Edirol R-09 Field Report...

V

vicrattlehead

Well-known member
Hey DVXers,
Wanted to give a quick informal report on the Edirol R-09 I just purchased. Used it on a no budget short shoot today. Two actors talking on a park bench.

I purchased this thing so that I could run a back-up recording of my field recordings for personal QC review, and for client back-up--- as a very last resort.

It's a cool little unit. I would never use the mic input for anything, but when running a stereo cable into the line input from the aux. tape outs on my PSC Aplphamix, it works really nicely. It has input control switches on the side, so you send your tone to it and set everything up proper, and it will record two separate tracks-- cool.

As other reviews have stated, yes, the battery door is fragile and awkward, but just be aware of this when you use the thing.

On the shoot today, I ran main audio out to my DVX100b, and had a sennheiser 416 (THANKS AGAIN OLEG!) on left channel and two G2s with TRAM heads mixed to the right channel. The Edirol fits in the wireless pocket of my portabrace bag, and is very small.

I also looked at the M-Audio 24/96, but did not like the idea of the internal rechargeable battery. I run with 4 G2 wireless units so I'll always have an abundance of AAs on hand to feed the Edirol.

I looked at the Zoom H4 as well, and I like the idea of the full on XLR inputs, but I figured I'd be using my mixer in front of such a back-up recorder anyway-- and always with line input. PLUS, I read on RAMPS that the Zoom H4 has a built-in non-defeatable noise gate. No thank you.

I have a 1GB card in the R-09 and this will give you a little over an hour of record time at 48khz/24bit WAV. Today, for grins, I ran it at 48khz/320kbps MP3. Sounds great and with the compression set to MP3 I could have captured about 7 hours worth of audio. Soon I will get my hands on a 4GB card so I can record longer runs of full-res audio. The 64Mb card the thing comes with will only give you about 3 minutes of run time at full-res.

On the way home from the shoot I was able to disconnect the unit from my field bag, hook it up to my iPod car radio transmitter thing-a-ma-jig, and listen to my tracks in my truck. Very cool-- I think that this will be the biggest advantage of this little device-- being able to go back through the day and listen to what I did. So many times we never get to hear our own field work....

...Now I have to save up fro the 744T! :Drogar-Love(DBG):
 
Good report Vic,

How did you like the R9's meters? Was it easy to setup with your mixer? What sort of life were you getting on the batteries? Have you tried rechargables? These newer +2500mAh NiMh are giving me as much as almost twice what a standard alkaline provides on some of my gear (also nice not having so much biohazards to throw away...can't be bad, can't be bad).

Did you have any issues with the miniplug? Non-locking jacks always make me nervous.

Cheers
 
wabbit said:
Good report Vic,

How did you like the R9's meters? Was it easy to setup with your mixer? What sort of life were you getting on the batteries? Have you tried rechargables? These newer +2500mAh NiMh are giving me as much as almost twice what a standard alkaline provides on some of my gear (also nice not having so much biohazards to throw away...can't be bad, can't be bad).

Did you have any issues with the miniplug? Non-locking jacks always make me nervous.

Cheers
Click to expand...


Hey Wabbit,
The meters are really good. Clear markings at -20, -12, -30, -6, etc. Just like a cam or mixer. Youc an adjust the brightness of the display, though I think it would still be hard to read it easily in bright sunlight. BUT, the record button lights up with at bright LED ringa round that is easy to see under the clear window of my wireless pouch, and I knew that tone was set rock solid to -20, so I wan't too concerned with tracking levels closely on the recorder. and the meters sync beautifully with the meters on the PSC Alphamix, same speed to peaks and such.

I started the day with the same bateries I had in for initial testing at home, so I couldn't give you an accurate estimate on that.

Which brand of NiMh batteries and charger do you have? With my wirelss kit running at fuul bore, plus the R-09, I'll be using 18 AA batteries a day! It's probably a good time to look into rechargables... Any experience using them in G2s?

