Zoom H4 and Edirol R-9 portable recording ?

[BassBomber414]

I'm looking for a reasonably priced (£200) way of recording my very loud rock band on portable equipment so that we can hear what we sound like - this is not with any intention of keeping the files - just as a learning/improvement tool.

Has anyone got any first hand expierience of using portable digital recording units such as the Zoom H4 and the Roland Edirol R-9 ?

What I need to know is whether these units will be able to cope with a loud band in , sometimes , confined areas , or are they going to 'clip out' and be useless. ?

I've trolled the net and most demo stuff seems to be acoustic.

Anyone got one or used one ??

[BassBod]

I've got an H4 and know people with the Edirol. I haven't had much time to really get to know it, but I'm impressed. But I think the Edirol is easier to use for what you want.

The trouble with the Zoom is getting Cubase light configured on your computer, so that you can also use it as a digital interface. If its your first experience of audio on computer...oh dear. There are also few mysteries I haven't solved yet, such as why the .WAV files it records aren't recognised by Windows media player (copy them in and out of Audacity and they're fine?). A good machine, but I think they're bringing out a smaller cheaper version?

I think you can adjust the record levels on both, so volume won't be a problem, just a bit of trial and error.

Look on google and you'll find a forum all about such things?

BB

[BassBomber414]

Thanks for the information and advice, BB.

[JJTee]

I've got an H4 and play in a pretty loud band. We record our rehearsals with it. Never overloads or distorts at all, really good recordings. I don't really use the cubase that comes with it - I just upload the wav or mp3 files that I've recorded. Great little unit.

[Jean-Luc Pickguard]

I use an H4 to record rehearsals & gigs. It works great on a cheap camera tripod from currys. I get plenty of recording time going straight to CD quality WAVs from a pair of 2700mAh NiHm AAs and a 2Gb card. I have Cubase studio 4 on my laptop, so I haven't used the cubase LE that comes with it, but I always use Magix Audio Cleaning lab to edit down the Files from the H4 to CD which works very well.

[BassBomber414]

Thanks to everyone for the advice and comments - very helpful.

[stevebasshead]

Another H4 user here, I've recorded my Rock band at gigs and likewise never had it clip. There's switches on the side to choose a suitable input level roughly in the right area and you can then tweak it further in the menu's if you wanted to. Not really necessary, being digital there's not as much benefit to setting the max recording level as there was with analogue recorders.

Recommended, and the Cubase LE is an absolute bonus. I'm a first time user myself but once I got it configured it's become a godsend for all sorts of audio manipulations, not just self recordings.

Regards,
Steve.

[peted]

My H4 has been great for recording practices for both my covers band (sensible volume levels) and metal bands (ridiculous volume levels). The clarity is quite amazing. All I need to do is import it into Cubase LE or Audacity and normalise the file, then it's ready to burn to CD and hand out to the rest of the band. If it broke then i'd definitely buy another one. Talking about breaking, it does feel a bit plasticy and flimsy but i've dropped it a couple of times and it's been fine. Invest in a 2Gb SD card to go with it as well.

[nottswarwick]

I would have a look at the M Audio Microtrack. I have one, it is superb. Records MP3 or WAv, at various resolutions.

Mounts to the PC via USB as a removable drive, for drag and drop storage.

Cannot fault mine at all

Cheers

Chris

[RichardH]

[quote name='BassBod' post='39681' date='Jul 31 2007, 07:33 PM']...A good machine, but I think they're bringing out a smaller cheaper version?[/quote]

[url="http://www.samsontech.com/products/productpage.cfm?prodID=1916"]There's an H2 coming out.[/url]