Audio Recorder with apps similar to Foolscontrol

[scott devitte]

If this bad boy has decent sound, with the included IOS and OSX, it'll be a great addition to my Dragon/Helix/Foolscontrol rig. There is also a smaller 22wl that might work well as a body pack with remote stop start.

http://tascam.com/product/dr-44wl/

http://tascam.com/product/dr-22wl/

 

[Tom Van]

If only you can monitor audio while recording, not just playback... that would be super

 

[Marc Wielage]

This is a toy intended for musicians who are composing new songs, or people who need to interview subjects for radio, print, or the net. Great for podcasts, not for film production, which is the same problem with the Zoom recorder. It's useful for certain things, but it'd be tough to fit it into a real-world film workflow, particularly having no metadata and having no timecode. The bigger Tascam recorders, like the HS-P82, will do this.

Bear in mind 90% of good sound involves using great mics and putting them close to the actors. And you have to constantly adjust levels in order to compensate for one actor speaking louder than others.

 

[Björn Benckert]

I used this quite a lot... sometimes I just stuck it in the actors chest pocket...

I understand it's possibly not the best option out there but I'm no audiophile by any means and most of the times I got away with it, the sound studio guys had no complains with the files it delivered and clients was happy. And as I do not care much for sound I try to get around it without spending more than needed and this thing was the best bang for the amount of money that I found so far... Now I got an iphone5 so I gave it away to one of my musician friends and he was uber impressed with it and says he now use it all the time so it can not be all that bad. And yes you see sound levels right away.

http://tascam.com/product/iM2/images/

It would be a cool extension of the fool control, -"Hi mr AC you know what, you are not only forced to pull focus on a touch screen you also have to do it quite as you are also in charge of second Mic...." Jupp, I'm sure they would love it

 

[scott devitte]

This is a toy intended for musicians who are composing new songs, or people who need to interview subjects for radio, print, or the net. Great for podcasts, not for film production, which is the same problem with the Zoom recorder. It's useful for certain things, but it'd be tough to fit it into a real-world film workflow, particularly having no metadata and having no timecode. The bigger Tascam recorders, like the HS-P82, will do this.

Bear in mind 90% of good sound involves using great mics and putting them close to the actors. And you have to constantly adjust levels in order to compensate for one actor speaking louder than others.

Agree with you about the mics, that is where to put the money first. I did say if it has "decent sound". Certainly worth the effort at this price to find out. What intrigues me here is that if I am controlling multiple cams from Foolcontrol osx, to have one of these units on each cam, controlled from the same rMBP, gives enormous possibilities in ambient sound and backup at very little weight and cost.

 

[Marc Wielage]

What intrigues me here is that if I am controlling multiple cams from Foolcontrol osx, to have one of these units on each cam, controlled from the same rMBP, gives enormous possibilities in ambient sound and backup at very little weight and cost.

What if you just hired a sound guy and had him hit the button? Almost all pro sound recorders record to two different sets of media at the same time, so there's your backup -- automatic. And the sound person can ride levels, be responsible for batteries, mic placement, and so on. You can't do that with a toy $299 recorder with built-in cheap mics.

I continue to be appalled and amazed by people who will spend $40,000 on a Red Dragon (plus another $40K or more on lenses and support gear) but then balk at spending more than $299 on microphones, mixers, and sound recorders. Just appalling. To me, it's like buying a Ferrari and then asking where you can find the cheapest retread tires to put on them. (With no spare.)

 

[scott devitte]

What if you just hired a sound guy and had him hit the button? Almost all pro sound recorders record to two different sets of media at the same time, so there's your backup -- automatic. And the sound person can ride levels, be responsible for batteries, mic placement, and so on. You can't do that with a toy $299 recorder with built-in cheap mics.

I continue to be appalled and amazed by people who will spend $40,000 on a Red Dragon (plus another $40K or more on lenses and support gear) but then balk at spending more than $299 on microphones, mixers, and sound recorders. Just appalling. To me, it's like buying a Ferrari and then asking where you can find the cheapest retread tires to put on them. (With no spare.)

Thank you for sharing! Twice!

