most musical 4-8 channel digital recorder

[grawk]

I will start by saying I'm not a professional, and probably won't ever be a professional.  That said, I do a fair amount of remote recording, and am looking to upgrade my recorder.  I'm currently using a sound devices 552 preamp and recording using a zoom f6, but I'm exploring upgrading to a new (to me) Nagra VI, AETA 4MINX, Sonosax R4+, or Zaxcom Nova 2.  This seems like the place with the most members with experience with most of these recorders, so I was looking for opinions.  I was pretty set on the 4MINX, but some of the posts on here talk about distortion, so I was wondering how common that might be?  

My microphones are DPA 4015s and 4018s, and I'll probably add either an ambisonic mic or midsize pair in the future.  I generally record a mix of unamplified acoustic music (Americana etc) and amplified guitar based music in good sounding rooms.  I'm aware the differences are minor, but I don't collect classic cars or do drugs, so this is my choice for how to waste my money, and I'd like to waste it in the best possible way.  

I'd love to hear thoughts of people who'd care to share them.

[The Documentary Sound Guy]

If you aren't recording for film, most of the recorders we you list are overkill for you.  We use them because the suit our very particular workflows, not because the audio quality is thousands dollars better than the rest.

For what you are doing, I'd probably pick whichever Sound Devices MixPre has the right number of channels for you and call it a day.  Or, buy a used 6-series Sound Devices recorder or Zaxcom Nomad could get you an excellent quality machine in a single package for a good price.  And if the 552/F6 is working for you, stick with that ... none of the others are much of an upgrade in audio quality.  You'll get better quality from doing more recordings and improving your technique, not from new equipment.  When you have enough experience that you need a particular piece of equipment to solve a particular problem, that is when it's worth forking out the money for some obscure piece of expensive equipment.  Until you have the experience to know what you need, you are probably just wasting your money.

[Jesse Flaitz]

I'd strongly suggest looking into the Aaton Cantar mini.  It's a bit pricey, but it has certain functions like Play Record that would be fantastic for music recording IMO.  It's a magnificent piece of machinery.

[Neil Mc]

8 minutes ago, The Documentary Sound Guy said:

If you aren't recording for film, most of the recorders we you list are overkill for you.  We use them because the suit our very particular workflows, not because the audio quality is thousands dollars better than the rest.

For what you are doing, I'd probably pick whichever Sound Devices MixPre has the right number of channels for you and call it a day.  Or, buy a used 6-series Sound Devices recorder or Zaxcom Nomad could get you an excellent quality machine in a single package for a good price.  And if the 552/F6 is working for you, stick with that ... none of the others are much of an upgrade in audio quality.  You'll get better quality from doing more recordings and improving your technique, not from new equipment.  When you have enough experience that you need a particular piece of equipment to solve a particular problem, that is when it's worth forking out the money for some obscure piece of expensive equipment.  Until you have the experience to know what you need, you are probably just wasting your money.

 

Let the man live! hahah He's already informed us he wants to splash out from all the savings of living drug free      . 

 

As a R4+ plus user I can report it sounds beautiful ( better to my ear than my previous 664) and is an excellent choice for portable recordings of music. 

[grawk]

24 minutes ago, The Documentary Sound Guy said:

If you aren't recording for film, most of the recorders we you list are overkill for you.  We use them because the suit our very particular workflows, not because the audio quality is thousands dollars better than the rest.

For what you are doing, I'd probably pick whichever Sound Devices MixPre has the right number of channels for you and call it a day.  Or, buy a used 6-series Sound Devices recorder or Zaxcom Nomad could get you an excellent quality machine in a single package for a good price.  And if the 552/F6 is working for you, stick with that ... none of the others are much of an upgrade in audio quality.  You'll get better quality from doing more recordings and improving your technique, not from new equipment.  When you have enough experience that you need a particular piece of equipment to solve a particular problem, that is when it's worth forking out the money for some obscure piece of expensive equipment.  Until you have the experience to know what you need, you are probably just wasting your money.

