Fast Portable Recorder?

roxics

roxics

Veteran
Currently I have a Zoom H4N and while I love the sound quality off the built in XY mics, there are a few things I hate about it, including the ridiculous amount of time it takes to start up. It seems like a full minute or more before you can hit record. Which is really annoying when you're trying to grab some quick audio because you hear something interesting, only to have the sound stop by the time the recorder is ready to go. Is there a faster but still inexpensive and quality audio recorder out there?

Other things I dislike about the H4N include:
Low preamps
Batteries seems to drain in no time (I'm constantly switching batteries in this thing)
Having to hit the record button twice (minor but I've missed audio because of this)
 
If you don't need XLR inputs, just want a decent stereo recorder, I have the Roland R-05 which produces great sound straight out of the box, batteries last bloody ages for me. Maybe 20 seconds start-up although not 100% sure, never seemed too long.

Pretty cheap, but no XLR inputs.
 
Yeah I would want something that replaces the H4N so XLR is a must. I just need basically a better H4N that is faster and louder.
 
I'm not sure anything is going to be a lot faster powering up. I'm always amused by the lack of patience these days. Try getting a 1/4" portable recorder set up to record some day ;~)

And yes I do a lot of FX recording and do have sympathy with the missed opportunities. My normal kit would take longer to get up and running from case to record, since I don't leave batteries in it. For the quicker and simpler stuff I have been using a DR-40. I just gave it a shot and it takes about seven seconds to power up.

What I do when I'm on the hunt recording is to generally leave everything in record pause. The Tascam and my main recorder both have prerecord buffers so you have enough buffered recording that you can actually hear something and then record it. That of course requires that you were ready and waiting for something to happen and not banging the recorder around because it's also buffering handling noise. With the built in mics I get five hours or so on a set of batteries. I didn't see a big hit when using phantom with external mics but I wasn't actually timing so maybe I just didn't run it long enough to notice.

The Tascam I leave batteries in most of the time so I can whip it out when a thunder storm shows up etc.
 
Seven seconds is a huge improvement over the minute or so I'm getting now. I agree that compared to a proper setup, complaining about startup time seems silly. But what set this post in action was being home the other day and my girlfriend turning on a fan that took a while to start up after sitting unused for days. The fan was making a very neat sound that could have been like some droid from Star Wars. I jumped up immediately to record it and by the time the H4N powered up the fan had got into its normal rhythm. Trying to restart it didn't result in the same sound.
 
roxics said:
Currently I have a Zoom H4N and while I love the sound quality off the built in XY mics, there are a few things I hate about it, including the ridiculous amount of time it takes to start up. It seems like a full minute or more before you can hit record. Which is really annoying when you're trying to grab some quick audio because you hear something interesting, only to have the sound stop by the time the recorder is ready to go. Is there a faster but still inexpensive and quality audio recorder out there?

Other things I dislike about the H4N include:
Low preamps
Batteries seems to drain in no time (I'm constantly switching batteries in this thing)
Having to hit the record button twice (minor but I've missed audio because of this)
Click to expand...

The Zoom H6 (or H5 if you only need two XLRs) addresses all your issues with the H4n.

Fran
 
Just for reference, I timed my Tascam DR-40 and it takes 7 sec to record, including the hold to turn on and the double-click to start recording. Sorry meant to reply a week ago but my account wasn't yet approved.
 
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