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Low Power Recorder with XLR IN and 3.5mm Camera OUT?


brightnight

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I need help finding a recorder to use with one XLR mic (mic TBD). I’d like the recorder to output to a digital camera. I will be filming wildlife using remote motion activated cameras and would like high quality sound for my videos. The recorder will be sitting in the woods with a camera or cameras in a waterproof case for weeks at a time. I'm good with electronics so modifying recorders/programming devices to turn on a recorder and record when I want would not be an issue. I need a recorder this is either:

 

1) Able to sit on standby/sleep at very lower power ready to record in an instant (once recording it can use a lot of power as long as it doesn't during standby/sleep)

 

2) Passing an audio signal continuously to the camera using very little power (the camera will be off or asleep until it's recording and "using" the audio signal)

 

3) or, a recorder that has a very fast start up and record time from being powered off but it would have to be 1/10 of a second from the time power is hit (probably unrealistic)

 

In general, there won't be much sound recording so it's all about finding a recorder that uses power very efficiently (has a low power standby/sleep), but once it's recording and active it can use a lot of power because that will only be for short periods every day. All the reviews I read suggested that the Tascam-60D records great audio but I didn’t realize that it uses a lot of power on standby and thus is not practical for my application (4.5 hours of recording on 4AA hours). I've been looking at the Zoom H5 as an option but wondering if there's a better option out there (15 hours on two AA's). My ideal recorder would take an XLR input, output to a camera via a 3.5mm port (I might output to two cameras via a short 3.5mm Y harness), have great battery life, have a small and rugged form factor that can handle moisture, and provide phantom power. I will modify whatever recorder I use to run off external power so even if that feature isn’t part of the recorder I can add it in.

 

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I am not aware of a pro recorder that has a 'sleep' mode. Some have a threshold setting  to initiate record and shut down  w/o activity. May use very little power though, so a high W/h external battery will run the recorder 12+ hours. Take a look at the Sound Devices MixPre series or the Zoom F series. The MixPre II and the Zoom F6 are also 32 bit, so precise level setting is not an issue. They can also record small file size MP3 files, so a media card would yield lots of track/hours.

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Haven’t we diecussed this before? 
How about building a box that will switch on the power supply to a recorder triggered by a signal from the camera? 
I know at least the Sound Devices 788T (and maybe 744T?) can be set to switch on and start recording when ext power is supplied. 
They need a bit of time to fully boot, though. 

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Brightnight, firstly welcome to JWS - it is an intriguing question. I don't believe such a thing exists, it will certainly have to be created or modified from whatever. My first thought is to find a camera that works both with trigger recording and has a sound input, then either (easiest) connect a microphone which is powered by the camera (and its battery system) or have a low consumption battery (probably electret) or battery - preamp unit (as Rick suggests, running constantly with an external battery) connected which doesn't need to be triggered.

 

Hopefully somebody here who currently does wildlife (I did many years ago) may chime in on current systems and ideas but I wouldn't be too surprised if it's a choice between,

i. keep close and change the battery / check the results; and

ii. silent

 

Very interested here on everyone's ideas

 

Jez

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Wellllllll....... your requirements/questions sound like if you asked a cameraman, "how can we shoot in total darkness while underwater??" You're not going to like the answers! As the answers will involve heavy compromises / lots of expenses / lots of setup time / inconvenient / constraining / ugly / all of the above & more!


Assuming you don't have the budget to get such a device custom made, I think your best bet is going to be going with the Tascam DR60Dmk2 (or a Zoom F4 / MixPre3 if you can stretch to it) and putting all your remaining dollars into the biggest battery system you can. (perhaps with solar panels too, to top it up)

Although you'll be recording over a period of weeks, can you narrow down at all during the time periods when you'll be filming the wildlife? Perhaps you know for instance you'll only be recording around the times of dusk, for an hour either side. You could then totally shut down your setup outside those hours, that would in the long run save you a lot of power.

An option I'd strongly consider, is getting an external phantom power supply (such as say a Sound Devices MP1 or an Ambient UMP II) paired with the Tascam DR10X. As I bet the DR10X uses very very little battery power, you could leave the DR10X running permanently (plus I believe it can run externally from USB power too, so you won't even have to mod it) and have the external P48 supply switched on/off as you need it. The likes of a MP1/UMP can boot up very very very fast (not sure it if is quite a tenth of a second though). 

However, have you thought about storage capacity? You're going to need 12gigs every twenty four hours (and double that if you want a safety track). That's a lot of storage needed over a span of weeks

And the likes of a Tascam DR10X for instance can't use a card bigger than 32gigs. 
This would be a reason to get a Zoom F4 instead, it can take up 512gigs per card, and you can set it up so that once one card is filled up then the F4 will switch over to the other card. Giving you over a terabyte in total!! (that's still "only" 6 weeks of stereo recording, just how many weeks worth do you need?)

The MixPre3 is also limited to 512gig cards, perhaps check in with Sound Devices to see what is the limit on the size of the USB thumbdrive that their MixPre3 Gen2 can use?
 

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Thanks for all the input. I have previously posted about this, but need additional input. Something like the Sound Devices 788T is above my budget and too risky to leave in the woods with moisture in the case, and I'd like to find something with a smaller form factor. I can layout and build circuit boards, which is what I do for a living, so maybe I’ll take a peak at what some of these devices do under the hood and seek out out additional resources if that isn't too bad.

