Field Recorder

Electronic Music Production // Dark Arts
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Hepta
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Re: Field Recorder

Post by Hepta »

Hades wrote:the build quality of the tascam is so much better than the one of the zoom.
as I said a while back in this thread, the zoom felt terribly flimsy plasticy,
and as a result you were always dealing with handling noise as soon as you moved your hand even the smallest bit.
I have no experience with the Tascam but I can confirm this issue with the Zoom H4n. It's terrible. But having a stand solves this problem though.

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Hades
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Re: Field Recorder

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Hepta wrote:
Hades wrote:the build quality of the tascam is so much better than the one of the zoom.
as I said a while back in this thread, the zoom felt terribly flimsy plasticy,
and as a result you were always dealing with handling noise as soon as you moved your hand even the smallest bit.
I have no experience with the Tascam but I can confirm this issue with the Zoom H4n. It's terrible. But having a stand solves this problem though.
I had one of those small screw on stands plus one of those screw on grips.
But I still think those are missing the point.
A field recorder is supposed to be intuïtive like :
"what's that sound ?? quick let's sample it !!"
so you take out the recorder, turn it on, press 1 or 2 buttons max and you record it.
The tascam is far better in that respect than the zoom.

If I'd want to record a band jamming, I'd take the Zoom and screw it on the stand and put it in the middle of the room though...
But for on the go, the Tascam, no doubt. Even if it's about 1,5x the size of the Zoom
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Hades
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Re: Field Recorder

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Victor wrote:After testing mine for the last several weeks I have to say that I'm quite surprised indeed. Recorded a lot of interesting stuff already at highest quality; (24-bit wav 96000khz). Need to buy another Sd card since the one which came with the tascam is loaded pretty quick. Also a deadcat is on the whish list. Steve mentioned some nice ones but are quite pricey to import to The Netherlands..

Question to you happy DR-07 (mkII) owners; where to you keep your recorder, a sort of case or something? (Haven't found one that fits properly). Or do you just put them in a bag amongst other stuff?

I just bought one of those windshields together with my tascam.
It only covers the mics (as I would presume would be what it's supposed to do, I seen no point in covering more of the thing)
Other than that I just shove it in any bag, and it's more than strong enough to handle the travelling.

I think I bought this one :

http://www.musicstore.com/nl_NL/NLG/Ryc ... 008122-000

works fir the mics in X/Y or A/B position.
not cheap, but not that expensive either, and you need one anyway.

die hollanders é, altijd goedkoop willen zijn ;)
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Hepta
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Re: Field Recorder

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Hades wrote: A field recorder is supposed to be intuïtive like :
"what's that sound ?? quick let's sample it !!"
so you take out the recorder, turn it on, press 1 or 2 buttons max and you record it.
The tascam is far better in that respect than the zoom.
Yeah I get your point. It's almost impossible to do that with the Zoom, especially if your moving around while recording. Personally I almost never record stuff "on the go" though. So it's not really an issue for me. Also whenever I do record anything I need both of my hands anyway because i'm almost always hitting the stuff I want to record. :D

But i've been experimenting with the Zoom now since I read this thread, and I found out that it really helps if you have a steady firm grip on it. Reduces the wobbling a bit.

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Re: Field Recorder

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Hades wrote:die hollanders é, altijd goedkoop willen zijn ;)
:D

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Re: Field Recorder

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Does anyone know a decent-ish contact mic I can pick up to use with my Tascam? I'm intrigued after seeing the Diego Stocco video with the beach wood...

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Re: Field Recorder

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Planar wrote:Does anyone know a decent-ish contact mic I can pick up to use with my Tascam? I'm intrigued after seeing the Diego Stocco video with the beach wood...
I want to know this too. :)

https://www.etsy.com/se-en/shop/CrankSturgeon

This guy sells cheap ones though. Different types as well. :)

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Re: Field Recorder

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Hades wrote:die hollanders é, altijd goedkoop willen zijn ;)
So true ! But the most important thing is that it works. I Think I might have found one that fits the Tascam at a local musicstore. The ''Rode dead kitten'' should fit also. All my gear has sleeves or covers, I'm always looking (a bit to much) after my gear hehe.. But for the tascam the most important thing is that something covers the mics while it's in a bag.

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Re: Field Recorder

Post by Planar »

Hepta wrote:
Planar wrote:Does anyone know a decent-ish contact mic I can pick up to use with my Tascam? I'm intrigued after seeing the Diego Stocco video with the beach wood...
I want to know this too. :)

https://www.etsy.com/se-en/shop/CrankSturgeon

This guy sells cheap ones though. Different types as well. :)
£20 for a waterproof one seems pretty decent. I may have to put an order in unless there's a better suggestion.

