Sound-Devices MixPre-D

[Sean Solowiej]

I love my 788 but agree there's a place for an excellent tiny 2-channel recorder. I also use a Zoom H4n, but only have good line-in results using attenuators to phono-in, which makes it very impractical to use/mount/handle.

I'm wondering if anyone has used one of these yet:

http://www.zaxcom.com/zfr200.htm
It's a tiny digital recorder by Zaxcom. It's only single-channel and about $900, but for the form factor (2.4" x 2.4" x .65") it has a lot of potential.

Then there's the Sonosax MiniR82 if you have $5000 to drop. Seems like there is an important niche in between that SD could fill nicely.

[Paul Nordin]

Cool find Sean. Wonder how well that can handle line level

There is also the Nagra SD

[Tom Visser]

Yes, I was looking into this about the USB port on the MixPre. I figure it to be best to just stay digital if the recording is digital. So if there's a way to record through the USB port that would be nice. I still want to be able to record 24-bit 96Khz, I believe the Iphone 4 doesn't have that capability?

As for the Korg, isn't it unnecessary to record with 24bit 96Khz if the recording is higher in quality? Isn't it enough with PCM 24bit 96Khz as it's what's coming out of the PreMix?

Quality gains above 44.1 and 48K in my book are pretty negligible. Maybe... if you doing a classical, jazz, or other instrumentation with a very high end setup, in a great room, there may be some minor imaging advantages to higher sampling rates, but not necessarily an increase in "resolution" with respect to absolute detail and certainly not audible frequency response. I'm not saying there aren't valid reasons to roll 96 or 192K. First, if your client wants it, give it to them. Second, if you are doing sound design and you know that you need to vary speed in post, higher sampling rates will allow you to do half speed or quarter speed with zero resampling artifacts. The iPad / iPhone via USB will only do up to 16/48. Now with you question regarding DSD to the Korg and is it relevant since the MixPre is only 24/96K capable... yes it is relevant (if you think DSD is relevant at all, I sort of don't) in that the path out of the MixPre is 100% analog and will be hitting the Korg converters without any previous conversion. In fact, you could record PCM 24/96 to the computer directly and simultaneously record the analog outputs at any sampling rate or format that you wish, including tape if you heart desired, and they would be completely independent recording paths.

The Zaxcom ZFR recorder is interesting, but it's mono operation and price sort of make it an unusual choice for a general purpose recorder. It also has a rather limited transport control. It is mostly designed to be used in the context of a Zaxnet system where transport can roll with timecode so one could "autoload" the recorder in conjunction with camera takes. The specific problem that many people find this unit solves is reality shows where you have people running all over the place, sometimes out of range of the mixers' wireless, and just need autonomous lav mic recording.

The Nagra SD is mostly for field reporters, was not really intended to be a critical field recorder. It only has unbalanced stereo line inputs, much like your typical Olympus or Zoom H2 type recorder (which I love for the price). I love Nagra recorders, even use a Nagra VI myself, but the Nagra SD really is not the most suitable recorder for the job here. I did a lot of searching for recorders that didn't have built in mics, had high quality analog stages, and at the end of the day my search always led me back to the Korg MR-1000S or MR-1. Even the replacement for the MR-1, the MR-2, dropped the balanced inputs for the more popular stereo unbalanced jack. My recommendations still are...

$ unbalanced tape output to something like the Zoom H2
$$ Korg MR-1 (the 1/8" balanced jacks really are quite alright, don't worry, they are not compromised sonically in any way - compromised in durability? maybe, but not sonically)
$$$ Sound Devices 702 or 702t at which point the money just doesn't make sense and you might as well ditch the MixPre and just have gone for the SD 552 in the first place, even if you don't need 5 channels.

[Paul Nordin]

Nice summary Tom. Very helpful. Contrary to some of the reports above about noise floor, I've not have any problems or complaints using my H4n for interviews, small-crew run'n'gun work, and other lower budget web-based projects. I would NOT use it to field record music or programs which will likely undergo critical listening or significant audio post work. For that I use my 744T. And when that's not good enough, they come into my studio and we use our pristine recording environment and uber-awe$ome mics and pres and converters.