Is anyone out there doing multitrack field recording?

[W. Williams]

I have been asked to put together a few options for a field recording setup
that will allow for recording of 4 mics to 4 individual tracks. Quality and
portability are equally important and there will not be a readily available
power supply. Does anyone know of a cost effective solution that I might
have missed?

I know the question is a bit broad, but these are pretty much the
prerequisites I have been given. I will try to add whatever additional info
I have that may or may not make a difference:
1) My budget is approximately $1000.
2) The recordings will be of African music and will comprise essentially
percussion, horns and vocals.
3) We have suitable mics, but they will require phantom power.
4) The recordings will be of a specific type of performance by the Valley
Tonga people and involves a lot of movement.
5) DAT and Minidisc appear to be out of the question as they are AFAIK
limited to two tracks.
6) We have a laptop at our disposal, so if there is a viable solution via
this means we can consider it. I have looked into buss-powered Firewire
cards that could be used, but those within my budget only have two micpres.
I have also looked into the Edirol UA1000 (USB 2.0), as the marketing blurb
seems to indicate that it can be buss-powered, yet there is no manual
available on the site containing specs and Edirol have yet to answer my
e-mail of a week ago.

Any ideas, questions or suggestions will be welcome.

TIA
W

[Mike Rivers]

In article > writes:

> I have been asked to put together a few options for a field recording setup
> that will allow for recording of 4 mics to 4 individual tracks. Quality and
> portability are equally important and there will not be a readily available
> power supply.

> 1) My budget is approximately $1000.
> 2) The recordings will be of African music and will comprise essentially
> percussion, horns and vocals.
> 3) We have suitable mics, but they will require phantom power.
> 4) The recordings will be of a specific type of performance by the Valley
> Tonga people and involves a lot of movement.
> 5) DAT and Minidisc appear to be out of the question as they are AFAIK
> limited to two tracks.
> 6) We have a laptop at our disposal, so if there is a viable solution via
> this means we can consider it.

A laptop is probably the most cost-effective solution but it kind of
sucks for portability because you have a few pieces to assemble. Also,
independence from AC power is a bit of a problem. Although there are
laptops that will run for 6 hours on a charge, I'll bet that goes way
down when you power an audio interface.

Nothing within your budget comes to mind right off. I'm guessing that
this will be real "in the field" recording so it has to be reliable
and not too sleazy in construction, and that lets out a lot of
equipment in the sub-$1K range. A Zaxon Deva would do you nicely, but
I think those start at around $10K.

Get a grant.


--
I'm really Mike Rivers - )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
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[Dave]

> Nothing within your budget comes to mind right off. I'm guessing that
> this will be real "in the field" recording so it has to be reliable
> and not too sleazy in construction, and that lets out a lot of
> equipment in the sub-$1K range. A Zaxon Deva would do you nicely, but
> I think those start at around $10K.
>
> Get a grant.


This is exactly what I was thinking. A Deva is perfect for this. The Deva II
is 4 tracks. Records right to a hard disk, and completely portable, and
currently the most reliable field recorder available.

You might want to consider renting, although a long rental will be kinda
spendy as well. Your best bet is to do the above stated. Get a grant, or a
loan.

[Logan Shaw]

W. Williams wrote:

> I have been asked to put together a few options for a field recording setup
> that will allow for recording of 4 mics to 4 individual tracks.
:
:
> 5) DAT and Minidisc appear to be out of the question as they are AFAIK
> limited to two tracks.

Not necessarily. DAT and Minidisc are both digital formats, and
digital clocks tend to be very, very stable and precise. So,
you could bring along two DAT machines, start them both recording,
and then make some kind of sharp sound (like a clicking noise with
your tongue, or a handclap, for example) into all the mics. Then
start the "performance" (or whatever you'd call it).

Then, when you get home, paste them both into your favorite
sound editing program (such as the demo version of Pro Tools),
zoom in really close, and line up the waveforms from your
click sound. You should be able to get it lined up quite
well, perhaps even down to just a few samples. And if you are
sampling at 48 kHz, since the speed of sound is about 340 m/s,
it only travels about 7 mm during the time between two adjacent
samples, so being off by 10 samples is the same effect as moving
one microphone 7 centimeters further from the source than another
microphone. The point, of course, being that being off by 10
samples is totally insignificant, and even way more than that
is probably not significant either.