I've been recording live music for over 25 years, starting with Sennheisers and a marantz PMD430, and having various dat and solid state recorders.  I do think my ability will continue to grow, but I've hit the point where I'd enjoy knowing that at least my mic preamps aren't my weak point, and I'd like to take 1 fewer link out of the equation by switching from a separate preamp and recorder.  

I had considered the nomad, but have read that there's a hard wired bass roll off that isn't removable without surgery.  That's why I was thinking Nova.

[tourtelot]

A used Sound Devices 788T (or even a SD 744) would be all you need to record music.  I AM a professional music recordist and for anything under eight tracks, I still use, and am still awe-struck by the quality of, acoustic music recorded on my 788T.

 

D.

[grawk]

15 minutes ago, tourtelot said:

A used Sound Devices 788T (or even a SD 744) would be all you need to record music.  I AM a professional music recordist and for anything under eight tracks, I still use, and am still awe-struck by the quality of, acoustic music recorded on my 788T.

 

D.

Thanks, I'd considered that.  At this point, my concern was that most 788Ts have been very heavily used, and might not be reliable.  

[The Documentary Sound Guy]

 

27 minutes ago, grawk said:

I'd enjoy knowing that at least my mic preamps aren't my weak point, and I'd like to take 1 fewer link out of the equation by switching from a separate preamp and recorder.  

This is a better definition of the problem you are trying to solve.  You should have started there.

A 744T / 788T is a great recommendation!  I always forget about those recorders, but I think this is what you should buy.

I've owned both the Nomad and a Nova.  I don't know anything about a hard-wired bass-roll off ... as far as I can tell, the pre-amps are very similar, and I haven't had an issue with getting full bass range.  If you pick one of these, go for the Nomad, it has more analogue inputs, plus an additional 4 line inputs.

I think the Sonosax / Nagra probably sound great, but honestly, all of these machines are excellent.  Sonosax, and especially Nagra trade on their excellent analogue designs from decades ago, but, good as they are, so is most of the competition these days.  It's a lot easier to get great pre-amps now than it was when they were in their heyday.  I'm sure they sound great, but I'm not convinced they are worth the trouble.  Given that are you in the US, I'd probably buy from an American company for ease of service and access to parts.  If something breaks with one of the more esoteric recorders, you might be waiting for months.  But I appreciate Neil's testimony that the Sonosax sounds better than the 6-series.  That's worth something IMO.
 

[Johnny Karlsson]

You have good mics.

 

You have a 552 - that’s 5x good pre-amps with direct outputs. 

 

My 2c:

I would suggest going with a good converter/interface, such as the ones from UA, or Apogee and record to a DAW (If you don’t already have them, buy or make 5x TA3 to XLR cables). Seeing the you are recording in “good sounding rooms”, I feel there’s no real need for a portable recorder. Plus with a DAW, it’s much more practical for overdubs, punching in etc. And I could be wrong, but when you do final mixing/mastering you would likely be doing that in a DAW anyway.

 

If you’re set on using a portable recorder, I would recommend looking at a MixPre 10 with the music plug-in.

 

 

[OB1]

744T or 788T if you need more channels. Plenty of folks record using DPAs and a 7xxx series and have been doing so for AGES without equipment issues. The drive may die on you, but DIY replacement is super easy.

[grawk]

I appreciate the SD recommendations.  I was hoping to hear from people who had experience with the recorders I'd listed as well.

[drpro]

I believe the front end is the key.  In our world, my take would be the Sonosax, Cooper and SQN preamps.  Outside of that take a listen to Gordon or Forssell.  Then pretty much any recorder or recorder software.

[Maximumbass]

No drugs? Buy some nice preamps.
Sounds like you are not compromising for film…mics can be in the shot yes?
If so the digital recording box does not matter much nowadays…most are pretty acceptable.

langevin ,api,neve,urei preamps are pretty musical,

you might want some dynamic mics (57,421) to close mic the electric guitars,,,maybe some ribbons ( old royers,rcas are great ) .

As far as a musical recorder , studer a80 is nice,,,but not very portable.

