Tascam Announces the DR-70D Field Recorder

Now I get why Tascam priced the DR-60DmkII at $200 USD. Turns out they had the DR-70D in the wings--a 4 XLR input, bigger brother to the DR-60D and priced at $300 USD!

So the Tascam DR-70D is very similar to my favorite little DSLR audio recorder but it adds two additional XLR inputs, reference sound mics, and a different form factor. Interesting. I would think this would be a great recorder for those that need more than two mics. My only question is, how's the battery life on this thing? If the DR-60D only gets 3 - 3.5 hours, I can't imagine that this lasts more than about 2 hours when recording with 3 or 4 mics and phantom power...

I'll have the review of the DR-60DmkII up in the next 24 hours. Interesting little device. In addition to a discussion about its pros and cons, we'll answer the question, "Should I upgrade from the DR-60D to the DR-60DmkII?"

Mid-range Lavalier Mic Blind Comparison

I bought another mid-range lavalier microphone and as I work with it for a bit, I wanted to let you hear it relative to another microphone in the same general league. Both mics cost between $100 and $200 USD, both have XLR connectors so they need an XLR based pre-amp/recorder. Let me know which one you prefer in terms of sound and come on back in a couple of days to see the review! For this comparison, I recorded both mics using the new Tascam DR-60DmkII. So far, so good. Still working with it before posting a review but so far, its sounding really good! The pre-amps are impressive for a $200 USD field recorder.

http://youtu.be/BZd2bA3RBZA

Make Your Audio Loud But Not Too Loud Part 2

For a long time, I struggled to get my audio loud enough without over compressing it or making it clip and distort. And I also seemed to have a hard time getting the loudness of my audio to match from one episode to the next. Incredibly frustrating… But thanks to some recent developments in the broadcast TV world, I stumbled upon this idea called Loudness Normalization along with some standards specified by European and US broadcast agencies. This is part 2 where we look at the technical details and how to do this loudness normalization and true peak limiting using Adobe Audition (or at least a true peak limiting work-around until we get a real true peak limiter in Audition).

http://youtu.be/r0U6KX65NGA

Hiding Lavalier Microphones

IzzyVideo over on YouTube does a great job presenting several different ways you can hide a lavalier microphone. I agree with Izzy that you'll usually get the best quality by leaving it on the outside of the clothes, but when you've got to hide it, you've got to hide it. Extra points for putting gaffer tape to use in many of these techniques! http://youtu.be/D85HmR825wM

Make Your Audio Loud But Not Too Loud: Loudness Normalization Part 1

For a long time, I struggled to get my audio loud enough without over compressing it or making it clip and distort. And I also seemed to have a hard time getting the loudness of my audio to match from one episode to the next. Incredibly frustrating… But thanks to some recent developments in the broadcast TV world, I stumbled upon this concept called Loudness Normalization along with some standards specified by European and US broadcast agencies. And I learned about an online tool that can actually process your audio to these standards so that it is just the right loudness for your audience on YouTube, Vimeo or anywhere else online.

In the first episode we cover Auphonic.com—an online service that can process your audio files so that they are just the right loudness. Then in episode 2 we’ll look at the technical details and how to do this loudness normalization using Adobe Audition.

Automate your loudness automation using Auphonic.

Ray Ortega is the guy that introduced me to this idea. Check out his podcast called The Podcaster’s Studio.

http://youtu.be/5euZXnPVhNo

Tascam DR-60DmkII

Interestingly, Tascam just released the mark 2 version of their DR-60D field recorder for DSLR sound recording. The Tascam DR-60DmkII looks like mainly an update to the pre-amps which I thought were already pretty nice for the price. But in the mark 2, they cite discrete "circuitry and parts" which I assume means they're not just using a single integrated circuit for all of the pre-amp channels. The specs include 64db of gain and low noise (EIN = -120db).

That may not mean much to many of us but those are impressive specs for a $200 US recorder. Many dedicated audio interfaces and stand alone pre-amps don't have quite that much gain.