If you are worried about the two DAT machines sampling at
slightly different rates, you could easily test whether this
is a problem by hooking both their inputs to the same thing
(say a 1 kHz oscillator, or if you don't have one of those,
a digital keyboard set to an organ sound with a weight
resting on one of the keys). Then record for 10 minutes,
import both things, and zoom in and compare to see if they
stay in sync or not.

This may not be the ideal solution, but if you happen to
already have a DAT machine or something similar at your
disposal, don't necessarily rule it out.

- Logan

[Bob Cain]

Sugarite wrote:


>
> Alternatively I understand the RME Quadpre (just 4 mic pre's, no mixer) can
> run on batteries, but I don't know how much it costs or how well it
> performs, probably better than the MXB1002.

It's called the QuadMic:

http://www.rme-audio.de/english/micpreamps/quadmic.htm


Bob
--

"Things should be described as simply as possible, but no
simpler."

A. Einstein

[Neil Gould]

Recently, Sugarite > posted:

> I'll undoubtedly get shot for this, but here goes:
>
> Behringer MXB1002 - battery-operable portable mixer with 5 mic pre's
> and phantom power
> Two Nomad Jukebox 3's - affordable, convenient, sound as good as any
> portable DAT under $1k
>
A very "Creative" solution (ouch!).

I don't see anything in the specs for the Jukebox that suggest that it can
accept external clock sync. The idea of running two recorders wild for any
length of time and then trying to re-synch the tracks in post is not
appealing. Other than that, I think you've hit the mark w/r/t the cost and
convenience.

Neil

[Mike Rivers]

In article > writes:

> > I have been asked to put together a few options for a field recording setup
> > that will allow for recording of 4 mics to 4 individual tracks.

> DAT and Minidisc are both digital formats, and
> digital clocks tend to be very, very stable and precise.

> Then, when you get home, paste them both into your favorite
> sound editing program (such as the demo version of Pro Tools),
> zoom in really close, and line up the waveforms from your
> click sound.

This can work for multitrack recording when the tracks are well
isolated, but if he's recording four tracks in the field, there will
be plenty of leakage between tracks, and it's unlikely that you'll get
them lined up (and stay lined up) long enough so that you don't get
some phasing. Certainly you can chop it up in sections that are short
enough to stay in alignment, but that's really tedious. If you
recorded with the DATs running from a common word clock, and used a
common word clock for playback, that would probably work, but the only
DAT recorder that I recall which has a word clock input is the TASCAM
24-bit one.


--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me here: double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

[W. Williams]

"Mike Rivers" wrote:
> A laptop is probably the most cost-effective solution but it kind of
> sucks for portability because you have a few pieces to assemble. Also,
> independence from AC power is a bit of a problem. Although there are
> laptops that will run for 6 hours on a charge, I'll bet that goes way
> down when you power an audio interface.
>
My biggest concern with going the laptop route is the environment. There
are little adaptors that allow you to run from a car battery (e.g.
Kensington, Fujitsu) and the laptop battery lasts over four hours on a full
charge, so this should be workable in a pinch where they are not able to get
power from the car.

> Nothing within your budget comes to mind right off. I'm guessing that
> this will be real "in the field" recording so it has to be reliable
> and not too sleazy in construction, and that lets out a lot of
> equipment in the sub-$1K range. A Zaxon Deva would do you nicely, but
> I think those start at around $10K.
>
> Get a grant.
>
Mike, I've looked at the Zaxcom Devas, HHB Portadrives, etc that would be
perfect for the job. I only wish it were that simple! We are struggling
just to keep our project going - if you know the guys handing out these
grants, don't keep it to yourself!

W

[Mike Rivers]

In article . net> writes:

> I don't see anything in the specs for the Jukebox that suggest that it can
> accept external clock sync.

I'd say it was a reasonable guess that when used with the digital
(optical S/PDIF) input, it synchrnoizes its word clock with the input
source. If this is the case, you could use two Jukeboxen fed from two
A/D converters that have a word clock input (and maybe an output) and
synchronize the recordings by synchronizing the converters. So then
you have:

Two Jukeboxes
Two A/D converters with S/PDIF TOSLink output
Two stereo mic preamps
Cables
Power

I suppose if you could find a four channel preamp/A/D with two
independent S/PDIF optical outputs, you could reduce the parts count a
bit. Still, that's not what I'd consider portable and field-reliable.


