Best entry level recording gear?
 

With portable digital audio technology being so abundant these days, I would figure there is something smaller and cheaper than the DAT decks of 15 years ago. I haven't done any taping since like 2000, with my old minidisc recorder, so I'm totally out of the loop on what people are using these days. Can you get a decent rig for under, say, $300?

See if you can find a nice (used?) Edirol R09HR. Do you have mics?

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/images/i...345/600761.jpg

as an inferior alternative to skradgee's advice

Whoa. That Zoom recorder is nice.

until you want to run an external mic into it

Why? You can hook up two external mics. It has phantom power.

http://www.rolandsystemsgroup.com/products/100093 is what i'm currently lusting after, in a portable recorder.

the only problems i've encountered is that its susceptible to handling noise when using the internal mics (makes sense) and it has a difficult/slow time recognizing any sd card larger than 8GB

iirc the preamps built-in gain and a/d are pretty bad compared to something like a DR-07, PCM-M10, LS-10, or R-09HR. they have one of the better internal mics though...

CrabbMan -- you should come visit us at taperssection.com! tons of knowledgeable people there, and tons of lightly used gear that goes for way under list price

Church audio mics - $115
Tascam Dr-07 - $90

leaves you $95 for a good preamp

Good to know, my dad has one of these and I was considering using it for recording shows.

Wait, not that one, but it is a Zoom recorder.

http://www.zoom.co.jp/english/products/h2/

http://www.zoom.co.jp/english/products/h2/h2_01.jpg

I have one of those, I love it, use it a lot. But I mainly use it for recording my own band practices and our gigs, not other bands' taping...

Note it has two separate pickup patterns, a 90 degree spread and a 180 spread... There's also a function that you can record all four at once to make a 4-channel recording. No multitrack option though, as well as no combo of it's own mics and external line-ins (it's one or the other). Also records to 96/24 if you want. Pop a 24 gig soundcard in it, and your good.

If you wanna know how it sounds, I recorded this show with it: http://archive.org/details/cspm2011-06-22

Did you use external mics? I'll give it a listen later.

Yeah, it's the built in 180 degree spread (the rear set of mics).

Also, my new band, our demo was recorded live with the 4-channel option (even though I went and used compression and EQ in a DAW). http://soundcloud.com/soniclovenoize...-booking-demo/ The context is a little different than what you are looking for, but you can at least see the versatility of it.

NICE. Yeah my dad uses it a lot for his practices, it's got a decent sound for something that you just stick in the middle of the room. And of course some EQ and compression helps. I did a voiceover thing for him a week ago and that kind of thing was needed to get my voice (cough) to some degree of radio-announcer warmth.

What's the preamp doing? I know what they do in general, but why would I need one if I bought external mics? Babby's first recording gear!

I bought a Tascam DR-05 on a whim. I don't go to as many shows as I used to but I thought I could at least play with it. It was cheap enough where I didn't have to feel bad if I never used it.

So this leaves me to wonder, should I care about the performance of the built-in mics of these devices, or just buy external mics. And if am using external mics, is there much of a difference in the sound quality between the different recorders, or is it at that point just a matter of much they can record at a time?

yes there is a difference between the sound quality even using external mics... the built in preamps vary quite a bit.

bot deleted

IDK. I can't see valuing the preamp as one item over all the other features in a setup. I mean...I don't discount the importance of it. Obviously you don't want to have a really hissy recording from a terribly bad preamp, etc. but a lot of that comes down to personal preference and how people like to hear a recording, or just how one will work better for a particular project.

Yup.

AUDSBD: when a member of the audience brings his own soundboard to the venue to record the gig

wuttup nagra

you're probably going to want to get the shoulder strap