But of course, those are just specs. I need to get my hands on one of these to compare it. I can say that the jump from the Tascam DR-100mkII to the DR-60D was a significant improvement at a practical level--cleaner pre-amps on the 60D by quite a bit. I hope this is the same.

One thing they don't mention is battery life which in my opinion is one of the biggest issues with the DR-60D. Those 4 AA batteries only go for about 2 hours, sometimes less if you're phantom powering a microphone. Maybe they made some behind the scenese improvements here? Another reason to get my hands on one for testing but I don't have my hopes up on this front.

I'd say if you're in the market for a sub $250 audio recorder right now, I'd look at the Tascam DR-60DmkII very seriously, noting that you will want to have a strategy in place for powering it. I recently bought one of those USB chargers they market for charging mobile devices and it works brilliantly--have shot probably 6 hours with it and have only used 15% of the battery. Granted its one of the larger units and I haven't found a way to mount it to my rig yet. But more on that in a future review...

Oh, yeah, and it has red strap bars now, too. It must be good!

Boom Mics Revealed!

Here are the microphones that we compared in our boom microphone blind comparison! Microphone A - RODE NT5 Cardioid Small Diaphragm Condenser Microphone

Microphone B - Audio Technica AT4053B Hypercardioid Small Diaphragm Condenser Microphone

Microphone C - RODE NTG-2 Shotgun Microphone

Microphone D - RODE NT5 with Michael Joly Replacement Capsule Cardioid Small Diaphragm Condenser Microphone

Which did you choose as your favorite?

Dialogue Boom Microphone (Blind) Comparison

A few weeks ago we did a blind comparison of lavalier microphones--let you listen to them to see which one you preferred before we told you which was which. The results were pretty interesting. So now, let's do a similar thing with boom mics you might use to record indoor dialogue for your film or video projects! http://youtu.be/34T-Q0TZQVI

More on Microphones for Indoor Dialogue

I have a new mic in that I'm testing and a special capsule mod for that mic as well. I don't want to reveal which mic it is just yet because I think we need to do another blind mic comparison, this time with boom mics you could plausibly use to record indoor dialogue. This may come as a surprise to some, but I must confess: If I have a choice, I'll always opt for a boom mic over a lavalier. I know, I know, why do I spend all this time reviewing cheap lavalier mics? Well, it seems that's what you people want to know more about. And despite my efforts to pitch the idea that boom mics are a better choice in many cases, people still gravitate to the episodes on lavalier mics. It is as if there is some sort of amazing gravitational field that draws beginning video and filmmakers to lav mics.

And there's also the fact that I don't really have as solid a handle on the best affordable boom mics we indie folks can put to good use in our projects. I have a $600 hypercardioid mic (Audio Technica AT4053b) and it is pretty good but I must confess, I'm not completely in love with it. It works fine for people with not-too-sibilant voices but doesn't seem to reject any more echo than cardioid mics when recording in acoustically untreated rooms (i.e., almost every possible room aside from professional recording studios). Was that $600 wasted? I don't think so. But I can say with confidence that it probably isn't the right solution for most of us that shoot indoor dialogue on a tight budget.

So I've bought this new mic and a third-party modded replacement capsule for it. It is significantly less expensive than the Audio Technica hypercardioid mic on its own and still only about 1/2 the price of the Audio Technica with the modded capsule. I'm dying to see which works best for indoor dialogue in rooms with lots of echo.

Stick around, we should have this episode for you next week...

RODERec Recording App: Thoughts on Its Processing Effects

Short version: Don't use them. Long version:

I had planned to film an episode to cover this because several people have asked about using the built-in effects and processing in the RODERec app. I really like this app but I don't use the processing or effects. Why? Because iOS has placed enough limitations on app developers that the processing is not all that useful.

