Sound Recorder: CF or Hard drive?

The Guru · #1 (**permalink**) 07-03-2006, 11:30 AM

I'm currently in pre- pre-production of a documentary about a choir contest. (ie coming up with a rough ball-park cost figure for the camera teams) and was thinking of getting a digital sound-recorder to use independantly from the camera teams.

Does anyone own, or have experience with, a CF or hard-drive recorder?

PS. Let's keep it real here, suggestions for kit costing anything approaching a thousand pounds will be treated with contempt!

komatoast · #2 (**permalink**) 07-03-2006, 11:34 AM

what kind of setup are you really looking at?
is there going to be a static camera? if so use that to get the sound line... you can plug in a nice mic of take a line from a set of mics going thru a desk into the cam this will ensure you always have a line of audio that is in sync with the visual. keep it simple.

Mark W · #3 (**permalink**) 07-03-2006, 11:47 AM

I disagree, I think if you have the man power that recording sound with a seperate person / mic / recorder is likely to give improved results with much more flexibility.

My friend has a tiny 4 (or is it eight) track muso thingy that records to cf and he says it works fine.

Having bust a couple of hard disc players ( i am clumsy) I would go cf. My current mp3 player is a 1gig shuffle after busting an archos and damaging an i pod 20 gig.

komatoast · #4 (**permalink**) 07-03-2006, 12:31 PM

fare enough but then you still have to sync another set of AV. why not record with it synced? saves me lots of time.

The Guru · #5 (**permalink**) 07-03-2006, 01:12 PM

For the rehearsals there will be two teams. Both with DVC-pro50 cameras, sound input will be stereo, fed through an SQN-4S or a Sound-Devices 302. Quite simple.

What I wanted was a "Wandering Soundie" who would be free to work away from the camera teams, just to pick up any choirs singing, or practicing, to add later as wild track. He'd be equipped with either a hard-drive recorder or a CF recorder. Since he/she's going to be working for ten days, hiring a recorder is only marginally cheaper than buying one. Hence my trawl for information.

Edit: For the final concert I'll probably keep it simple and either hire in an SNG van or an independant sound engineer with gear. Just taking a line-out from the hall's mixer to one of the camcorders isn't good enough. It's experience with portable recorders that I'm looking for, there seem to be a lot on the market.

The three in my price bracket are...

Marantz PMD-660 : M-Audio MicroTrack 2496 : Edirol R-09

Feedback appreciated...