Field Recorder for also recording podcasts

K

kat.hayes

Active member
Can anyone recommend a field recorder that can also be used in a classroom setting for an instructor to record podcasts?

Thanks.
 
I have heard several recommendations for the I River. There is a podcast I listen to, Window To The Magic, that uses that and a pair of stereo mics to present a virtual surround sound environment.
 
Its worth noting that all the recorders mentioned thusfar would benefit significantly from the addition of a mixer on the front-end.

The biggest design shortcut made in many of the latest crop of ultra-comact flash recorders seems to be in the preamps, which tend to be noisey and unpleasant-sounding. This isn't that big an issue if you're using built-in mics (which tend to be profoundly cheap-sounding at best), but once you start using external mics, built-in preamps can quickly become the weakest link in your signal chain.

For bare-bones podcast work, I would reccomend a Shure SM-58 microphone (one of the most solid mic investments you can make), a flash recorder with a line input, and an external mic preamplifier (I'm very fond of the ART Tube MP). Even a $75 single-channel mic preamp will make a night-and-day difference when compared to most of the ultra-compact flash recorder preamps on the market (until you start getting into products like the Tascam HD-P2).
 
You might also consider your laptop, with a pre-amp box. I did some recordings for a major book publisher who uses webcast commercials to promote new books. The system worked great. I just took my laptop, a Presonus Firebox, mics, headphones, cables... and used Cubase to record and edit the authors. I went to their houses, we recorded, we reviewed, dubbed in better parts, reviewed again, settled on a final product... and then I formated the WAV files into aiff & MP3 files for client FTP delivery.

I have and love my Shure 58s & 57s (they have a beautiful deep & rich proximity effect) but a moderately priced ($99) condensor mic (AT2020) will work even better because the diaphram is electronically activated, so it has increased sensitivity. The pre-amp boxes have 48v phantom power. Your speakers can talk soft and/or loud. Dynamic mics need the source to be on them more than condensors. A condensor lav should also be considered.

You could also record on a decent cassette recorder using an external mic (the internal mics are super bad and capture tape drive noise) take the audio into a computer (line out to line in), say into Sound Forge, Cubase, Protools, or what have you, run the audio through some noise reduction filters to clean it up and then format it into MP3.
 
At the cheap end, I have just gone for the new Olympus LS-10.

LS-10-front_M.jpg


Metal bodied and very sturdy - and capable of 24/96 recording as well.
 
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Hi there,

I too am in the market for a recorder and mic for recording podcasts. I definitely want a recorder with XLR inputs (I take the point that the pre-amps will probably suck but I want the option to travel light with just the recorder, my headphones and the mic).

Is the Zoom H4 still considered the best value option?

I really like the fact that the Zoom H4 can be used as a USB sound card so I can use the Zoom H4 to connect to a decent mic for conducting Skype interviews.

I know the Zoom H4 has been around for a few years now. Is it still the king for bang-per-buck? (All the reviews I've read say it's a very solid performer, the main downside is the ugly menu navigation).
 
dan_aka_jack said:
Hi there,

I too am in the market for a recorder and mic for recording podcasts. I definitely want a recorder with XLR inputs (I take the point that the pre-amps will probably suck but I want the option to travel light with just the recorder, my headphones and the mic).

Is the Zoom H4 still considered the best value option?

I really like the fact that the Zoom H4 can be used as a USB sound card so I can use the Zoom H4 to connect to a decent mic for conducting Skype interviews.

I know the Zoom H4 has been around for a few years now. Is it still the king for bang-per-buck? (All the reviews I've read say it's a very solid performer, the main downside is the ugly menu navigation).
Click to expand...

I'm sure the Fostex is a great little beastie, but the Zoom H4 is half the price.

I've had my H4 for over a year now and have been very pleased with it. Yeah, the menus take some getting used to. But overall it's quite a huge bang for the buck.
 
So, I've spent an hour testing out the Zoom H4 (I've borrowed it for the weekend from a friend).

I have to say that I'm disappointed. The real deal-breaker for me is the amount of noise produced by the pre-amps, especially when the gain switch on the side is set to "high" (which seems necessary for recording voice with my MKH416). The other reason I'm disappointed is that it doesn't have "real" gain control knobs. Riding the gain during recording is possible but it's not particularly elegant.

I'm going to try to test out an Fostex FR-2LE and a Marantz PMD-660 so see how they fair.
 
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Here's a review saying that the Fostex FR-2LE's pre-amps are impressively quiet and quieter than the PMD-660's. Sounds like the Fostex could be the one for me... I just need to test one out now...
 
Yeah I've heard lately that if you aren't getting a modded PMD-660 from the Oade Brothers (http://www.oade.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=OBA&Category_Code=PMD660BM) then it's a waste of time because of the noisy preamps. I'm also trying to find a portable recorder that won't drift as much as the Zoom H4.

In my past experience with the H4, it also is really inconsistent in what the levels tell you and what you're actually getting - even when I thought I was getting nice levels (-12db or so), the signal turned out to be at -20db at best. Many have also complained that it distorts even when the levels don't show that it is clipping...very annoying cause I really would like a recorder in that price range...