“How can we shoot in total darkness while underwater??" I wish this was the situation as it would be easier for me to solve with my skillset :)

 

Good thought but unfortunately I can’t narrow down the times I’ll be recording as the animals I film are active throughout the day and night so the system has to be ready to be active and ready 24/7. I only need it to record when there is motion, so I will modify it to start recording only when there is activity which will only be a 2-4 hours a week of actual record time so 99% of the time the system will be in standby.

Originally it I thought using the recorder only as a pass through to the camera would be the best idea as I’ll have hundreds of clips a month and didn’t want to sync the sounds up manual. However, It seems like I’d get much better audio quality if I recorded directly on the recorder and just forget about passing it onto the camera to record on the video? The GH5 cameras I will be using records audio in LPCM 2ch 48kHz/16-bit (which I'm guessing isn't that great compared to the amp quality and 16/24 bit rate of the Zoom H5).

 

Is there a way to automatically sync the sounds to the videos for a few hundred clips at a time? I’ll be deleting 80% lot of the videos clips that don’t have great footage so would like to sync everything up and then go through and delete things so I can delete sound and video at once rather then individually and then accidentally miss one.

I can add a solar charger and big battery which would help and the aim is to only check the system once a month. The DR10X uses about 4.5X less power then the Tascam 60D so will have to look at that in more detail, thanks for the suggestion! Still pretty massive amount of power compared to the camera on standby but that’s what I get for trying to use tech in situations other then the intended purpose.

 

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Just spitballing here.

 

Checking just once a month presents a challenge, I think. Maybe see if you can borrow some ideas from the 2009 documentary The Cove. IIRC, in the film they spend some time detailing how their audio setup worked. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cove_(film)

 

Briefly, they had Sound Devices recorders with big batteries placed in Pelican Cases and underwater housings. The cases kept everything dry. And since the filmmakers knew more-or-less what time of day the action occured, they used a timer to turn everyting on and off, thereby extending useful battery life.

https://www.tvtechnology.com/equipment/sound-devices-helps-the-cove-raise-awareness-of-dolphin-abuse

 

Since you're thinking of using smaller Zoom or Tascam recorders, perhaps you can get away with smaller Pelican-style cases. And if you have a rough sense of when animals might be nearby (morning or evening hunting and feeding for example?), perhaps you can get a few more days or weeks out of your batteries before they need to be recharged. But once a month sounds like a big ask, especially if you're looking at low temps that don't help battery life much. The solar approach 

 

Or are there any off-the-shelf trail cameras that include decent audio, or can be modified so they trigger an audio recorder? No idea what brand to recommend, but Google points to this example:

https://www.bushnell.com/trail-cameras-2/

 

A nature-sounds group or the Cornell Lab of Ornithology might be able to provide suggestions that have already been field tested.

 

Let us know what you end up doing and how it works out for you!

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Brightnight, after the last post and very useful detail (= camera records PCM 48k 16bit) I would strongly suggest looking not for a recorder but a "low power PREAMP with XLR in and 3.5 mini jack consumer level output" ... with your extra skills I would consider if it could be externally battery powered and turned on and off with the same switching circuit that turns the camera to record. Perhaps even the same battery unit could power camera and preamp (+ mic)?

 

Unless you have a spectacular scientific need for going over 48k and 16 bit (better than a CD ... if you remember them) I see no great benefit of going double system (which is what we call separate but synched sound and picture). With your two issues of massive power duration and potential (auto) edit/resync of hundreds of clips I would at least firstly focus on a camera based solution for recording which would just mean 'how to power a decent mic into a decent preamp and send to camera'.

 

Recorders generally (as I gather) are far more power hungry than preamps / mixers - even though this has deliberately been addressed on the recorder front in recent years. If you look at 'yesteryear's' preamps/mixers from SQN, Sound Devices etc they are already designed for say a day of activity on a set of alkaline batteries, far better in consumption than any recorder. They are also generally more 'bullet proof' than any recorder, especially one on the consumer or semi pro level.

 

I would look carefully at a few options (please anyone else chime in if they think of similar) such as SQN (possibly even the obsolete SQN 3 if only mono) and from Sound Devices the 302 or the (original) MixPre or (again if mono) one of the early mono preamps. All for the simple reason all these units are extremely reliable in poor conditions. It would then come down to working out if a triggered power feed worked (probably say half a minute for a P48 mic I would guess). I am assuming that all your quality mic candidates are P48 powered. Then just have a feed to the camera (calibrated as best you can, shouldn't be a problem).

 

If you were insistent about the recorder route I would look at both the Zoom F6 and the Series 2 Sound Devices Mix Pre recorders for their 32 bit function: unmonitored recording is surely the best reason for this feature. Personally again I would STILL be looking at a solid  mic/preamp front end to camera and potentially a second feed to a separate recorder.

 

My ideas so far. Again, interested to see where this goes and whether either wildlife folk or manufacturers here see this and chime in. I am also very interested in a more detailed description of your existing powering and triggering system for camera as it stands (especially if self built). You probably know that most audio options run around 12volt dc, often 6-18, sometimes wider, although many do not have such great leeway.

 

Jez

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