up on the rpmchallenge website whenever they receive my cd in the mail.

Heres an example tho:

  acid1 said:

It will be up on the rpmchallenge website whenever they receive my cd in the mail.

 

Heres an example tho:

http://www.explicitdigits.com/acid1/underscore.mp3

nice, I'm listening now. First impressions are that it doesn't sound very clear, but I think you've put a high pass filter on it.

Yeah that was probably a bad example as I was going for a lo-fi sound, however it was the only song I had uploaded.

So here are two examples:

I think there are two things about the H2... first of all I don't know how much field recording you plan on doing, but no one really figured out in all the times I've field recorded that it was a portable recorder. When I have the ear buds plugged in or wrapped around the unit, it just looks like I have a shitty ipod. The fact that its super small and fits in my pocket helps a lot.

Another is that it comes with a stand which is a plus cuz my buddy has the H4 and has some wierd snake like digital camera stand that he has to hook onto it to record.

if you plan on recording outside, you might want to buy/make a windscreen for your mics. wind noise is a bastard and makes your recording sound like crap.

the D50 has gotten stellar reviews and is considered the only 'pro' option at its price level.

here's a little 2-ch. portable recording pron for ya -

http://sounddevices.com/products/722.htm

i have this one out on rental .. they're going to have to pry it out of my hands

http://sounddevices.com/products/744t.htm so sexy

Yeah a minidisc recorder and a decent mic s'all you need. You may need to do a bit of post-processing but it'll end up sounding bloody awesome and quite cheap in the process.

i love my r09

i've typed some love for it in other threads, too lazy to repeat.

i do strongly recommend checking out this forum: http://www.taperssection.com

you'll find lots of info on microtracks, zooms, r09s, marantz, etc

i heard somewhere about the H2 that if your signal clips at the line-in then there is no solution because the level control is after the input rather than before. or something like that? was just a blurb on a forum that i reconstructed from my senile memories

Random Rant about Portable Audio Recording:

Friday at the university we were given an assignment to go out and make field recordings. "Cool", I thought...right until we were handed over huge bagpacks which contained the recorder. I then kindly asked if I could just use my R09 as it was smaller, lighter, and in stereo whereas the recorders we were given were mono recorders.

And the answer was: "no". Fucking douche.

And another thing. For some fucked up reason they want us to use Dr. Java to create our soundcollage?!

public Sound cut(int from, int to)
  {
    Sound target = new Sound( to-from,(int) this.getSamplingRate() ); // create a new sound object with (to-from) empty samples at the sampling rate of the original (this) sound
    for (int sourceIndex=from; sourceIndex<to;sourceIndex++)
    {
      int sampleValue = this.getSampleValueAt(sourceIndex);
      int targetIndex = sourceIndex-from;
      target.setSampleValueAt(targetIndex,sampleValue);
    }
    return target;
  }

Yeah... uhuh... that's a lot easier than just using CoolEdit or AdobeAudition, yeah sure.

I then asked them if we could just use a normal sound editing program and perhaps Logic or any other sequencer application instead.

And the answer was: "no".

I hate those academic fucks.

Just pretend to use the random Java shite, and do it your way. In my degree one of my modules was photography and we weren't allowed to do post processing, therefore I didn't. I ended up getting a fucking shite mark and my mate who used a myriad of post-processing filters with Photoshop ended up getting over 90% in the module. So basically if they don't find out then you'll be fine in doing it your way.

there's a newer r09

http://www.roland.com/products/en/R-09HR/images.html

just noticed today, anyone used / seen this?

  acid1 said:

This one I just turned on and dropped into my friends grand piano. I spent no time configuring or setting up placement. I still think the recording is amazing and with headphones you can hear the stereo spread nicely.

 

This one I was at the ren fair and just held up a microphone and people broke into song and dance. I stood about 20 feet away from the people singing and dancing with the 120° option turned on.

those were ridculously good sounding, especially the second one. stereo ftw

  mcbpete said:

Yeah a minidisc recorder and a decent mic s'all you need. You may need to do a bit of post-processing but it'll end up sounding bloody awesome and quite cheap in the process.

I wish I'd properly research what I'm talking about before I spout my mouth off. Anyway, I'm just getting back to the world of field recording but I'm not entirely sure which direction I should take. Either:

a) I keep my minidisc record (Sony MZ-N710: http://www.av-land.co.uk/sony/mzn710/index.htm ) but upgrade my microphone to something like Rode NT3 ( http://www.dolphinmusic.co.uk/page/shop/fl...product_id/3001 ) - anyone have any experience with said mic, I can only find reviews for studio uses rather than field recordings ? Is there a site that reviews mics specifically for field uses

b) Get one of those new fangled H2 or R09 machines

The thing is if I keep my minidisc, will I reach a bottleneck that getting a spanking new mic won't fix. I read on the ol' wikipedia that the player has a bit rate of 292 kbit/s but that should be fine yeah ?

And if I go the other (h2/r09) route, will most of the cost go towards buying the whole recording device rather than the mic quality ?

99% of my recordings will be in recording the ambience of locations (city noise, nature recordings, houses etc.) so I'm looking for the most realistic recording mics, I don't even know what type I'm meant to be looking for: Dynamic, condensor, hyper cardoid blah blah. helpp !! Oooh it's all so complicated.

Hmm, apparently the nt3 are only good till about 6 foot so I'm guessing they're not the ones to go for. What on earth do I get to record outdoor sounds that doesn't cost like £4 million.

it's a tricky question man. price is usually the serious limiting factor for quality microphones. if you want to record far-away sounds you're better off with a shotgun mic - and if 4 feet is way to close for you your only hope is a long shotgun, like the sennheiser mkh816, 815, or 804. these can sometimes be ebay'ed for under $1000us, sometimes as low as 500. see what i mean? the neumann kmr82i is in a different quality class and is often just over a grand. and then if you're going to be outdoors you should probably look into wind protection, which is a whole different discussion.

i know i sound like a dick but i'm assuming that as an EKTer you want good-quality stuff. there are cheaper options out there but compromise too much in quality imo.

edit: ok here's some real advice . . it's tough to recommend a "one size fits all" microphone in any case. if you're doing ambience, you're going to want stereo. in this case i seriously recommend the sony pcm-d50 as it comes with stereo mics that are not bad at all for the price (500). however if you want to go in to your minidisc, it opens up a whole other question of powering the mic(s) and getting them to an 1/8" input (i'm assuming). also the preamps on most of those recorders are really undesirable, noisy, etc. if you want to go down this route i'll break down a few options but the simple answer is get a pcm-d50 with wind protection.

A/D thanks for the info man, that pcm-d50 looks pretty darn nice but unfortunately is a likkle over budget.

Having investigated this for the last week or so, it seems as if my Minidisc is probably a bottle neck to the recording potential of what I can expect so it looks as if I'm gonna have to get one of those hand held recorder things.

My big worry is internal noise & hiss that I've heard from some samples. The stereo imaging of the H2 sounds phenomenal but I've heard some samples using the internal mics that are really quite hissy and sound even worse with external ones. and I've heard similar things about the Microtrack also with the build in mics.

Kaen and acid1, it would be awesome if you could post some really really quiet recordings (like from an empty room or something) so I can see what the noise is like in real life situations. As I'm all bewildered at the moment on my next step for field recordings.