--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me here: double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

[Mike Rivers]

In article > writes:

> Mike, I've looked at the Zaxcom Devas, HHB Portadrives, etc that would be
> perfect for the job. I only wish it were that simple! We are struggling
> just to keep our project going - if you know the guys handing out these
> grants, don't keep it to yourself!

That was a joke, sort of. I used to dream of a grant to buy a Nagra 20
years ago but in general, organizations that give grants for the arts
don't give you money to purchase equipment. You can, however, use
grant money to rent equipment or hire someone with the equipment. When
I had my folky remote truck, I was hired for recording quite a few
projects that were funded with grant money.

It might be that you can find an organization that owns equipment and
will loan it to you. Once I had the contacts, it was pretty easy to
borrow a Nagra from the Library of Congress American Folklife Center
or the Smithsonian Folklife Program. The problem with those two
organizations now, though, is that they haven't kept up their gear.
LC mostly has cassette recorders available to loan for field projects
now and if they want something recorded digitally in a multitrack
format, they hire someone to do it. So the trick is to have someone
else get the grant, then hire you to do the recording, and pay you
enough so that you can either purchase or rent the equipment that will
allow you to do such a good job that they'll want you to do another
one.

The sad thing about most ethnic recording projects is that they're
substantially underfunded. If it's a worthwhile project, you should
have more than a $1000 budget - or use the $1000 to buy batteries,
cables, mics, cases and gaffer tape, and find someone else to come up
the $10,000 worth of core equipment.


--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me here: double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

[Neil Gould]

Recently, Mike Rivers > posted:

> In article . net>
> writes:
>
>> I don't see anything in the specs for the Jukebox that suggest that
>> it can accept external clock sync.
>
> I'd say it was a reasonable guess that when used with the digital
> (optical S/PDIF) input, it synchrnoizes its word clock with the input
> source. If this is the case, you could use two Jukeboxen fed from two
> A/D converters that have a word clock input (and maybe an output) and
> synchronize the recordings by synchronizing the converters. So then
> you have:
>
> Two Jukeboxes
> Two A/D converters with S/PDIF TOSLink output
> Two stereo mic preamps
> Cables
> Power
>
It's getting late, so perhaps I don't follow this exactly... are the two
A/D converters running wild? If so, why is that an improvement over the
A/D in the Jukeboxen? If not, where's the clock source in this list?

> I suppose if you could find a four channel preamp/A/D with two
> independent S/PDIF optical outputs, you could reduce the parts count a
> bit. Still, that's not what I'd consider portable and field-reliable.
>
It's a start!

Neil

[Mike Rivers]

In article . net> writes:

I wrote:

> > I'd say it was a reasonable guess that when used with the digital
> > (optical S/PDIF) input, it synchrnoizes its word clock with the input
> > source. If this is the case, you could use two Jukeboxen fed from two
> > A/D converters that have a word clock input (and maybe an output) and
> > synchronize the recordings by synchronizing the converters.

> It's getting late, so perhaps I don't follow this exactly... are the two
> A/D converters running wild?

No. As I wrote above, they would be running in sync from the same word
clock, either an external clock driving both, or (if one had a word
clock output as well as input) the word clock output of one driving
the word clock input of the other. That would put the two A/D
converter data streams in sync. Assuming that the Jukebox synchronized
its internal clock with the incoming data stream (a reasonable
assumption) you could line up the Jukebox recordings and they'd stay
in sync.


--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me here: double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

[Paul van der Heu]

"W. Williams" > wrote :

> I have been asked to put together a few options for a field recording
> setup that will allow for recording of 4 mics to 4 individual tracks.
> Quality and portability are equally important and there will not be a
> readily available power supply. Does anyone know of a cost effective
> solution that I might have missed?