In regard to the mini-plug cable, I got a 12" stereo/stereo miniplug cable at Radio Shack, and it works very well. I made sure to route the cable through through my mixer bag in a way that would reduce unintentional 'pop-outs' and it worked fine. Might be sketchy in a run-n-gun, but I'll bet I could bury the thing deeper in the bag to shield the connections more in those situations.
 
I had the m-audio and switched because of the internal batteries and there limited life span. I use the r-09 for podcast and recording nat sound on shoots (mainly music). I was wondering what option are out there for a descent mini lav for interviews and how could I get two into the r-09 without a mixer (y a mini?). Any thoughts?

Thanks.
 
http://candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=79302

I actually have a number of different brands but just as in this link, the Sanyo's have given me noticable longer life then the rest. Any smart charger will do.

If you get the chance please report back on what sort of battery life you are able to get with the R9.

Tram makes a battery powered module for lavs: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=WishList.jsp&A=details&Q=&sku=259965&is=REG

(disclaimer: not suggesting you buy it from B&H ;-) )
 
FatDaddy said:
I had the m-audio and switched because of the internal batteries and there limited life span. I use the r-09 for podcast and recording nat sound on shoots (mainly music). I was wondering what option are out there for a descent mini lav for interviews and how could I get two into the r-09 without a mixer (y a mini?). Any thoughts?

Thanks.
Click to expand...
you have plug in power - low bias voltage to power back electret microphones
lavalier type and cetetra , you must to turn it on true the menu
dont know exactly voltage it gets out but probably it would be goofd for most of the lavalieres which start to live in 1.5 v at minimum
then you wire your lavalier for 2 wire configuration with1/8 min jack
dont think dpa would work as they need around 5 v , all the others as mke 2 or shure probably work without a problem ,
remember to close the self power if you use self powered or just mic levels in to avoid the hum the dc add to the signal
 
wabbit said:
http://candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=79302

If you get the chance please report back on what sort of battery life you are able to get with the R9.

Tram makes a battery powered module for lavs: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=WishList.jsp&A=details&Q=&sku=259965&is=REG

(disclaimer: not suggesting you buy it from B&H ;-) )
Click to expand...



Hey Wabbit, I've got a interview with 'Da Coach' Mike Ditka tomorrow, and two days of Indy film shooting over the wekend, so I'll start with freshies, and let you know what kind of run time I get. I'm also going to look into those Sanyos, It seems like I'm buying one of those 16-packs of AAs from Home Depot or Target every week!

In regards to mics direct in to the R-09, I haven't tried it, but maybe I'll throw on of my Trams on there and give it a try-- they are already wired with those little Sennheiser G2 plugs, I'll see if they work, though I would assume the sounds will be sub-par from teeny-weenie pre-amps.

-VicRattlehead
 
I bought the Zoom H4 not too long ago and really like it. I originally bought the M-audio but realized it didnt do 48V Phantom Power. So far the Zoom has performed great for the money!
 
Hey Wabbit,
I had that recorder on for about 2 hours straight during the coach Ditka interview, battery didn't go own at all, thoug I wasn't 'recording' the whole time.

I'll let you know how the Indy film shoot goes this weekend.

-Vic Rattlehead
 
Well I hope you can get at least 4-5 hours out it (get you to lunch before you have to switch). Might be hoping for too much from 2 AA batteries. Are you using alkalines or lithiums?

Cheers
 
Funkycoldg said:
I bought the Zoom H4 not too long ago and really like it. I originally bought the M-audio but realized it didnt do 48V Phantom Power. So far the Zoom has performed great for the money!
Click to expand...