What do I mean by that? Consider a limiter effect. Limiters are super helpful when recording because they can prevent your audio from clipping when your talent suddenly gets louder than expected. So this would be the number one effect to have in a recording app. The issue is this: For a limiter to be useful, it must do its job before the audio is converted to digital. Why? because if it is first converted to digital, the damage and clipping has already been done.

http://youtu.be/9kal7soRvT0

And there's where iOS has prevented RODE from allowing this effect to be useful in RODERec. Because Apple places boundaries around what apps can access and what they cannot, RODE can't access the audio before it is converted to digital. It is simply a decision that Apple made to help ensure the stability and reliability of their OS.

I don't blame either company. It is a stretch to expect that a phone would have the ability to be an amazing audio recorder.

A limiter effect would be possible with add-on products that connect to phones, as long as that add-on device did the limiting before the audio was sent to the phone.

The same applies to the other effects that one might like to apply at record time like a compressor.

I suppose things like a low cut filter might be ok to use, or the hiss reducer, but I'd rather apply that stuff in post if I must, just because I'm a little bit picky that way. I don't want to apply processing and regret it later when in post I find that it mangled my audio in some way. I'd rather apply that non-destructively in post so I can back out if I must.

And here are my original notes for the episode I was going to film:

How to improve the sound of your dialogue audio using RODERec.

Great app, the full version is priced at $5.99 USD.

Some have complained that it crashes in the reviews but I have not had that problem on my 3rd generation iPad (on iOS 6 and iOS 7), iPad Air or my iPhone 5S.

Now for the processing--I believe this is only available in the full version, not the LE version.

- Why would you want to do any processing? - The most common use case I run into is this: I'm filming talent and before we start rolling, I have them speak for a few minutes (if it is an interview) or run through a few of their lines if they are acting and set the input level or gain on my recorder.  But then during the recording, the talent or actor speaks louder, their dialogue may clip--get too loud for the recorder to record which makes some pretty nasty sounding, unusable audio… - Another use case: You have a tight timeline and you don't have enough time to painstakingly edit each audio clip, at least not extensively. - In both of these cases, the built-in processing by iZotope can help.  Incidentally, iZotope is a pretty well respected audio processing company in the audio space so this is a pretty awesome feature of this app. - How can the processing help?

- Using Mild Compression setting will solve one of the two problems above: - It will NOT help prevent clipping. It seems like the way this is working is that the audio is captured, clips and all, then run through the compressor. So this will not prevent clipping! You have to get your gain right before recording. - The mild compression feature can also speed up your post production workflow by taking care of evening out dialogue while you record, so you don't have to do that in post.  In this case, you can pretty much just normalize the file and be on your way.  If you use Premiere pro, for example, you can just right click on the audio track, choose audio gain, and then choose normalize all peaks to -0.1 db.

- What are the risks with doing this? - The compression is baked into the audio track and you can't easily uncompress it.  So if you want a recording with a lot of dynamic range for whatever reason, you probably don't want to use this processing option. - Overall, I find this pretty useful and pretty low-risk but remember that you still have to watch out for clipping. In outboard analogue gear, the compressor usually manages the spikes before the recording is stored. Not so with RodeRec.

Other Presets--I don't find these useful as often, but here's what they do: - Rumble reducer - helpful if you have a lot of low frequency rumble you want to control.  If this is really a problem, my first choice would be to figure out how to stop the low frequency rumble which often means recording somewhere else. - Hiss reducer - helpful cutting hiss by simply EQing out some of the sound above 10K.  Same as above, if you're recording in a space with a lot of this hiss, you may be better off eliminating the source of the hiss or moving to a different place to record. - Soft Clip Limiter - Sort of like a more extreme version of the compressor.  Not quite as useful because the effect is pretty imposing/noticeable when recording dialogue.  More useful as a special effect. - Hard Clip Limiter - Even more extreme than the soft clip limiter.  Again, not quite as useful for normal dialogue but more as a special effect, maybe for recording screamo music?

Note, you can only use one preset at a time and I find that of all of these, the mild compression preset is the most relevant and useful for speeding up your workflow when recording dialogue.