 

[Nick Fury]

What if you just hired a sound guy and had him hit the button? Almost all pro sound recorders record to two different sets of media at the same time, so there's your backup -- automatic. And the sound person can ride levels, be responsible for batteries, mic placement, and so on. You can't do that with a toy $299 recorder with built-in cheap mics.

I continue to be appalled and amazed by people who will spend $40,000 on a Red Dragon (plus another $40K or more on lenses and support gear) but then balk at spending more than $299 on microphones, mixers, and sound recorders. Just appalling. To me, it's like buying a Ferrari and then asking where you can find the cheapest retread tires to put on them. (With no spare.)

I can attest that the two, near simultaneous recordings of sound, on separate media cards, has made a HUGE save, when one of the media cards failed...

Thank you very much

Fury

 

[Marc Wielage]

I can attest that the two, near simultaneous recordings of sound, on separate media cards, has made a HUGE save, when one of the media cards failed...

Same here. Once in a blue moon, you run into a drive crash or bad media, and the other card will save you.

Thank you for sharing! Twice!

You ask for opinions on an online forum... you're going to get opinions. Not necessarily ones you'll understand or agree with.

Let me put it to you this way: it's as foolish to own a Dragon and a $299 audio recorder as it would be if somebody ran out and spent $20,000 on a sound recorder and microphones and then shot everything on a $499 GoPro 4K camera. See the problem? You're heavily shifting all of your investment only to one side of picture and sound. Both picture and sound need attention. A beautifully-shot movie with horrible sound is a bad movie.

Note also that nobody says you have to buy this stuff. Many, many cities have sound rental companies that will rent you what you need at affordable prices, far cheaper than buying new or even used gear. A modest sound package is maybe $4000-$5000 for a simple timecode recorder, a boom mic, and a couple of inexpensive wireless lavs, and you can do real film-style sound with that... provided you have a guy to run them.

 

[scott devitte]

Same here. Once in a blue moon, you run into a drive crash or bad media, and the other card will save you.


You ask for opinions on an online forum... you're going to get opinions. Not necessarily ones you'll understand or agree with.

Let me put it to you this way: it's as foolish to own a Dragon and a $299 audio recorder as it would be if somebody ran out and spent $20,000 on a sound recorder and microphones and then shot everything on a $499 GoPro 4K camera. See the problem? You're heavily shifting all of your investment only to one side of picture and sound. Both picture and sound need attention. A beautifully-shot movie with horrible sound is a bad movie.

Note also that nobody says you have to buy this stuff. Many, many cities have sound rental companies that will rent you what you need at affordable prices, far cheaper than buying new or even used gear. A modest sound package is maybe $4000-$5000 for a simple timecode recorder, a boom mic, and a couple of inexpensive wireless lavs, and you can do real film-style sound with that... provided you have a guy to run them.

Thank you for sharing. Thrice. Judge, jury, executioner.

 

[Nick Fury]

Hi Scott,

I like you

I like Marc

Everybody luvs me. Hey, I even got a dinner invite on this forum today...

Well, one good thing is that you didn't ask this question on one of the sound forums that I have a passing acquaintance with. Marc, IMHO, has been a very collegial and overly patient contributor. The printed word can have issues, though, as we al know.

I have been dabbling in the sound art world for awhile now and just like the camera end of visual-acoustic presentation, the acoustic end has had huge gains in hardware. I personally like the Aaxcom gear, as it offers never clip technology in the boom and now lav sources, as just one example, that is useful starting out and beyond. The argument can be made that if either end of that visual-acoustic presentation fails, the whole thing fails. The thing is that, if one's goal is set below the top tier or two, then less than the $4K amount Marc proffered, can fly, but then some post work would likely be needed (most likely anyway) and that would be something like Izotope Rx4Avdanced. As regards Rx4ADV, it is a huge bang for the buck and offers several presets, easily implemented, to enhance your audio files (assuming the source is ok), and that can make pretty good stuff quite good, but that is another $1,500 (with Alloy 2 for De Esser). I agree that we want to keep expenses sensible and I think the $4K or so sound gear budget, at this Camera level budget is neither unexpected nor unreasonable-likely necessary, depending.