TOO BAD IT HAS AN AUTOMATIC NOISE GATE THAT IS MESSING WITH ALL YOUR PRISTINE AUDIO-------

HERE'S A POST I FOUND ON RAMPS WHEN I WAS RESEARCHING THE H4----

________________________________________________________
From: Martin Harrington - view profile
Date: Fri, Oct 6 2006 12:15 am
Not yet rated

show options

Forget it..it's a piece of domestic cr*p.
I bought on thinking the same thing, but the firmware has been updated
because punters were complaining that the input was noisy, so what did they
do??, they added a noise gate to the circuitry, so that when it hears a bit
of (what it interprets as silence), it gates down and then clips the
beginning of the next word.
When I complained about this, they couldn't hear what I was talking about
even though I sent them files to listen to.
One more thing...probably even more important, it says that it works with
MP3 players, not so, not with most of them anyhow, and also won't work with
a USB drive, they both need external powering as the bus powering from the
iKey is not enough.
I did eventually get it working with a 1gb USB key drive, but that's all
Stay away...great idea but not for pro use.
--
Martin Harrington
www.lendanear-sound.com
- Show quoted text -
 
wabbit said:
Well I hope you can get at least 4-5 hours out it (get you to lunch before you have to switch). Might be hoping for too much from 2 AA batteries. Are you using alkalines or lithiums?

Cheers
Click to expand...


Hey Wabbit,
Used the Edirol as the MIAN digital recorder this passed weekend. Producer/Director said he was going to acquire a 702T for me to use on his independent short film, but it fell through. SOOOO, I fed my boom channel and two lav channels to the camera (SDX900 with PS Technik and 35mm Primes), and also sent tape out to the R-09.

It performed well and I was able to make scene folders on the R-09 to store the files in automatically as I recorded them. Only complaint is that a few times I would hit the record button once to 'arm' the unit, and it wouldn't go into standby mode. Then I 'd have to hit STOP, and then REC again to get it to work. Not a big deal, but slightly annoying.

Also, with the display brightness turned down to the lowest setting, I was getting 5-7 hours battery life on standard energizers--- BUT, this was a indy show, with lots of sitting & waiting for lighting, rather than rolling, so my results may be 'not the norm.' I did, however, leave the unit turned on adn ready to go at all times.

I'm burning a DVD for the director with all files on it, and even though it has no timecode, I pulled some takes into FCP, and everything sounds awesome.

-Vic Rattlehead
 
Thanks Vic.

Five to seven hours with regular alakalines should translate to a solid seven plus with 2700mAh Nimh rechargables. That is more then enough to get you through lunch when you can swap them all out.

I really think of all the choices out there the R9 seems to have hit closest to the mark for a professional, cheap handheld CF recorder.

Cheers
 
vicrattlehead said:
TOO BAD IT HAS AN AUTOMATIC NOISE GATE THAT IS MESSING WITH ALL YOUR PRISTINE AUDIO-------

HERE'S A POST I FOUND ON RAMPS WHEN I WAS RESEARCHING THE H4----

________________________________________________________
From: Martin Harrington - view profile
Date: Fri, Oct 6 2006 12:15 am
Not yet rated

show options

Forget it..it's a piece of domestic cr*p.
I bought on thinking the same thing, but the firmware has been updated
because punters were complaining that the input was noisy, so what did they
do??, they added a noise gate to the circuitry, so that when it hears a bit
of (what it interprets as silence), it gates down and then clips the
beginning of the next word.
When I complained about this, they couldn't hear what I was talking about
even though I sent them files to listen to.
One more thing...probably even more important, it says that it works with
MP3 players, not so, not with most of them anyhow, and also won't work with
a USB drive, they both need external powering as the bus powering from the
iKey is not enough.
I did eventually get it working with a 1gb USB key drive, but that's all
Stay away...great idea but not for pro use.
--
Martin Harrington
www.lendanear-sound.com
- Show quoted text -
Click to expand...

There's no noise gating on my H4 what so ever. I'd hear it. They must have removed that. I'm running 1.2 (I think that's the rev - not in front of unit right now). Maybe you turned the compressor on or something.
 
That post has been pasted on Zoom-related threads this forum more than once but it has absolutely nothing to do with the Zoom. Read it. It's clearly about the iKEY recorder.

http://www.ikey-audio.com/ikey.htm

As far as I've read, and as far as I've heard in samples, the Zoom does not have and has never had a noise gate.
 
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