Memories of Miss Memory

I am entertaining the notion that it would be a mighty fine idea to put together a portable field recording rig. I have spent a lot of time wandering around over the past couple of years with a pair of binaural microphones and a minidisc, which is a great rig for someone who is going around covertly recording things in public places, and reasonably good results can be achieved, but for high quality location sound or field recordings, something more professional is needed, and its a big step up dollar-wise. So I thought I would spend some time researching whats out there and for how much, and share the results with you. I have been subjective about what i have deemed the important (in my mind) features I suggest if you are interested in reading further about any of the products, click on the product name to go to the manufacturers website. After I concluded my research I realised that although these specs are helpful, hearing from real users of the products is just as important, so I will keep updating this page as I find reviews. Or if you are a user of one of these, or other similar, I would love to hear from you about the useability, quirks and other interesting tidbits.

So far I have found the following

Fostex FR-2 Field Memory Recorder

Balanced XLRs
Phantom power
24 bit recording
FAT32 media (CF) format
Takes Type I & II CompactFlash cards and PCMCIA 1.8” mini drives
Needs Eight AA-sized rechargeable NiMH batteries
2.5 hours battery life
Optional time code generator/reader card
USB 2.0 file transfer
Backlit LCD
RRP (AUD) $2,200

Marantz PMD671 Solid State Digital Recorder

Balanced XLRs
Phantom Power
24 bit recording
Battery life of 4-6 hours on AA batteries, which can be charged in the unit.
preview - as you record an event, you can back up & listen to parts, then return to listening to the event in real-time
Compact Flash (CF) media card format
USB 2.0 file transfer
Optional wired remote
supports a myriad of compressed mp3 format, and .WAV
RRP (AUD)$ 2095.00

Marantz PMD660 Solid State Digital Recorder

Balanced XLRs
16/24 bit
battery life 4 hours on 4 AA batteries
1 Gb CF card holds 90 mins of 16-bit linear PCM audio at 44.1
Two built-in condenser mics
Edit function
Optional wired remote
USB file transfer
compact design
RRP (AUD)$ 1249.00

Sound Device 702 Digital Audio Recorder

XLR Inputs
Phantom Power
Records .wav @ 16 & 24 bit , mp3 is supported.
removable, on board rechargeable battery is a standard Sony-compatible Li-ion camcorder cell
removable compact flash (CF) and + (microdrive) compatible
sunlight-viewable LED level metering
Firewire file transfer
RRP (AUD) $3,399.00

Well thats the round up of the professional recorders. I also thought i should mention some of the smaller products because even though they aren’t really what i am looking for, its nice to see there are some options in the lower price range, that are also extremely compact and lightweight. There is also a really great review comparing the edirol and the m-audio products, a must read for anyone considering buying either.

Edirol R-09

mini headphone jack input/output
24-bit
44.1/48kHz uncompressed recording
Records to SD card (64MB - 2GB)
stereo condenser microphone built in
Mic and Line audio inputs
USB I/O
4 hour battery life with 2xAA alkaline type or 2 Nickel Hydrogen
RRP (AUD)$ 799

M-Audio MicroTrack

24bit
44.1/48/96kHz uncompressed .wav format recording
Records to SD card or microdrives
USB 2.0 file transfer
balanced 1/4” TRS inputs with line inputs and phantom-powered mic preamps
S/PDIF digital input
RCA and 1/8” headphone monitoring outputs
4-5 hours recording (3 hrs with phantom power on)
RRP (AUD)$ 999 (recently discounted to $699)

Zoom H4

24bit
44.1/48/96kHz uncompressed .wav format recording
Records to SD card or microdrives
USB 2.0 file transfer
Two X/Y pattern condenser microphones
Two combination XLR-1/4-inch input jacks with phantom power
1/8-inch headphone jack
2GB SD memory card provides 380 minutes of 16bit/44.1kHz recording
4 hours of continuous recording operation from 2 AA batteries
Backlit LCD
Bundled with Cubase LE
USB transfer
RRP (AUD) $549