[callou]

As a Nova2 owner i sadly would not suggest it for music : it's a amazing machine for dialog  but i found that its neverclip can't handle sustained bass sound ( swiching to the second preamp produce an audible click..)  never had a problem in a   real world situation but it's quite easy to reproduce and in a music situation  it would  really  scare me as the only fail safe would be to never reach the neverclip threshold ( -3dbFS if no ISO attenuation is engaged and this threshold is lowered by the same value  of the iso attenuation you dial on your tracks .) Quite easy to avoid in most situation but nevertheless it's dangerous..

on my personal test only the  the nova2 has this flaw , Nomad and nova1 are fine ...( i think their analog stage are quite similar )

but If somebody has managed to record music with a nova 2 without encountering this problem i will be gald to hear it and reassure myself..

[The Documentary Sound Guy]

I would tend to agree that the Nova2 probably isn't what you are looking for.  It's preamps are good enough for me, but that's not really the main selling point the way it is on the Sonosax (or the way it was for the 7-series and older Sound Devices).

Another important music feature that it lacks is proper stereo panning.  I'm a fan, I own one, but my reasons for doing so don't match your requirements.

I'll have to see if I can reproduce the Neverclip click ... I know I've seen several firmware notes that were supposed to fix it.

[Dejan Ceko]

This might be interesting for you ...

https://britishcinematographer.co.uk/how-sally-potter-achieved-the-intimate-vocal-sound-she-desired-for-her-debut-album-pink-bikini/

 

Cheers.

[The Documentary Sound Guy]

Interesting.  Thanks for sharing that.  I have to wonder how much was the pre-amps, and how much was mic placement.  I think film mixers tend to be better at thinking in terms of vocal space; I know it's a big part of how I record music (partly because I'm usually trying to keep things out of frame).  But I've noticed that I tend to prefer recordings that don't close mic the vocals ... I prefer to hear the sound of a space.  But maybe I'm discounting the role of the pre-amps too much.

[Dejan Ceko]

26 minutes ago, The Documentary Sound Guy said:

Thanks for sharing that.  I have to wonder how much was the pre-amps, and how much was mic placement. 

You are welcome . In my mind , microphones are THE most important tools in our kits . Mic pre-amps are on second place and they are crucial when I am choosing right mixer/recorder or radio mic system for the project .

 

Regards.

[Patrick Tresch]

Best preamp ever done on a portable recorder is in the Sonosax SX-R4+.

If you need more tracks with preamp you can use the SX-AD8+ module and stay digital with AES connection.

 

It's also often used for classical music recording. No transformer, you get a clean preamps with the highest dynamic range on the market. It's also small and modular. (I'm not a Sonosax seller 😉 )

 

For some examples :

https://www.facebook.com/groups/422226551455412/user/572779073

 

 

Patrick

 

[DHB]

Most people here are recording live dialogue for films ..in mono. That's actors walking around, and their speech being recorded with either a single mic on a boom pole, or various stuck-to-their-skin hidden radio mics.

 

As you've been "..recording live music for over 25 years.." you'll have different needs from mono speech recordists (Production Sound Mixers).

 

You'll probably want to 'pan' the sound you record to different areas on your virtual stereophonic 'stage'. You may not want to record using just the 'raw' sound which your mics give you, but probably want the audio to sound like what you have in your head, so to speak, meaning that you'd want to EQ (make adjustments to the quality of) the sounds which your mics pick up: a little more bass here, and panning over to the left a bit ..a touch less 'top' there, and maybe panning right a touch ..'opening up' the sound with a touch more mids, etcetera.

 

So you'd be using a decent quality audio mixer to enable all that. A recording device just records what's supplied to it. That's what film recordists do: copy the (mono) speech which mics pick up, and place it on a recorder. (The 'Re-Recording Mixer' does the job later of gathering all this speech, placing it on the 'sound stage' (Left, Centre, Right, Left-Surround, Right-Surround, Bass Rumble), adding, say, a distant dog barking over at screen right - to suggest loneliness at night - and adding a stereo or Surround mix of music and effects. Think 'Blade Runner'.)