I'll have to check out the FR-2LE.
 
John Willett said:
Then go for the Fostex FR-2LE- an excellent little beastie.

fr2le.jpg
Click to expand...
"Fail Safe Recording
In addition to a 1 take = 1 file system to eliminate overwrites, the FR-2LE also features Auto File Closing which closes files at one minute intervals, thus preserving the data in the event of a power failure." This right here could be a life saver. I wish my former Korg D12 did that. I lost a lot of data at a show one night because the breaker kept flipping.
 
Hi,

Just wondering if there are any new products which compete with the Fostex FR-2LE? If not then I'll probably be buying a Fostex FR-2LE quite soon for recording podcasts.

Many thanks,
Jack
 
dan_aka_jack said:
So, I've spent an hour testing out the Zoom H4 (I've borrowed it for the weekend from a friend).

I have to say that I'm disappointed. The real deal-breaker for me is the amount of noise produced by the pre-amps, especially when the gain switch on the side is set to "high" (which seems necessary for recording voice with my MKH416). The other reason I'm disappointed is that it doesn't have "real" gain control knobs. Riding the gain during recording is possible but it's not particularly elegant.

I'm going to try to test out an Fostex FR-2LE and a Marantz PMD-660 so see how they fair.
Click to expand...

The pre-amps are awful in the H4. But I have one, and love it for everything else. If you feed the 1/4" ins with a mixer at line level, there's no noise at all. Clean and pristine. I used the H4 for double-system recently on an indie shoot with the Red ONE (a camera not known for reliable audio) and it was beautiful.
 
Personally I'd say it's worth the money to jump up to something that does both field recording and mixing (at least to some extent) The Edirol R-44 and other similar items can record to flash, have four xlr (or 1/4") inputs, onboard microphones, and a headphone out jack so you can do a reasonable mix down without actually buying a mixer. A little below that is the R-09HR by Edirol or the PCM-D50 by Sony that are also pretty solid units, but the R-44 is the one we use in all our field testing of microphones and wireless systems, it's great :0)
 
dan_aka_jack said:
Just wondering if there are any new products which compete with the Fostex FR-2LE? If not then I'll probably be buying a Fostex FR-2LE quite soon for recording podcasts.
Click to expand...

For what it does, at the price, I don't know of anything better than the FR-2LE.

To get better you have to spend more money (quite a lot I think) as the next better is a lot more.
 
kat.hayes said:
Can anyone recommend a field recorder that can also be used in a classroom setting for an instructor to record podcasts?

Thanks.
Click to expand...

The problem you''ll have is getting the mic close enough to the speaker (that is the critical factor you face) a lav would be ideal, I'd try out a cheap digital recorder/pen... it will provide so-so sound, good enough to hear the lecture. As far as getting decent audio for a podcast goes...recording something like this involves testing and correcting/perfecting until you know how to get the results you're after. After 5 or 6 lectures you'll have a good idea what works and what doesn't.

As for decent low cost recorders:

Most all of these low cost recorders unfortunately have noisy preamps. If you intend to use the recorders with a mic plugged directly into them (no Mixer) then you need an upgrade on the mic pres, on the other hand, if you intend to use a mixer as a front end and take a line out into the recorders line in, then you will bypass the mic pres so you will not need to upgrade the recorder preamps. It would be nice if the mfgs would spend the extra 15 dollars up front and do us all a favor.

Your best bet is a new Oade Brothers upgraded recorder.

Also, look into the battery operational life on some of these recorders, some don't have much recording time per battery load.

If you have the cash for SD gear these problems are solved.
 
This is an old thread, so no doubt the OP already has bought a recorder by now. But I'm posting this for the benefit of anyone else with similar questions.

I've never had problems with the Zoom H4. The only reason I can think of why the previous poster might have had gain issues with his Sennheiser mic is because the mic requires 48V phantom power, and he may not have had phantom power turned on on the H4.

The other possibility is he thought he was recording from the Sennheiser, but the config was still setup to use the internal mics. That was a little confusing to me at first. If that's what happened, then the internal mics were probably further away from the subject than the Sennheiser. That could account for the need to turn the gain to HIGH. Just speculating, of course.

There's no reason why he should have had to turn the gain to HIGH if the mic was close to the speaker, as it should be. I haven't had the distortion/clipping problem either. Not denying anybody else's experience, just sharing my own.

.
 
chapelgrovefilms said:
... The only reason I can think of why the previous poster might have had gain issues with his Sennheiser mic is because the mic requires 48V phantom power, and he may not have had phantom power turned on on the H4.

The other possibility is he thought he was recording from the Sennheiser, but the config was still setup to use the internal mics.

There's no reason why he should have had to turn the gain to HIGH if the mic was close to the speaker, as it should be.
Click to expand...

48V phantom power was definitely on and I was definitely recording from the 416, not from the internal mics. And the 416 was very close to my mouth when I was doing tests and I found that the gain setting had to be at "high" (I wasn't talking very loudly; I was trying to talk as loudly as someone might talk during an interview in a quiet location). I was using the latest firmware.
 
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