Battery operated mixer with direct outs, laptop with MAYA44 USB running
Adobe audition or n-track studio. Laptop will run out of juice first..;^)

--
Bill Gates can't guarantee Windows,
how are you gonna guarantee my safety..
--John Crichton - Farscape pilot

[TonyP]

"Mike Rivers" > wrote in message
news:znr1077282941k@trad...
> This can work for multitrack recording when the tracks are well
> isolated, but if he's recording four tracks in the field, there will
> be plenty of leakage between tracks, and it's unlikely that you'll get
> them lined up (and stay lined up) long enough so that you don't get
> some phasing. Certainly you can chop it up in sections that are short
> enough to stay in alignment, but that's really tedious.

When I've used non sync recorders in the past, I've resampled one (ie. 48 to
47.99 kHz) If you check how many samples in each file, you know what
percentage the difference is. It is easy to align the starts, so the only
problem I found was software that could resample to a sufficiently small
change. There are some programs that can do this OK, but I would welcome
others recommendations?

TonyP.

[Dan [ www.sleepwalkermusic.net ]]

> Two Nomad Jukebox 3's - affordable, convenient, sound as good as any
> portable DAT under $1k

I'll vouch for these. I've got a stereo field rig consisting of the nomad 3,
Rode NT4 stereo mic, and denecke ad20 mic pre and ad converter. It sounds
great, and the added bonus is that I can have my whole mp3 library on the
nomad as well.
Cheers,
Dan
www.sleepwalkermusic.net

[Mike Rivers]

In article > writes:

> When I've used non sync recorders in the past, I've resampled one (ie. 48 to
> 47.99 kHz) If you check how many samples in each file, you know what
> percentage the difference is. It is easy to align the starts, so the only
> problem I found was software that could resample to a sufficiently small
> change. There are some programs that can do this OK, but I would welcome
> others recommendations?

This is a hack that lets you work, sort of, with the wrong equipment.
I don't approve of it for real work, but it's fine for experimentation
and messing around. Also, any time you play around with resampling,
you're bound to be making some changes to the sound. This may be
insignificant with a field recording, but some people will ask first
(before even trying) "Will this affect the sound quality?"



--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me here: double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

[Sugarite]

> I suppose if you could find a four channel preamp/A/D with two
> independent S/PDIF optical outputs, you could reduce the parts count a
> bit. Still, that's not what I'd consider portable and field-reliable.

No such animal exists anyway. It's amazing to me how few location-recording
oriented products are available and how unmodular they tend to be. I think
it's nuts that there isn't a portable digital transport that can accept
streams of data from front-end devices for audio and/or video, to be dumped
into a DAW and/or DVW over Firewire. Without such a standard platform for
development, audio devs are forced to come up with a DOS, which is often
where such products are weakest (Tascam MX2424 for example). The NJB3 is
the closest such device for audio, since it can at least take a s/pdif
stream and simply get the data onto the HD completely unaffected. However,
there are no syncable portable dual mic pre's with a/d.

That sync problem would actually be fatal for this type of recording,
assuming there's 4 zone mics involved. Unless you're prepared to mix the 4
channels live (which the MXB1002 can do), you're looking at getting a
portable 120VAC power supply, which can be done reasonably inexpensively but
will be cluttersome. Take a car battery (can be a small one, look into 12V
marine SLA's), a power inverter, and a line conditioner, mount them in the
base of a rack case, then you can use a decent interface for the lappie.

Frankly I'd just mix live with the MXB1002 to one NJB3. That's a $400 rig
that will get you well down the yellow brick road. Rule #1 for field
recording: start with what works at all, then address problems as they
arise.

[Mike Rivers]

In article > writes:

> It's amazing to me how few location-recording
> oriented products are available and how unmodular they tend to be. I think
> it's nuts that there isn't a portable digital transport that can accept
> streams of data from front-end devices for audio and/or video, to be dumped
> into a DAW and/or DVW over Firewire.

Location recording is something that seems to fall at both ends of the
range. On one end you have the film people who have plenty of money
and are perfectly happy with the Deva, and when they get restless,
start looking at the Cantar-X. On the other end, you have the "tapers"
who want a stereo recorder that they can hide.

You're looking at fairly new technology and it takes a while to
develop products that accomodate it. Also, it takes a while before a
company figures that they can make money building a new product. Maybe
your day will come.

> Frankly I'd just mix live with the MXB1002 to one NJB3.

