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Field Recording For Mac Users

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tibetian

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Hi

great information here but I am still usure what to get:

My main objective is a digital recorder to capture field audio - highest kbps; minimal compression; manual on the fly gain control as well as AGC; 1/8' mic input (power plug in or just line in as my mic is self powered); analog & optical out, and most important it has to work with mac OSX for both up and download; preferably not only real time via analog headphone out. My budget is under US$400.

I will compromise for battery capacity, size, weight, design, LP capabilites and playback features. What I need is a hi quality digital recorder in the above price range.

According to what I read here, Sony HI-MD, although answers most of my criteria is not Mac friendly and in general I do not appreciate products that go out of their way to impose limitations on their owners, be it due to copyright issues, buggy proprietary SW or market competition.

I'd go with a HDD, minidisc, or flash as long as they provide hi quality audio, operation versatility and Mac compatibility. What could be a nice bonus is if that yet to be discovered recorder will be able to UL/ DL any media/ data files form/ to my Mac.

Your suggestion are appreciated.

Thanks

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#1 - no MD or HiMD portables have had optical outputs for quite some time. I believe only one model or series of models ever had it, but I might be wrong. Check out the equipment browser on http://www.minidisc.org and compare models.

#2 - MD does not upload, period. HiMD does, but it relies completely on Sony's software, which in all likelihood will never exist on the Mac platform.

So, again, my suggestion is something like the Edirol R-1. I do NOT keep current on what other digital recorders are on the market, and I don't have any way to test any, as the nearest place that even -might- sell any of them is at least 240km away, so my opinion regarding the R-1 is based on advertised functionality alone.

The R-1 does not fit in your price range, though.

I would honestly consider the NH900 HiMD for your purposes, though. You can make PCM recordings, and even copied by analogue means [counting on your puter having reasonable A/D conversion] the end-quality of your recording will be excellent. Mind you, that's all in real time.

I used standard low-end consumer MD equipment for field recording of sound effects and location ambience a couple of years ago, along with the stellarly mediocre Sony MS907 stereo mic. That was copied [by the headphone out, not a line-out] analogue to my puter for further editing, and the results never failed to exceed my expectations [at that point being exceeded in quality only by recordings I'd made with DAT and Nagra open-reel recorders] despite lossy compression, successive A/D and D/A conversions, and not having a real line output.

The NH900 is in your price range, and if you can handle the realtime dubs, I'd seriously consider it.

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Thanks dex

I was suspecting that not much is available for mac users seeking full use of prosumer level portable digital recorders.

I did not know though that

  dex Otaku said:
MD does not upload

How, then, is audio transferred to a computer from MD's?

I read here that the 900 begins a new track when audio level is very low and that there is no way to control that. What is the original purpose of this feature? This may be a problem for the type of content I will be collecting.

Also, they say that line out and headphone out on the 900 are combined, a single jack. Is that the case in most recorders? What are the implications if my only way to output from the 900 is via this jack?

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  tibetian said:
I was suspecting that not much is available for mac users seeking full use of prosumer level portable digital recorders.

This is not necessarily so. Most recorders that use standard media like flash cards can be used with basically any OS on any computer that supports USB mass-storage devices [i.e. card readers].

  Quote
How, then, is audio transferred to a computer from MD's?

From MD - not HiMD - there have been two preferred methods for this.

First is to get a home deck, since they have the optical output the portables lack.

Second is by analogue means, just like with any other audio device.

  Quote
I read here that the 900 begins a new track when audio level is very low and that there is no way to control that. What is the original purpose of this feature? This may be a problem for the type of content I will be collecting.

This is true when using the line input. The idea is to automatically mark tracks where a quiet passage goes to a louder one, which is imprecise at best, but actually does work well under most circumstances.

If you're using the mic input [at least on the HiMDs and the more recent MDs I have used] this doesn't happen. Track marks are either automatic at timed intervals [i use this, and it's something you have to turn on that isn't on by default] or happen when you pause/restart or hit the "track mark" key.

If you'll be making ambient recordings with an external mic preamp going into the line-in - There might be some weirdness there. Still, as I said, it usually works out okay. Aside from which, you can join and split tracks later either right on the MD / HiMD or using SonicStage, or, for that matter, in your editing software.

  Quote
Also, they say that line out and headphone out on the 900 are combined, a single jack. Is that the case in most recorders? What are the implications if my only way to output from the 900 is via this jack?

Most of them don't have real line outputs anymore [attempting to run a 1V+ p-p amp along with the rest of the internals off a 1.5V power supply?] What the line out option on the 900 and NH1 does is force all filtering off, and probably squeeze a bit extra juice to the output, which in both cases is a digital amp.

While it's not the same, I have copied recordings off my NH700 using its headphone output and they still exceeded my expectations in terms of freq response, noise floor, dynamic range, &c.

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