MD Recorder Suggestions

[mattias]

A good preamp can be found at sound professionals for about $200.. not all that necessary unless your recording loud concerts.

huh? what on earth are you talking about?

/matt

[DriveIn]

A good preamp can be found at sound professionals for about $200.. not all that necessary unless your recording loud concerts. a decent mic would be the Sony MS-957 stereo condensor.

Thanks T-Scan, saw a couple others on there that may work as well. The SONY ecm719 might be worth a try for my particular needs at first. The MS-957 may work well later in if the project looks feasible after the initial interviews and meetings.

huh? what on earth are you talking about? /matt

He was just answering my question, made sense to me.

[mattias]

huh? what on earth are you talking about?

He was just answering my question, made sense to me.

it made perfect sense to me too, but it's wrong. "what are you talking about" means "i don't understand" maybe one time out of a thousand at the most. the other nine hundred and ninentynine times it means "no".

/matt

[al77]

A good preamp can be found at sound professionals for about $200.. not all that necessary unless your recording loud concerts.

Good mic preamps are still important when recording dialog, you could say they are more important because you are dealing with lower level signals & any noise introduced to the signal path by crappy preamps will be more noiticeable on a quiet dialog recording than on loud music recording.

[mattias]

too direct pedagogy. he'll learn more if you just let him know that he's wrong so he has to think about it and look for the answer. :-)

/matt

[al77]

...pedagogy...

i'm learning new words today

[DriveIn]

....and maybe someday somebody will learn that rude knee-jerk responses aren't necessary. Mattias, ever consider just trying to be helpful, and not so anti-social and abrasive in your responses. This seems to be a repeating theme for you, or are you just having another bad day and taking it out on your keyboard and other people again. :roll: I guess we can write this thread off at this point. Sorry Super8freakazoid24, was enjoying this thread you started to a point, but felt a need to say something.

[mattias]

Mattias, ever consider just trying to be helpful, and not so anti-social and abrasive in your responses.

sure, and i am most of the time if you do your statistics. it's just that i post so much, and sometimes i get tired of answering the same question too often, or i'm just mad at my landlord/girlfriend/neigbor's cat. since i work at home this is my smoking room. live with it.

(the best way of avoiding my evilness is of course to not post misinformation and misleading advice, but i've given up on that one a long time ago)

/matt

[T-Scan]

A good preamp can be found at sound professionals for about $200.. not all that necessary unless your recording loud concerts.

Good mic preamps are still important when recording dialog, you could say they are more important because you are dealing with lower level signals & any noise introduced to the signal path by crappy preamps will be more noiticeable on a quiet dialog recording than on loud music recording.

My opinion is that it's overkill spending $200+ on a preamp for dialog recording. It's better to spend that money on a better mic. Uncompressed audio with mic in and a decent mic is hard to beat.. if you use the right settings and levels on your unit, a preamp won't help much. I find them more justified in loud settings where you have no control over the sound around you, and its harder to maintain consistant recording levels.

[mattias]

My opinion is that it's overkill spending $200+ on a preamp for dialog recording. It's better to spend that money on a better mic.

"a better mic" will most likely require a mic preamp to operate, since it will use xlr jacks and phantom power. if you have a recorder that has this already you already have a good preamp. if you're recording to a consumer md or similar a good preamp/mixer is easily the best investment you can make. it's a lot more important than whether you're recording uncompressed or not.

if you use the right settings and levels on your unit, a preamp won't help much

i still don't see what it is you think the mic preamp does. it has very little to do with levels, but a lot with sensitivity, dynamics and noise.

/matt

[audadvnc]

if you use the right settings and levels on your unit, a preamp won't help much

i still don't see what it is you think the mic preamp does. it has very little to do with levels, but a lot with sensitivity, dynamics and noise.

/matt

You get what you pay for with preamps. Cheap preamps sound cheap; papery, thin, smeary, easily distorted. Spend the money for a good preamp you can use the rest of your life, or throw the money away in post trying to fix your crummy sound.

[arnaud]

Well, it depends on how you have to capture the sound. If you can plug, then the choices are unlimited (Manley, Avalon, etc. credit card is the limit) but if you intend to work on batteries the choices are very limited, quality speaking. I have a nice preamp from FMR (fmraudio.com) linked to a compressor, both plugged. I use it with different mics like a Shure SM58 dynamic mic or a cardio (but then I cannot shoot in the same time as the mic is too sensitive). This RNC (fmr audio) is a good compromise between price and quality. As usual, Super8man, if you start being really concerned with sound you better have some cash, and you might lose the super8 spirit.
You could also record without compression from a HiMd and then import it via PreAmp-Compressor-EQ but it's better to do it between the mic and the Md, at the source. Professionaly speaking, the A-D convertor on the MD are not so professionnal. Filming on the go, a better recorder like a Tascam DA-P1 or a flash recorder with real preAmp instead of a MD and a Preamp, might be an option but it's another world.
a.

[Kurt8]

I find this to be an excellent, mobile, low cost setup:

Denecke AD-20 Preamp
Sony MZ-R50 MD recorder

The Sony can be found for relatively cheap on eBay and is rock solid due to it's mostly metal construction. You can run an optical digital line from the Denecke to the Sony's digital line in, thus bypassing the MD's weak preamps.

Here's a link to the Denecke but you could probably also find one used for cheaper.

http://www.core-sound.com/inbox.htm

Kurt

[arnaud]

Kurt8, I didn't know that one. It seems to be a very good front end, maybe even too good for a MD, but you're right, avoiding the converter by going digital is smart move. Nevertheless, I would still prefer having only one recorder with a good preamp than a couple of devices to chain.
a.

[christoph]

I find this to be an excellent, mobile, low cost setup:
Denecke AD-20 Preamp
Sony MZ-R50 MD recordert

urrgh, 320USD and no phantom power... i'm sure it is a great little preamp, but once you add up all the components you end up with like over 500USD and still record on atrac compression that you'll have to digitize through the line-out again if you dont have another high end minidisc deck (that's another two D/A and A/D conversion on comsumer devices!!). i'd suggest to use at least a Hi-MD (although i dont trust sony on their upload software) or a iRiver.

arnaud is right, the danger is to loose the super8 spirit, i used to record to an old MD with a crappy dynamic mic, white noise all over the place, but somehow it was fun.

++ christoph ++