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Edirol R-1

#22
Phil - that may well be...but I gotta see one in action! What's attractive about the Edirol is the built in mics. If they're decent, all I'd have to do is set it down in the right place, then turn it on and play. One of the students at the camps has one of the new handheld Marantz units, and he's gonna let me check it out tomorrow. He really likes it, but he's using a Rode NT-4 as a mic. The NT-4 is a great mic, but still one more thing to carry to the gig, then there's cables and a stand...oy. :hmm: If the internal mics on the Marantz aren't bad, I might go with that if the R-1 is still backordered. If they suck, I may try to get my mitts on a nomad and see if I can take it to a gig without buying first. Always easier said than done, but there it is.
 
#23
Got to spend a little time with the Marantz 660 on Friday, and I must say, it's an impressive little bugger. It sounds good with the internal mics, but downright wonderful with a Rode NT4 hooked up. I've heard complaints about the Marantz pres, but they sounded fine to me. What was really impressive was the ease of use, and the fact that you can easily monitor the recording level out of the corner of your eye. I'm on the verge of ordering unless something comes up in the next couple of weeks.

Phil - how do you monitor the recording level on the Nomad? On the Marantz, there's a multi segment LED that stays green up to -6 db, then has three red segments before clipping.

Wilbyman? Any news on the Edirol? Bueller?
 
#24
Chris Fitzgerald said:
Phil - how do you monitor the recording level on the Nomad? On the Marantz, there's a multi segment LED that stays green up to -6 db, then has three red segments before clipping.

Wilbyman? Any news on the Edirol? Bueller?
Click to expand...

Chris, the nomad has an LCD display with the levels, standard vertical bar type of stuff, BUT...........

I'm looking at the Edirol R1 and may have one by the end of the week because it would be less stuff for me to carry around and would allow for quicker copying to my laptop. If the the built in mics are decent that would be a plus as it would be an all in one recording unit.
 
#25
Phil Smith said:
Chris, the nomad has an LCD display with the levels, standard vertical bar type of stuff, BUT...........

I'm looking at the Edirol R1 and may have one by the end of the week because it would be less stuff for me to carry around and would allow for quicker copying to my laptop. If the the built in mics are decent that would be a plus as it would be an all in one recording unit.
Click to expand...

Excellent! Are they back "in stock" yet? I'm mostly interested in the unit as a "set and forget" kinda thing - especially important are the mic quality, and the ease with which the recording level can be set without distortion and/or a limiter. Please report in if you buy!
 
#26
Chris Fitzgerald said:
Excellent! Are they back "in stock" yet? I'm mostly interested in the unit as a "set and forget" kinda thing - especially important are the mic quality, and the ease with which the recording level can be set without distortion and/or a limiter. Please report in if you buy!
Click to expand...

Chris,

Hopefully I'll be receiving one tomorrow and it will get quite a workout as I have 3 gigs this weekend and one on Monday that I will record. I'll let you know what my impression are.
 
#28
Wow... this thread totally fell off my radar screen. I did own a PMD660 briefly and I had the highest of hopes for it. I had to send it back. The internal mics sounded bad, and the preamps were noisy. Then i see that Oade Brothers does two levels of mods on the 660, and the "pro" mod basically guts the input section. So I went back to square one. I can't recommend the stock 660 for music.

I had a chance to play with an R-1 and it sounds better out of the box, and much better with a good set of small condensors, like the SoundProfessionals basic omni pair, but i held out for the M-Audio MicroTrack. I just got one and haven't had a chance to try it out. I'll report back on that soon because it is going to a rehearsal and to do a club recording in the next few days.
 
#30
fretlessrock said:
I had a chance to play with an R-1 and it sounds better out of the box, and much better with a good set of small condensors, like the SoundProfessionals basic omni pair, but i held out for the M-Audio MicroTrack. I just got one and haven't had a chance to try it out. I'll report back on that soon because it is going to a rehearsal and to do a club recording in the next few days.
Click to expand...

