Anyone using the Edirol R-4 Pro?

[Douglas Spotted eagle]

I use one reasonably regularly, depending on what we’re recording. For small shoots requiring multichannel, or for musical performances, it’s a great tool when you don’t need many inputs.
Great unit, terrific audio quality.
Vegas will import the BWF file from the unit no problem.
What are you recording? if it’s only dialog, I sure wouldn’t waste the bits on 24bit, unless you plan on recording low an needing the extra range during mix.
Connect to the camera via LANC, it’ll start/stop with the camcorder. Not the same as Genlock, but it’s close enough for most anything.
29.97D is Dropframe. You want non-drop frame if you want reasonbly close T/C.

[Leigh Harrington]

Thanks Spot,

We are recording a panel of eight speakers. It should look like a cozy chat (people in cushie chairs, etc) rather than a conference panel, so we would like to give each speaker their own mic — 4 between two cameras and 4 via the R-4 Pro. The plan thus far is to use wired lavs. We were planning to connect via a BNC cable (any concerns there?). I’ve heard some debate over using a sampling frequency of 44.1 versus 48. Any opinions on that?

[Douglas Spotted eagle]

There shouldn’t be any debate; record at 48K because you are matching video. Vegas will handle the 44.1 if you want it to of course, but why mess with unmatched sample rates?

[Leigh Harrington]

Well,
I had some time to record a little during another shoot. My primary concern at this point is audio level. I was recording a boom mic and a lav. I could get a strong signal for the boom but not until I had the level at about 2 o’clock and the sensitivity all the way up. The Lav had to be maxed out just to get to -20dB. The limiter switch was in the off position. We’ve never had a problem with the Lav before so I don’t think it’s a mic problem. Am I missing something?

Thanks for your help!

[Leigh Harrington]

Well,
I had some time to record a little during another shoot. My primary concern at this point is audio level. I was recording a boom mic and a lav. I could get a strong signal for the boom but not until I had the level at about 2 o’clock and the sensitivity all the way up. The Lav had to be maxed out just to get to -20dB. The limiter switch was in the off position. We’ve never had a problem with the Lav before so I don’t think it’s a mic problem. Am I missing something?

Thanks for your help!

[Neil Moxham]

I would take all 8 channels and put them into a audio mixer where the levels can be controlled properly and easily then send the outputs to a camera via line level.
use the aux sends to build another mix and send to another camera as a vid/audio locked backup.
Use a slate clappord (or a handclap) at the beginning that all cameras cans see and call it a day.
We’ve done a lot of shoots this way without any hiccups.

The beauty of an audio mixer allows compressors and limiters
to be inserted on channels prior to the camera input.

Zipedit

[Chad Johnson]

I have recently done a similar shoot and found the R4 Pro to record a tad quiet. I was getting good looking levels going by the meters, but when looking at the files later they were pretty low in volume. That increases the noise floor, so you really have to pump the thing. A quiet pre-mixer would help.

Chadfish