Memories of Miss Memory

My new toy arrived! The Downgrade pedal, an analogue sample rate reducer - plus, made by the Squarewave Parade.

It’s an analogue sample rate reducer based on the sample and hold circuit designed by Tom Bugs. The knobs are named gain, downgrade (sample rate adjustment), starve (described as a circuitbend), dialup (feedback control) and volume. There is also a high/low switch and a clean/dirty switch. Some of the knob settings can be quite unpredictable at times which adds to its charm, and works well over drums and other sequence based sounds. I have managed to get my drum sequences squealing, squelching and glitching happily whilst fiddling with the starve and downgrade knobs. Its aesthetically pleasing to the eye, and for me visual aesthetics are always a drawcard when choosing gear. Sadly for the rest of you, there were only ten made and as far as i know they are all sold, but you could always email the lads at the Squarewave Parade and beg them nicely to make some more….

At the moment I have hooked it up to my Jomox and its sounding pretty raw and dirty, and I can imagine it working well, albeit a little dysfunctionally (in a good way) in a live situation, twisting the knobs to change the drum sound into a raw glitch ridden scream, and back again into a drum loop. Initially I was drawn to this unit because I wanted to find a piece of hardware that would act similarly to the digital distortion function that Propellerhead’s Reason “Scream” effects unit has, which i use over the top of rhodes and piano for soft static embossed melodic lines, but because it is set up as a pedal, it implies other uses i hadn’t thought of. I was half thinking about selling my Jomox last year, but this little baby has rekindled my love for the joys of externally sequenced drums. Right now i am working on a setup involving the Jomox, Downgrade and the dave smith Evolver. I am interested to try it out on guitar, and i am thinking about a guitar-evolver-downgrade setup for my next experiment.

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

give a girl a moog!

A few months ago i wrote about my decision to purchase a moog little phatty. This bundle of joy came this afternoon and I couldn’t help but take a few happy snaps to celebrate its arrival. My initial comments are “yay” and “woohoo.” It looks and feels solid, great key action (no skimping on key size depth), it has pink and blue buttons (extremely important) and rotary LED knobs. The layout is simple and easy to use, and its controls are chosen to emphasise its role as a chunky sounding monophonic synth. And above all it sounds like a moog. My thirst for tangible analogue aesthetic has been quenched. Every girl should have one.

Unlike his synth, the poster doesn’t glow in the dark but bob has got his geeky einstein look goin on! nice

key action and knob action.

For the time being, my moog now lives happily under a Roland SH1000.