Me too, but they guy wanted a 4 channel recorder.


--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me here: double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

[Richard Crowley]

"Mike Rivers" wrote ...
> Location recording is something that seems to fall at both ends of the
> range. On one end you have the film people who have plenty of money
> and are perfectly happy with the Deva, and when they get restless,
> start looking at the Cantar-X.

Currently running over on news:rec.arts.movies.production.sound
is one of the most extensive discussions of field recording hardware
and disk standards in recent history. (From the POV of major TV/
movie field production). See the discussion entitled: "Recorder
used the most in Hollywood" and the several follow-on branches.

> On the other end, you have the "tapers" who want a stereo recorder
> that they can hide.

Also on r.a.p.s is an interesting anecdote of using a consumer,
"taper" type of recorder (iRiver 120) as a standalone recorder
for use by the mic-boom operator. see "Location Sound Recording"

[TonyP]

"Mike Rivers" > wrote in message
news:znr1077454968k@trad...
> This is a hack that lets you work, sort of, with the wrong equipment.
> I don't approve of it for real work, but it's fine for experimentation
> and messing around. Also, any time you play around with resampling,
> you're bound to be making some changes to the sound. This may be
> insignificant with a field recording, but some people will ask first
> (before even trying) "Will this affect the sound quality?"

Of course it will, but if I can get a real 70dB+ DR with field recordings,
I'm pretty happy.
I find most people *think* they need the best equipment known to man,
despite the fact that they compress the result to about 10 or 20 dB DR
anyway!

Good luck to them, but some of us just care more about the music and the
finished result.
And I sure wouldn't put my name on what many people call "Real Work" :-)

TonyP.

[WillStG]

<< W. Williams" >>
<< I have been asked to put together a few options for a field recording setup
that will allow for recording of 4 mics to 4 individual tracks. Quality and
portability are equally important and there will not be a readily available
power supply. Does anyone know of a cost effective solution that I might
have missed?

I know the question is a bit broad, but these are pretty much the
prerequisites I have been given. I will try to add whatever additional info
I have that may or may not make a difference:
1) My budget is approximately $1000.
2) The recordings will be of African music and will comprise essentially
percussion, horns and vocals.
3) We have suitable mics, but they will require phantom power.
4) The recordings will be of a specific type of performance by the Valley
Tonga people and involves a lot of movement.
5) DAT and Minidisc appear to be out of the question as they are AFAIK
limited to two tracks.
6) We have a laptop at our disposal, so if there is a viable solution via
this means we can consider it. I have looked into buss-powered Firewire
cards that could be used, but those within my budget only have two micpres.
I have also looked into the Edirol UA1000 (USB 2.0), as the marketing blurb
seems to indicate that it can be buss-powered, yet there is no manual
available on the site containing specs and Edirol have yet to answer my
e-mail of a week ago.

Any ideas, questions or suggestions will be welcome..>>

If your laptop has a Cardbus slot, you might consider the Digigram VX
Pocket440. It will do 4 in 4 out at 16bits, and with hardware monitoring @ 24
bit. They go for around $500, then you could buy batteries and mic battery
powered phantom supplies with some of the rest of your budget, maybe a large
ext. hard drive. The built in micpres give you about 48db of gain on the
Pocket440, I have the 2 track VX Pocket which gives you 51db of gain and work
well and sounds good, and it supports Protools Free, the Apple Mac Sound
Manager, Asio, and a bunch of windows things I know nothing about. <G> See
http://www.digigram.com/products/index.htm The VX PocketV2 also supports
SMPTE.

But I would be concerned about "field recording" with a laptop. If it's a
stressful environment, considering your budget maybe you should rent something
made for the work and mix live to 2 track. Try a Broadcast Video house and see
what they have, I found these guys in Cape town and Johannesberg
http://www.visuals.co.uk/magus/ who have a Fostex PD4 field dat recorder rig
with batteries etc. for 750R a day (about $113 USD). The PD4 has a 3 mic
inputs and a 3 channel mixer built in, offers MS decoding, you could mix
channels to 2 track DAT without an external mixer.



Will Miho
NY Music & TV Audio Guy
Off the Morning Show! & sleepin' In... / Fox News
"The large print giveth and the small print taketh away..." Tom Waits