The art form part of sound work, much like, say color grading, takes a lotta time to learn and a preceptorship is something I think that would be incredibly useful as well. I certainly can't do either at true professional level, but most of us here can't either. That doesn't stop us from trying. I, as Marc intimates, didn't want the gear to be the limiting factor and picked what I thought was the best entry point for me. BTW, if I could find one of the adults local to me to offer a preceptorship and I could let go of taking my poly files, splitting, processing and combining, etc., because there wasn't enough time on set to do x,y,z then I would sign up.

Having said all that, given enough experience, time on sets, practice, etc.. I think that the thinking man's choice, if the budget is there, is to put, at least, one tenth the camera budget in sound gear- maybe somewhat less and there will be no disappointment, due to gear limitation. Less an expenditure can work, depending on post work, time skill at that post work and final goals. But that feature keeps calling... Then I would hire one of the Adults.

I humbly suggest that you try the 10 day free trial of Izotope Rx4Adv-plenty of you tube tutorials available for the modules, etc., no matter what your gear is-simply amazing. Marc sure helped me on using that piece as well.

Thank you very much

Fury

 

[scott devitte]

Thanks Fury. Sometimes the twain don't meet. Marc lives in his world, I live in mine. I'll report on the unit after I test it.

 

[Marc Wielage]

1/10th of the budget of a Red Epic would be a terrific starter system. $4000 could buy some very usable sound gear... but that's a far cry from a $299 Tascam or Zoom recorder. And that's my point, in two sentences.

 

[Doug Beatty]

Another thing to consider is that my Zaxcom gear has paid itself off many more times than my Scarlet/Epic. You go into sound not knowing much, but I find that the more you invest in something, the greater the incentive you have to learn to use it properly. Otherwise, you pay the toll and get someone on set that has spent years learning what you don't know yet so you don't have to worry as much when stuff breaks or doesn't work like you were hoping.

 

[scott devitte]

1/10th of the budget of a Red Epic would be a terrific starter system. $4000 could buy some very usable sound gear... but that's a far cry from a $299 Tascam or Zoom recorder. And that's my point, in two sentences.

Marc, here is a place i don't like to publicly go. You keep the lecture going about useable gear. And why don't I do this why don't I do that. I clearly stated this is a test of the unit yes but also the Foolcontrol like IOS and OSX apps that come with it, which I think is a real advance. Zaxcom, Sound Devices, Nagra and Aaton don't have what this little guy does. And if my PM to you was not clear enough about my take on audio- I don't need to spend $4000 on usable audio gear. I already have 16 DPA mics, 7 Brauner mics, 4 Sennheiser mics and many others which together cost more than the two Dragons that I just bought. Then all the recording gear. I use a variety of mics like I use a variety of lenses. I love sound and explore all parts of it. And if that includes a $299 recorder that I might find useable what is your problem with that?

Stop the harangue. Your arrogance is-to use one of your lovely, of many, put down adjectives in this thread- appalling. And that is my point in two sentences.

 

[Marc Wielage]

Again: you ask for opinions on a public forum... don't be surprised if you get opinions you don't agree with. (I'm reminded of the old adage about opinions and body parts -- we all got 'em.)

There's two or three other Tascam timecode decks that would work for what you're trying to do. But not one with built-in mics. If you have 31 other mics, why buy a unit with two cheap $10 mics? If you have 31 mics, does that mean you have no other sound recorders?

I think Nick Fury's advice above about devoting at least 10% of your camera budget is a good starting point. I know of sound people who've invested in far more than that -- as much as $100K in some cases -- and I've also seen people get by with one good mic and one simple timecode recorder. Not a handheld interview device like this one, which has to be manually synced and is going to drift when used with long picture takes.

I think you're infaturated with the idea that these devices can be controlled via WiFi. I agree, WiFi is very handy to have, and I've really enjoyed what Sound Devices has done with several of their top sound recorders using WiFi control. But I don't think that should be the sole reason to buy a recorder, especially a $299 recorder.

BTW, I worked on a little $2 million sci-fi film a couple of years ago where the producer told me he had to grab a couple of unusual sound effects with a Zoom recorder, which appalled me. But I have to say, I couldn't spot where they were used in the final mix -- the film sounded fine. The difference there was, the other 99.9% of the movie was done on a real multitrack timecode recorder with separate microphones and mixed by somebody competent. So I had to grudgingly admit, "yep... it's possible to sneak in a few moments with a cheap sound recorder and cheap mics." It's not ideal, but sure... it can be done. This is no different than movies & TV shows that do a grab shot on a GoPro, then shoot the rest of the show on Red or Alexa. 99% of the audience will never know, so it's fine.

