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Edirol R4Pro
Hi Again,
While getting quotes on the Sound Designs 442 field mixer you guys had recommended the Edirol R4Pro was suggested as an alternative. I was entertaining the idea of a remote recorder anyway. I was wondering if anyone has any practical experience with the R4Pro in the field.I certainly wouldn’t expect it to keep up with a 422 & 744T combo but I don’t see our university having 6k for audio this year either.
Greg Mattison
Kaizen Productions LLC &
Media Technician, William Paterson University -
3 Replies
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Hi Greg,
I don’t know if my first reply made it or not… Anyway, I’ve used the Edirol R4 Pro in a number of indie film productions and it’s been great.
The quality of the recorded sound is very high, at least when used in the mode I use it — with a Sound Devices 442 mixer.
It’s not ideal for use in a bag like the SD 744T and it’s not quite as robustly built as the SD. Some controls are on the top panel and require a bit of a reach, but of course it’s much less expensive than the Sound Devices recorder.
Having said that, the Edirol is great as a backup for in-camera sound on indie shoots: I’ve found that the camera audio settings can be easily mismanaged and having a pristine recording can save the day. I feed the Edirol with the SD 442’s four direct outputs (line level) into the Edirol’s inputs.
Here are some examples from recent shoots recorded with the Edirol R4 Pro:
https://www.facesproject.org/loc_sound/s_hall_sound_examples.html
If you have any other questions, I’ll be glad to try and answer.
Cheers,
Stephen H
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Stephen, thanks for posting this. I’ve also been keeping an eye on the R4 Pro as a low cost alternative to the 744T. It’s nice to hear someone using this unit with success.
The clips sounded pretty good on my computer’s Altec Lansing speakers. Would be nice to hear an A/B of the R4 Pro and the 744T.
Rodney
Freelance Sound Technician/Mixer
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For an even cheaper option the Tascam HD-P2 isn’t bad either. Timecode operation works nicely and if you are using it in combination with a good ENG mixer sound quality is very good. Only draw back is you have to use SD cards instead of having an internal drive, but unless you want to record hours of 192kHz 24bit audio without offloading, this isn’t so much of a problem…
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