EQ Magazine - September 2008 - (Page 50)

PORTABLE RECORDER SHOWDOWN THE WORLD IS YOUR WAVEFORM by Craig Anderton They’re cute. They’re little. They fit in your pocket. No, we’re not talking about Smurfs, but the latest generation of portable recorders. This is one of the hottest segments of the recording world—and with good reason. Portable recording isn’t new, whether you’re talking reel-to-reel Nagras from the late Bronze Age, Sony’s Walkman Pro cassette deck or Minidisc, or portable DATs. But nothing kicked the concept up another notch more than cheap memory prices, because it became possible to stick a few GB of RAM in a recorder, and do several hours of recording (or even days, using data-compressed formats) with no moving parts . . . all in a package not much larger than a TV remote. Now that’s progress. I’m a major fan of portable recording. I’ve recorded airport announcements in the bathroom at the Atlanta airport while laying over during a hurricane, whales off the coast of Alaska, the testing room at Yamaha’s piano factory in Japan (think John Cage on methedrine), a killer DJ set in Zürich, and much more. All in a day’s work, right? Oh yes, and of course, band rehearsals, song ideas, and all the usual stuff. So given that kind of background, it’s a treat to sit down with virtually all the portable recorder products from the major players and compare. The first thing I noticed: There’s an extremely tight correlation between price and features, because the competition is so fierce. The only big schism I did notice was a separation between units designed more as musician-oriented portable studios (incorporating features like a tuner, metronome, etc.) and those that seem more for journalism/podcasting/field recording. Interestingly, if you check around web forums and user reviews, you’ll find most people are very satisfied with their portable recorders, regardless of which model they bought. This further underscores that the various products have achieved a certain parity in terms of giving value received. Because of this parity, we’ll cut to the chase and instead of presenting infinitely boring descriptions of all of a unit’s features, we’ll cover what each unit does best, as well as the most significant limitations. Units are described in the order that our layout artist thought fit best on a page. Ready . . . set . . . record! ALL HAIL LO-FI! Sometimes what sounds “good” and what sounds “right” can be mutually exclusive. Case in point: your raw, dirty, filthy and visceral music styles. Think garage punk, screamo, hardcore techno, and black metal. Even if you’re not a fan, consider the early ’90s recordings out of Norway, particularly black metal. The lo-fi atmosphere and vibe was there because that’s all the dudes back then had access to—but that’s also what cemented their sonic values into the permanent world-wide lexicon of the cult underground. Nowadays, so many bands have it back asswards, trying to get their fancy plug-ins, expensive mics, and purty DAWS to make gnarly and visceral sounds. But it never sounds like you were actually in a dank concrete room with a bunch of maniacs playing music so fiercely it barely held together. It was the vibe that made it sound good. Using a portable recorder (I favor Sony’s PCM-D50) can open up a huge range of applications beyond getting some nice bytes of your cracker-loving parrot for your “wild kingdom” project: It can also provide a quick, easy, and effective way to document your super hard and/or evil band’s practice sessions. You’ll be glad you did when you hit it big in the global underground circuit, and your numbered-in-blood practice demos sell for $100 on eBay. But when you have kinder, gentler intentions, like recording an opera recital of the stunning diva you somehow convinced to be in your rock band, or capturing the gentle lapping of ocean waves on the beach, a portable recorder will also give wonderful results. Besides, what’s more rock and roll—setting up your laptop DAW, or whipping a shiny little recorder out of your pocket and pressing record? —Roberto Martinelli 50 EQ SEPTEMBER 2008 www.eqmag.com http://www.eqmag.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of EQ Magazine - September 2008

EQ Magazine - September 2008 Contents Talk Box Sounding Board Punch In Freak Folk Todd Rundgren Guitar Trax Bass Management Key Issues Drum Heads Vocal Cords Mix Bus Cheat Sheet Sony Acid 6 Ableton Live 7 Portable Recorder Showdown Gadgets and Goodies Sounds Room with a Vu

EQ Magazine - September 2008

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