OK, I've been waiting for this baby for a long time. & yesterday I finally got one.
a little background:
I have quite a bit of studio recording experience, so I know what I want to hear. As far as prtable recorders go, I've had a sony minidisk Hi-MD recorder and also an M-audio Microtrack.
... on to the edirol:
From the pictures of it, it looked to be sleek metal. when I opened it up, it was a lot more plasticky than I had thought. OK, a bit of a letdown, but lets keep looking.
Immediately, I could see that it was built for useability. there are switches on the back for turning on a mic additional gain stage, for setting it to mono/stereo, auto gain compensation, etc. all the thigns you don't want to have to dig through menus for. In fact, it seems as though most functions can be performed without going into the menu. very nice.
whoops - am I stupid? I assumed this thing would have 1/4" inputs. no dice. major dissapointment #2. IT has a 1/8" line & a 1/8" mic input. the mic input has that mini mic power (I think 9v?...it doesn't say anywhere in the specs), but from what I can tell no 48v phantom power. MASSIVE dissapointment #3. From the pre-reviews I read, they all mentioned 48v... I just don't think it's so.
The display is small, but outstanding. it shows you pretty much everything you need to know, and although it is small, it's very readable.
OK, on to recording. it takes SD cards, which is really nice. with a 2 Gig card you can record a ton of audio (it will record in 24 or 16 bit wav, and all sorts of mp3 options). when you put it in record mode, it aumoatically goes into record-pause (unlike that stupid m-audio thing!). the record button has a bright red light all around it that screams "I'm about to record!!". the level setting buttons are on the outside of the unit & it seems to have a really large gain range. nice.
I tried recording with the built-in mics, some high quality clip-on condensers, and a sony T-mic.
the sony t-mic performed as expected - low volume, massive rolloff at 100Hz, etc etc. The clip ons sounded great (these are my go-to mics for field portable recording most of the time)... but the big surprise was how good the built-in mics sounded. they sounded great! not as much low-end definition as the clip-ons but great for recording practices, doing some field recordings, etc. this is a revelation - a portable recorder that needs no external mic!. Of course good condenser mics would sound even better....but of course no 48v phantom power.
line outs would be nice (only headphones out) which can be a pain, and can end up hurting your ears if you forget to turn the gain way down.....somewhat dissapointed #4.
navigation & playing & everything was good... when you get a lot of recordings in there it would be nice to have a bigger display, but it's functional.
USB connection is easy to use, plus you can use it as a portable file device.
as far as power goes, it uses standard AA batteries. GREAT! that means if my batteries go , I can just slap a couple more in there.... i can bring extras, etc etc. it will take rechargeables as well (but it won't charge them itself). It will run off the included power adapter as well. I'm sick of taking field recorders out & having the internal battery run out of juice & have to cut the session short. (the m-audio won't even record while connected to the power adapter !)
At almost $400, it's expesive, but for a solid-state portable recorder with 2 condenser mics that does a good job, it's worth it. It does have some major shortcomings that I'm sure were economic decisions, but it's still very useable.
I'm going to keep it.
a little background:
I have quite a bit of studio recording experience, so I know what I want to hear. As far as prtable recorders go, I've had a sony minidisk Hi-MD recorder and also an M-audio Microtrack.
... on to the edirol:
From the pictures of it, it looked to be sleek metal. when I opened it up, it was a lot more plasticky than I had thought. OK, a bit of a letdown, but lets keep looking.
Immediately, I could see that it was built for useability. there are switches on the back for turning on a mic additional gain stage, for setting it to mono/stereo, auto gain compensation, etc. all the thigns you don't want to have to dig through menus for. In fact, it seems as though most functions can be performed without going into the menu. very nice.
whoops - am I stupid? I assumed this thing would have 1/4" inputs. no dice. major dissapointment #2. IT has a 1/8" line & a 1/8" mic input. the mic input has that mini mic power (I think 9v?...it doesn't say anywhere in the specs), but from what I can tell no 48v phantom power. MASSIVE dissapointment #3. From the pre-reviews I read, they all mentioned 48v... I just don't think it's so.
The display is small, but outstanding. it shows you pretty much everything you need to know, and although it is small, it's very readable.
OK, on to recording. it takes SD cards, which is really nice. with a 2 Gig card you can record a ton of audio (it will record in 24 or 16 bit wav, and all sorts of mp3 options). when you put it in record mode, it aumoatically goes into record-pause (unlike that stupid m-audio thing!). the record button has a bright red light all around it that screams "I'm about to record!!". the level setting buttons are on the outside of the unit & it seems to have a really large gain range. nice.
I tried recording with the built-in mics, some high quality clip-on condensers, and a sony T-mic.
the sony t-mic performed as expected - low volume, massive rolloff at 100Hz, etc etc. The clip ons sounded great (these are my go-to mics for field portable recording most of the time)... but the big surprise was how good the built-in mics sounded. they sounded great! not as much low-end definition as the clip-ons but great for recording practices, doing some field recordings, etc. this is a revelation - a portable recorder that needs no external mic!. Of course good condenser mics would sound even better....but of course no 48v phantom power.
line outs would be nice (only headphones out) which can be a pain, and can end up hurting your ears if you forget to turn the gain way down.....somewhat dissapointed #4.
navigation & playing & everything was good... when you get a lot of recordings in there it would be nice to have a bigger display, but it's functional.
USB connection is easy to use, plus you can use it as a portable file device.
as far as power goes, it uses standard AA batteries. GREAT! that means if my batteries go , I can just slap a couple more in there.... i can bring extras, etc etc. it will take rechargeables as well (but it won't charge them itself). It will run off the included power adapter as well. I'm sick of taking field recorders out & having the internal battery run out of juice & have to cut the session short. (the m-audio won't even record while connected to the power adapter !)
At almost $400, it's expesive, but for a solid-state portable recorder with 2 condenser mics that does a good job, it's worth it. It does have some major shortcomings that I'm sure were economic decisions, but it's still very useable.
I'm going to keep it.
