Monitoring from two recorders

[sawmac]

I'm filming a four person roundtable discussion -- each person will have a wireless lav. To keep each audio track separate, I'm going to use a Zoom and a Tascam -- I'll run each lav into one channel, so two mics will run into channels 1 and 2 on the zoom, and the other two into 1 and 2 on the Tascam. My problem is how do I monitor these four channels. It seems like what I need is a mixer that can take the headphone-out from the Zoom and the Tascam and plugin headphones into the mixer to monitor all 4 channels. Any ideas of how best to do this?

thanks for any advice you can give

-- Dave

 

[edinc90]

Just about any small mixer would do it. Just split the stereo minijack outs to dual RCA or two XLRs, and input them into a 4 input mixer.
But the bigger question is: Why not just use a 4 track recorder? It would make syncing and monitoring easier.

 

[sawmac]

Just about any small mixer would do it. Just split the stereo minijack outs to dual RCA or two XLRs, and input them into a 4 input mixer.

Great! Thanks for the information.

But the bigger question is: Why not just use a 4 track recorder? It would make syncing and monitoring easier.

Yes, that would be ideal, but I only have access to the Zoom and the Tascam. I know the Zoom does have 4 channel recording, but I'd have to get two of the lavs to go into the one stereo 3.5mm jack in the back of the zoom and have no idea how to do that. Also, I don't know if you can control the input levels of each of the channels independently when using the Zoom in 4 channel mode.

I agree, a sound devices 744t would be ideal

thanks again

-- Dave

 

[Steve House]

...
I agree, a sound devices 744t would be ideal

thanks again

-- Dave

Actually not quite. The 744T only has two mic level inputs, the other two are line level only. What you'd need is a 744T plus a 442 or later mixer, or a 788T. How about a Tascam 680? A bit more affordable, since it sounds like the SD setups might be over your budget.