Edirol R-4 Pro or R-44?

Alpha Flying Monkey

Alpha Flying Monkey

Well-known member
Okay- I have a bit of a dilemma: I really could use a 4-track recorder, mostly for isolation tracks (ie 3 wireless & a boom), so I've decided that the Edirol 4-tracks fit my budget & basic needs... The main difference being that the R-4 Pro has Time Code, which might come in handy some day in the future.

But- I've yet to work on a shoot using Time Code, mostly because they are low/no-budget Independent films. The cameras are usually the Panasonic HVX200, or HMC150 (both of which support Time Code, but isn't ever used- a subject for another post!).

So- do I pick up the affordable R-44 & continue to use a "dumb slate" for syncing to my recorder, or spend the extra $1.3K for the R-4 Pro... Anybody else worked through this? What was your final decision? TIA!
 
I have an R-4 Pro that I use from work, and I'm about to pull the trigger on the R-44. If you don't NEED timecode don't waste your money on the "Pro". The R-44 has the same preamps, and is much smaller/lighter because it records to SD cards rather than a heavy hard drive. Also no moving parts to break!

I also suggest you get the Oade brothers modified R-44, which is about the same priice as the stock, only they make the preamps dead quiet, with 2 mods to choose from, or mix. One is "Super" for nature or dialogue, and one is "Concert" for music. I'm getting Super for CH 1&2, and concert for 3&4.

There is a lot of talk about this unit on another forum. Here's one guys review:

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/remo...portable-recorder-review-shoot-out-clips.html

Here's Oade Bros: http://www.oade.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=OBA&Category_Code=EDIR44-Super

Here's part IV of a long long discussion about the R-44: http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=123284.0

Hope that helps.
 
For $500 I like the Mackie Blackbird, for $900 the Tascam 680. For super cheap, you can mod a zoom H2 to a four track, but there are no preamps. The 680 has a built in mixer. The Mackie needs a laptop. A lot of happy edirol owners out there, but for the money I would get the mixer and and the extra channels.
 
I went from a Zoom H4n to an Edirol R-44 and quite happy I did. The price was ok. It seemed a good choice for all the features I wanted, too many to list.

The R-44 is quite easy to use. The best part is now I have something that works for all my video jobs, and I can stop looking at gear for a while and just get things done.

My last quick little shoot, I had my assistant run sound and just snapped her fingers for sound sync, slate and ipad slate weren't happening for that shoot. A bunch of mobile interviews in a short amount of time. She was able to ride the levels and boom.
 
Well would the timecode function affect frame rate as well? I'm unsure if recorders without timecode are able to record in 24fps or 23.97fps. I've been on a lot of shoots as boom op (every mixer had a timecode recorder) where we were shooting on video on either xha1 or 7d or 5d (dslrs don't have timecode) and we were filming at 23.97 and it was gonna be transferred as such. So do non timecode recoders have the ability to record those framerates or no? If not then always get timecode.
 
The R-4 Pro and the R-44 are both good - just don't get the original R-4.

The new Tascam may also be worth considering.
 
Yancey,

Audio has nothing to do with camera framerate. Recorded audio is sampling and bit rate. One second of audio is one second of audio.
 
If you think you'll need timecode in the future then get it. If you don't, then don't. My first recorder had timecode and I've never regretted it.

A word about "Independent" films. 99.9% of all films made on this planet are "Independent" and are produced from zero dollars to 100 Million dollars. Some use timecode and some don't. If you're on DVXUser it's safe to assume you're not financed by Warner Brothers!
 
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