 

A music recordist, like yourself, needs - above all - decent mics and a decent mixing device, but you haven't mentioned any kind of mixer which you're using. The recording device isn't the centrepiece of the activity - for music - it's the mics, their positioning ..and their mixing, EQ, panning  to deliver the sound which you actually want to hear.

 

You seem dissatisfied with DAT (..but which has phenomenal audio range, usually down to 10Hz..!) and with your F6 ..I don't know the F6, but my F8 brings out hidden bass - from mics like a TLM 103 and C414 XLII which many music recorders like - but which I'd never picked up from those mics before!

 

Instead of spending money on yet another recorder, consider getting a decent mixer ;  that may make all the difference, or improvement, which you seem to want.

[The Immoral Mr Teas]

14 minutes ago, DHB said:

Instead of spending money on yet another recorder, consider getting a decent mixer ;  that may make all the difference, or improvement, which you seem to want.

 

Actually we don't know what GRAWK does with his tracks - it's (I would guess from my own experience in music) far far more common to record music tracks first then mix them later from playback, just as we do in film, than to record 'direct to 2-track' ... though even if he is purely going (mixing direct) to 2-track then the Sonosax will handle that admirably from 4 tracks and the Cantar units from more.

 

Jez

And upgrading from a Zoom F6, despite my admiration for the F6, is far more than 'yet another' recorder...

[grawk]

I record 4-6 mics as isos, as Mr Teas suggested.  I'm not spot micing, I'm trying to capture the experience of being in the room.  I do any mixing in post.  I currently take the otuputs of the 552 as pre-fader, as the dynamic range of modern recorders is high enough that I don't have to make permanent decisions in the field.
 

4 hours ago, Dejan Ceko said:

This might be interesting for you ...

https://britishcinematographer.co.uk/how-sally-potter-achieved-the-intimate-vocal-sound-she-desired-for-her-debut-album-pink-bikini/

 

Cheers.

Thank you

[Philip Perkins]

Have you checked in at the Gearspace Remote Recording forum?  There you will find people who are doing work more or less like you describe, vs dialog recording on location for films, which is very different work from remote recording of music.  In general thre are many more good solutions to what you want to do than there are for film sound work.  If you have the money and know you will not need to expand into higher track counts I think Sonosax is a great way to go.  But I find that in in remote music work the channel count has a tendency to creep upwards as the gig approaches, so leave yourself a way to accommodate those late adds.

[OB1]

I see that you're a member of TS as well, so it's interesting that you're in here asking about live sound recording. The veterans over at TS know their equipment very well, and what performs for your use case specifically opposed to this group's affinity for production sound mixing. They don't venture into the Nagra/Zaxcom side of equipment because, as others have mentioned, those manufacturers are catering to a slightly different discipline and frankly the ROI isn't there. That's why you see a LOT of SD 7XXX being used: fidelity combined with economics and convenience.

 

I've never used the AETA 4MINX, but have a lot of mileage with others. And if cost is not much of an issue I would recommend the Sonosax, especially if you're using primarily DPAs. There's a taper (that I now very well) that ran DPA into an M2 and those are the sweetest sounding tapes out there. For most, though, unfettered reference quality mics into a clean preamp isn't their thing (aka Schoeps, etc.). Personally, I think that's the whole point in capturing the music from the ambient crowd.

 

But don't forget the A>D. Oh, and your playback system with whatever you use. It's all tied together if your goal is ultimately to listen to your own craft (and share it, of course). It thus becomes a very deep rabbit hole...

 

PS - I run all DPAs in live sound and production sound mixing. 4017B (matched pair). 4021s (matched pair). 4023 (matched pair). 4011 "OG" (matched pair). 4098, 4099 instrument and plant mics. 4071, 4061, 6061 lavs. And so on...

 

[grawk]

It was commentary on ts that got me thinking about the 4minx and Sonosax, and searching found a lot more people here using them, so I was looking for another perspective.  I do realize that most of what happens here doesn't directly apply, but some of it does, and it's good to gather details widely, especially with equipment that's hard to source and evaluate.