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 Forum index » Instruments and Equipment » General Discussion
Field Recording Gear
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Antimon



Joined: Jan 18, 2005
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PostPosted: Sun Sep 03, 2006 6:05 am    Post subject: Field Recording Gear Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

I was thinking of getting a minidisc or something similar to record stuff outdoors, or when I don't want to use my DAW for recording. Then I thought of all the little mp3 gadgets that exist nowadays. Some of them have "dictaphone" functions, which implies that they don't necessarily record with good quality.

Does anyone know of a fairly cheap but OK small gadget with good battery lifelength that has an acceptable line-in and/or trimmed input for recording more than 1 hour of CD-quality (or better) sound?

It seems to me that the days of horribly expensive DAT gear should be over... the cheap technology is there. I have a Zoom PS-04, which is a good idea, but the recording length is ridiculous and the UI is stupid and slow. Why do music gear manufacturers insist on using SmartMedia, when it is so obviously the least effective and most expensive choice for flash storage?

/Stefan

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seraph
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PostPosted: Sun Sep 03, 2006 6:30 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

have a look at this one:
arrow http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/MicroTrack2496-main.html

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Antimon



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PostPosted: Sun Sep 03, 2006 6:59 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

That's exactly what I was looking for Very Happy Amazing! Thanks.

/Stefan

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Alexander



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PostPosted: Sun Sep 03, 2006 8:28 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

That M-Audio is beautifull, I still use minidisc and a mic to record field stuff.. works fine, but I do have 2 ADC's en a DAC to worry about..

...on the other hand, why worry, the youth is going deaf and the mp3 is the new standard audio quality!

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seraph
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PostPosted: Sun Sep 03, 2006 10:33 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Antimon wrote:
That's exactly what I was looking for Very Happy Amazing! Thanks.

it was easy to suggest that one because I own it and I can tell you it works like a charm (I do not work for M-Audio!). it can also double as a an mp3 player Idea

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peripatitis



Joined: Dec 16, 2005
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PostPosted: Mon Sep 04, 2006 3:24 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

I own a microtrack and two hi-md's
the nh-1 and the latest model mz-rh1.
Personally i prefer the md's and in terms of field recording
i would suggest the rh1.

There are a few issues that bother me with the m-audio , one of them is the unreliable metering while recording.
The build quality is a second and the inclusion of non standard phantom power is a third.
Finally i find the m-audio's battery lacking and the media very expensive comparing to minidiscs.
On the other hand the interface is quite well thought of.
I can't however say that i get better recordings from the microaudio in terms of sound quality.

The md's have other problems :
First of all you need to sonicstage a sony program to transfer the recorded
material to your computer.
In the past there were a lot of restrictions which have been lift off and it was quite unreliable, however these problems have been remedied.

One other issue is the inclusion of track markers, even in the latest md (mz-rh1) when recording from a line source and you have a 4-5 second silence there is a new track marker inserted which can be a major pain.

Writing the system files after recording takes some time , these things are faster in microtrack but there is a workaround pausing a recording insterad of pushing the stop button so that you can be ready in anytime to continue recording.

To conclude hi-md's and specifically the mz-rh1 which is the only unit i can recommend for field-recording (previous models have more let downs) have more reliable metering , longer battery time , it's a cheaper medium, smaller in size and significantly cheaper (i bought mine for 273 euros) thus i think it's a better choise.

Md's as a medium are also a good choise for back up's since they don't suffer from problems that cd's do (scratching on the surface etc)

cheers
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Antimon



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PostPosted: Wed Sep 06, 2006 10:32 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

I went ahead and bought myself a MicroTrack, and I'm a bit confuse by some things.

First off: charging the battery is really strange. If I plug it into the wall using the supplied usb charger, I get an animated battery icon for a while, and then it just stops animating, freezing at a random charge value. I need to plug it out, power off and plug it in again to get the animated icon back. Does your units behave like this? Is it still charging even though the battery is still?

Second: I bought a 1 Gb CF card at the shop. If I plug it in the unit says "unformatted media - press del to format". So i go ahead and format it and it says "formatting..." for a while, and then the screen just goes dead. If I turn it off (holding power for a long time) and back on it says "unformatted media" and I can do the same thing all over again. On the other hand, if I plug it into my MacBook I can format the card and store files on it, but the MicroTrack will still say "unformatted media" if I turn it back on. Is this normal behavior if the CF is of a kind that the MicroTrack doesn't support?

