Comments

farss wrote on 1/27/2006, 12:13 AM
I haev an R4 and am very happy with it apart from the battery life, one day I'll get around to moding it to use an external BIG NiMH battery. Why Edirol didn't address this issue or even make provision for it to be addressed in the future is beyond me. With 2,500mAH NiMH batteries recording 4 tracks with phantom power on figure on 60 minutes recording time to be safe. Not that many things run longer than that without a break but still...

As to everything else, well I've got no complaints about the mic pres but I've only tried it with a low noise high output LDC, with low output dynamics you might hit a noise issue. I'd say the mic pres are better than most but certainly not as good as the very best. For that and serious live recording look to Sound Devices (and serious money). It seems only very specialised kit cuts it in this department, I'm tired of reading descriptions of mic preamps like "warm' or "tube" or "spacious", I mean WTF! If you need 80dB gain in the field who cares about a bird sounding "warm"?
As to the quality of the A/D converters I suspect just about everything these days uses much the same chips and they all work as well as they can. I could be wrong but I haven't read much discussion in this area recently.
Bob.
MediaRob wrote on 1/27/2006, 10:47 AM
I like the R-4. I probably couldn't give as much info on it as farss but from using it as main source of audio is great.
Catwell wrote on 1/27/2006, 11:20 AM
Thanks for the information. I will probably use line input from my mixer. That gives me the ability to feed both the camera and the recorder from the same source. I wanted to be sure that I would not be losing quality moving to the R-4. It sounds as if it is the same range as what I am using.

Farss, I want my sound to be as uncolored as possible until I choose to tweak it. I normally record with no limiters, compressors or EQ. Classical music needs all the dynamics. If I start with good mics and a clean recorder I don't have to worry about adjustments until post.

Thanks again.
farss wrote on 1/27/2006, 12:57 PM
Well that's one reason why I bought the R-4, you can turn the limiters etc OFF. Don't really understand why they wasted my money putting all those FXs in the thing anyway, can't imagine any scenario where anyone would use them. Good thing about going to NAB last year was being able to give the Edirol engineers a 'piece of my mind', but hey, the guy did write down what I had to say so I bought one the next day :)
Bob.
FuTz wrote on 1/27/2006, 3:34 PM
What about the M-Audio Micro Track 24/96 ?
Anyone can give a comparison test with the Edirol unit?
farss wrote on 1/27/2006, 4:22 PM
Looked at that one but so far all I've heard about it is problems. If you're after something small then the Powercore looks very interesting.
Other thing is I really wanted something that gave me more than the two channels that comes with a standard DV camera that was still portable and self contained. The other nice feature on the R-4 is the LANC control, no TC but it does give you external record start stop, so you can use a cheap Sony LANC controller clipped to a mic for doing spot interviews or control it from a camera.
Bob.
Catwell wrote on 1/27/2006, 4:56 PM
I looked at the Micro Track but I felt there were too many negative comments about noise levels to take it seriously. The R-4 has received very good reviews, but reviewers don't always dig very deep. I knew Farss and others had used the R-4 so I was trying to get validation of what I had already read. I trust people on this forum more than anywhere else.