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Re: Field Recorder

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Yeah same here. I'd love to start playing around with contact microphones. I might sacrifice a pair just to put it on a train track and see what happens haha!

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Re: Field Recorder

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I've made one myself last week. Just experimenting with those piezo things made me realize that you could use any old crappy headphones as well. (You can use almost any headphone as microphone, just plug in the right input). Strip the headphones down, make sure no wires are disconnected. Then simply plug in the mini-jack into the mic-input on your recorder. Tested it on several materials surfaces and it works quite well.

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Re: Field Recorder

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Cool! I have a old pair of Shure SRH440. The headpiece is broken so I cant wear them anymore hehe. I'm gonna try use it as a microphone.

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Re: Field Recorder

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Victor wrote:I've made one myself last week. Just experimenting with those piezo things made me realize that you could use any old crappy headphones as well. (You can use almost any headphone as microphone, just plug in the right input). Strip the headphones down, make sure no wires are disconnected. Then simply plug in the mini-jack into the mic-input on your recorder. Tested it on several materials surfaces and it works quite well.

Well you can, but with shitty piezos you get shitty sound. They tend not to handle low end well.
You can buy decent piezos on eBay for little money, much better, if you want to go diy.

I bought some decent spec large diameter piezos from eBay for a steal, and they produce nice low end, been putting them in to my own home made instruments (like my can of pain).
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Re: Field Recorder

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Lost to the Void wrote:Well you can, but with shitty piezos you get shitty sound. They tend not to handle low end well.
You can buy decent piezos on eBay for little money, much better, if you want to go diy.

I bought some decent spec large diameter piezos from eBay for a steal, and they produce nice low end, been putting them in to my own home made instruments (like my can of pain).
Ordered some normal size Piezos just for experimenting yesterday. Don't want to go much off-topic with this, but if no-one minds..? Where do you look for when choosing the piezos? And how did you connect the piezo to a mic input such as on the tascams for example (do you use one or two for stereo-ish recordings)?

I know there are tutorials out there, maybe you can explain how you did it?

I need the low end sensitivity. Got some ideas I want to experiment with.

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Re: Field Recorder

Post by Resin »

As far as I know the lack of bass has nothing to do with their size or quality, it is because of their impedance and there is a simple (and easy to build) circuit around, if you google it.

edit: there you go http://www.zachpoff.com/diy-resources/a ... amplifier/

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Re: Field Recorder

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Large Diaphragm for better coverage (smaller piezo just don`t get the lows right) high impedance + a FET buffer , and you`ll be good to go.

http://www.megalithia.com/sounds/tech/piezo/index.html
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Re: Field Recorder

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I am interested in a field recorder, and was looking into the Tascam DR07 MKII that some suggested... perfect price range for me; however, I can understand the issue with wanting some kind of remote control, so that you can hit 'record' while not having to hold the recorder when doing so. The likely option seems to be wi-fi capability so that I could just use my iPhone to initiate recording.

Those of you with experience, what do you think about the following model, in terms of how it compares to the DR07-MKII?

Tascam DR-22WL?..

would I be better off still with the MKII?... is there a great benefit to having A-B AND X-Y abilities (since the DR-22WL is only X-Y)?

Product Links:

DR22-WL: http://tascam.com/product/dr-22wl/

DR07-MKII: http://tascam.com/product/dr-07mk2/
because a track with a kick on every quarter is completely different than verb bass... the former is creative... latter is not.

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Re: Field Recorder

Post by Lost to the Void »

The WL looks pretty good, , I guess you are sacrificing mic options for wifi, so it really is up to you, and depends how much versatility you want against the convenience of not wanting to press the buttons on the controller.

It`s rare I want for remote control when recording to be honest. I have a nice tripod I mount my device to occasionally if I want to leave the unit running, and having wifi wouldn`t really make much difference to that situation.
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Re: Field Recorder

Post by penumbra »

Lost to the Void wrote:The WL looks pretty good, , I guess you are sacrificing mic options for wifi, so it really is up to you, and depends how much versatility you want against the convenience of not wanting to press the buttons on the controller.

It`s rare I want for remote control when recording to be honest. I have a nice tripod I mount my device to occasionally if I want to leave the unit running, and having wifi wouldn`t really make much difference to that situation.
cool... exactly the info I was looking for... much obliged :)
because a track with a kick on every quarter is completely different than verb bass... the former is creative... latter is not.

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Re: Field Recorder

Post by Kuchta »

I know this thread is old, but if anyone is trying to get into field recording and is strapped for cash, I've just stuck my old one up in the 'For Sale' section on here.

Free to a good home. Respond via the for sale pages.


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