I'm starting to think I should have listened to peripatitis. Sorry! Sad

/Stefan

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Antimon



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PostPosted: Wed Sep 06, 2006 10:52 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

I should say that it works OK with the supplied CF card. It's the extra 1 Gb one that I bought in a shop here that doesn't work.

/Stefan

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seraph
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PostPosted: Wed Sep 06, 2006 12:20 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Antimon wrote:

First off: Does your units behave like this? Is it still charging even though the battery is still?

maybe your unit is defective. I have never seen anything like that

Antimon wrote:
Second: I bought a 1 Gb CF card at the shop.

did you check out if the one you bought is among those tested and approved by M-Audio? My 2Gb SanDisk works just fine but I know of a guy that had to sell his CF because not compatible with the MicroTrack even though M-Audio states that all CF work.
M-Audio wrote:
Tested and approved CF cards for the MicroTrack:

Hitachi Microdrive 2GB, 4GB, 6GB
Seagate 5GB drive ("microdrive" type)
Transcend 4GB CF, 45x
Corsair 4GB CF (47-00057)
Lexar 1GB CF Professional 80x
SanDisk 1GB CF
JAMedia 1GB CF
Toshiba 512MB CF
JAMedia 256MB CF
SimpleTech 128MB CF
Kodak 64MB CF

Kingston Elite Series

CF/1024-S 1 GB Compact Flash Card (SLC) (50x)
CF/2GB-S 2 GB Compact Flash Card (SLC) (50x)
CF/4GB-S 4 GB Compact Flash Card (SLC) (45x)

Kingston Standard Series

CF/128 128MB Compact Flash Card
CF/256 256MB Compact Flash Card
CF/512 512MB Compact Flash Card
CF/1024 1024MB Compact Flash Card


arrow http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/MicroTrack2496-focus.html

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Antimon



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PostPosted: Wed Sep 06, 2006 1:14 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

OK thanks. Hmm... I'll see if I can swap the CF for another model at the shop.

/Stefa

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peripatitis



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PostPosted: Wed Sep 06, 2006 2:55 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Hi Antimon , i have also a 2Gb sandisk card and i didn't have any problems with that so perhaps it is as seraph said a compatibility issue.

As for the battery mine doesn't behave like that , i think that it is normal for the animated bar to freeze at some point (a percentage of the total capacity) but the truth is i only charged the battery once from a plug.
The rest of the time i did so through my laptop.

Perhaps you should try to update the os if it's not up to date (there were a lot of issues with the early ones) or check in m-audio's site for possible problems.

When i first got my microtrack i had to return it to the store and get another unit because there was a constant buzzing noise in all the recordings, this was one of the first things that put me off.

It could have been an os issue but i chose to return it instead of installing a new os in case there is an issue with the guarranty, a little paranoid but still..


One other annoying 'feature' i remember is that if you plug it to a usb port and you have the microtrack in the hold position you have to disconnect it change the switch to the 'unhold' position and the connect it again, which always pisses me off.

As i said in the previous post the interface although spartan is quite nice for recording and i really had my hopes up , but i was expecting a lot more in build quality and i wasn't impressed with it's preamps.

I don't know whether someone has any experiece with the units from edirol which had also similar products.

Hope that it works out for you in the end
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Antimon



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PostPosted: Thu Sep 07, 2006 12:59 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

I updated the firmware, and I think that that battery thing works better now. I'll just need to get hold of a compatible CF card and I'll be on track, I hope.

/Stefan

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seraph
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 07, 2006 1:12 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Antimon wrote:
I'll be on track, I hope.

excellent Very Happy

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Antimon



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PostPosted: Fri Sep 08, 2006 10:32 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Got myself a Sandisk 2 Gb, and now everything is a-ok.

Thanks for the help Very Happy

/Stefan

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PostPosted: Fri Sep 08, 2006 11:22 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Antimon wrote:

Thanks for the help Very Happy

you are welcome Very Happy

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torsig1967



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PostPosted: Mon Nov 20, 2006 7:31 am    Post subject: Date and time
Subject description: How is it set in Microtrack?
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I have one of those also. More or less a toy but ok. I use CF ultraII 4 GB with no problems.

Anyway - I have no idea how to set date and time on the unit. I have the latest firmware but the manual says nothing about setting date and time and I have not suceeded in figuring it out myself.

Any ideas?
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