 

[scott devitte]

Again: you ask for opinions on a public forum... don't be surprised if you get opinions you don't agree with. (I'm reminded of the old adage about opinions and body parts -- we all got 'em.)

There's two or three other Tascam timecode decks that would work for what you're trying to do. But not one with built-in mics. If you have 31 other mics, why buy a unit with two cheap $10 mics? If you have 31 mics, does that mean you have no other sound recorders

I think Nick Fury's advice above about devoting at least 10% of your camera budget is a good starting point. I know of sound people who've invested in far more than that -- as much as $100K in some cases -- and I've also seen people get by with one good mic and one simple timecode recorder. Not a handheld interview device like this one, which has to be manually synced and is going to drift when used with long picture takes.

I think you're infaturated with the idea that these devices can be controlled via WiFi. I agree, WiFi is very handy to have, and I've really enjoyed what Sound Devices has done with several of their top sound recorders using WiFi control. But I don't think that should be the sole reason to buy a recorder, especially a $299 recorder.

BTW, I worked on a little $2 million sci-fi film a couple of years ago where the producer told me he had to grab a couple of unusual sound effects with a Zoom recorder, which appalled me. But I have to say, I couldn't spot where they were used in the final mix -- the film sounded fine. The difference there was, the other 99.9% of the movie was done on a real multitrack timecode recorder with separate microphones and mixed by somebody competent. So I had to grudgingly admit, "yep... it's possible to sneak in a few moments with a cheap sound recorder and cheap mics." It's not ideal, but sure... it can be done. This is no different than movies & TV shows that do a grab shot on a GoPro, then shoot the rest of the show on Red or Alexa. 99% of the audience will never know, so it's fine.

I am infatuated with IOS and OSX control. Foolscontrol makes you giddy when you first are around it. At IBC at the red booth you never saw bigger smiles then when you saw Red owners first play with the Foolscontrol. Again, I wasn't asking for opinions just stating what I was going to try out.

My whole point here is that there is something going on in audio that is similar. It is not just wifi. It is the whole control and coordination of multiple sources using smart phones and laptops.

What took me with this little guy is that it has phantom power (remember the part of my PM where I stated this is the way I planed on using it?). Please put the "cheap mic" thing to rest. All those Dpa mics in various configs on a remotely powered/controlled recorder? Well what is not to like? If it doesn't pan out with this particular unit after testing there will be others down the road. And yes, I have recording and post gear of the same quality as the mics, that I have no intention of replacing.

And finally, one last time for the record, this is and never was about replacing any established protocol (not out to replace a soundman or crew). It was and is about enhancing the experience, and adding to the toolkit.

 

[Marc Wielage]

I am infatuated with IOS and OSX control. Foolscontrol makes you giddy when you first are around it. At IBC at the red booth you never saw bigger smiles then when you saw Red

I agree, having external iOS capability is very handy. As far as I know in pro sound (that is, serious recorders with real preamps and timecode), only Sound Devices as embraced iOS apps with the 788 and with the 970. The former uses a dedicated iOS app, and the latter uses a web-based app tied around Dante connections. The 788 app is fantastic and looks like this:

In truth, though, I think it's important to choose a sound recording solution not based on its compatibility or lack of capabilities with iOS, but more on how it sounds and how well it's going to work in post. If it winds up taking longer to sync up and is problematic in terms of long-term stability -- problems which a non-timecode recorder is going to suffer from -- I think at some point the iOS feature becomes a gimmick. In the case of Sound Devices, this is a real feature that actually works very well. In actual practice, there are some iOS issues where it loses connectivity once in awhile unless you have the iPad or iPhone on external power, but this is an Apple issue, not an SD issue.

I've used the SD iOS app hundreds of times, and it's of great benefit when recording lots of tracks in a cart-based situation, but not so great in hectic conditions on the go, like a documentary or fast-moving reality situation.