What is the best DAT recorder for sync sound

[peterjcf]

Dear Mattias,

ah, i was rude so you responded overly polite. point taken. sorry. lets move on. :-)

Yes, let's do that.

I think it is also up to me to clarify my point of view.

About three years ago I participated to super-8 short film project. My task was sound recording, equipped with MD.
That soundtrack didn't turn out too good.

Thinking back now, much better result could have been obtained - despite the fact that _our_ unit was merely a consumer gadget, not a serious field recorder.

We had portable MD recorder (Sony?) and rented Sennheiser MKH60 shotgun mic with zeppelin cradle and fishpole.

MD was what we could get, and shotgun was rented to attenuate camera noise as much as possible. (Our blimp wasn't too effective)

when i started recording, i noticed that i should turn mic level all the way down to 3-2-1. (Scale was 10 to 1). Clipped signal sounded horrible.
3 gave frequent clipping, 2 occasional and 1 was clean.

Then, after shooting was completed, md recordings were transferred to computer via headphone jack. There was no other way.

Results were... bad. Recording level on setting 1 was so low that preamp/headphone amp hiss added to considerable. First recordings were very difficult to fix, due to frequent clipping. Some tracks turned out completely unusable. Also, there was occasional crackle that was coming from 3.5 jack.

What happened?

First, our mike had too high output level for our recorder - MKH60/K2 has balanced output.
It was connected to MD with "Special cable" that we got from rental company. It had 3-pin XLR on the other end, and 3.5" mono plug on the other. Obviously, there wasn't proper attenuator on this cable. MD's unbalanced input requires lower input level than balanced line gives.

So, this resulted that we should use mic input level control as line attenuator, and thus run out of mic input adjustability.

Had we got proper cable and possibility to transfer digitally to computer, our soundtrack could have been turned out to be usable.

On next project, i used same mic with Marantz portable C-cassette recorder, equipped with balanced XLR connector, good input level meter+controls and limiter.
Sound quality improvement compared to previous project was... huge.
We actually overloaded heavily on "gun section" :) but magnetic tape clipped gracefully.
Afterwards on editing - yes, tape noise was there as well, but was really noticed only when speaker volume was pumped up.
On normal levels it wasn't really apparent/discernible.

So, with preferably Shure FP24 or Sound Devices MixPre or similar model field mixer between MD and mic, you could well get decent recordings to MD also. [not to be bought, but rented. costs new abt. 1200]

BR

Petri

[Lucas Lightfeat]

I think that as a medium/format, MD is great for field recording. The problem is that the devices are not designed with field recording in mind. Sure you can use one and get some results that may be useable, but you have to use a mic with the right output level, as the last post demonstrates, which pretty much means no shotguns. Having a record level control and mic input level switch is really a must for me. I would opt for a Sony Pro DAT or even C.Cassette walkman to a MD walkman anyday - they're just better designed for fieldwork.

Lucas

[mattias]

a mic with the right output level, as the last post demonstrates, which pretty much means no shotguns.

i use a great shotgun mic i pulled off a eumig sound camera i found for nothing at a flea market. it has a mini mono plug and takes two 1.5 volt batteries. sounds great. a little noisy though but far from being a problem outdoors.

/matt