Ah the MicroTrack, got a chance to check that out at the AES show as well. That M-Audio MicroTrack is such a sexy little beast it almost seperated me from my cash until I read the reviews on http://www.taperssection.com, the short of it, it's got bugs that keep if rom being reliable as a recorder and it has a built in battery which if you're truly in the field and can't get access to power you're screwed.

The R1 is a good little device, though fragile.
 
#31
Phil Smith said:
Ah the MicroTrack, got a chance to check that out at the AES show as well. That M-Audio MicroTrack is such a sexy little beast it almost seperated me from my cash until I read the reviews on http://www.taperssection.com, the short of it, it's got bugs that keep if rom being reliable as a recorder and it has a built in battery which if you're truly in the field and can't get access to power you're screwed.
Click to expand...

I found the battery bugs listed in about 10 threads, but since I'd likely be buying an NT4 to use as a mic, I figure I could get a lot more time out of it than if I was using phantom from the MT. I couldn't find any links to reliability bugs, though. I'll be very interested to see what FR reports firsthand.

The Sony is out of my pricerange, and I want no part of bad preamps (of which I've heard numerous complaints about the Marantz. What are the "fragility" issues with the R-1, and how is it powered?
 
#32
Chris Fitzgerald said:
I found the battery bugs listed in about 10 threads, but since I'd likely be buying an NT4 to use as a mic, I figure I could get a lot more time out of it than if I was using phantom from the MT. I couldn't find any links to reliability bugs, though. I'll be very interested to see what FR reports firsthand.

The Sony is out of my pricerange, and I want no part of bad preamps (of which I've heard numerous complaints about the Marantz. What are the "fragility" issues with the R-1, and how is it powered?
Click to expand...

The M-Audio people have released or are about to release some new firmware to address numerous problems that the unit has. http://www.taperssection.com has a number of threads about them.

The "fragility" issues with the R-1 are that you want to be careful about anything that you plug into it i.e. mics, line in etc because the jacks are kind of fragile but more importantly if say the mic in jack gets messed up the internal mics are affected as well. This happened to my unit and I had to send it back to get it repaired under warranty. I'm just a lot more careful with it but it does do the job very well.

I like the MicroTrack because it's smaller and has better level meters and may eventually get one when they iron out all of the problems with it even though it has a built in battery which I find problematic especially if you've forgetten to recharge it or have just done a long recording you have no recourse if you don't have access to external power.
 
#33
I'll be running the MicroTrack through its paces over the next two nights. I gave it a quick test at a rehearsal and it sounded OK, but that was with the stereo omni T mic that comes with it. I'll have a chance to use it with my Studio projects C4 pair after this weekend but until then I'll take what I can get from the stock mic.

Yep, it isn't perfect but it immediately sounded much better than a stock PMD660 and it is about a quarter of the size. The external power issue will only be a problem for a bit until a battery-USB setup hits the scene. I've got the parts to homebrew one so I'll probably have that worked out sooner than later. They obviously figured that if the iPod sells like hotcakes with easily updatable firmware, no separate power connector, and a built-in lithium cell, they could go down the same road. I think that this box will get solid and stable firmware in pretty short order. The one beta update already fixed a few of the big obvious issues.
 
#34
I use the Edirol a lot, it's very easy to use, small and more importantly a really transparent sound...I use it to record practice as well as quickly put down ideas at home. I'm sure it would be great for gigs after you setup the limiter and level, the internal mics work great IMO. The guitar sample on their site is a pretty accurate example.

I haven't checked out the others but my experience with Edirol/Boss/Roland is they almost never break down...none in my experience anyway.
 
#36
I've been using the R-1 for a month or so and the sound is very good, and it's easy to use.

My only complaint is the metering, as soon as you go into record from record pause the meter turns off. Which basically makes it (the meter) useless for live recording.

Edirol if you are listening FIX THIS NOW!

Update: I found a way to keep the meters on during recording!
 

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