handheld recorder shootout-part 1-specs

This is the first in a series of posts that will cover a recent shootout done with three popular handheld recorders against a reference setup. This test is not in any way exhaustive, and in no way constitutes my endorsement of anything - all opinions are my own.

The portable recording device market has exploded in recent years, and everyone is looking around wonder which one to buy - so I’m here to help! The specific purpose of the shootout is to evaluate the recorders through the lens of sound designers and field recordists, and to measure them against an industry standard field recording setup. I’m testing out three recorders against a reference setup - the test includes:

• Sony PCM D50
• Tascam DR-100
• Zoom H4n
• Sound Devices 744t with Sure SM81s in XY setup (reference)

Part 1 of this review is measuring stats and features. Listening test comes in part 2.

I’ve owned the D50 almost since it came out, having purchased it to replace my plasticky H4. The DR-100 is a recent acquisition for me, but I’ve taken it out enough to be familiar with it. The H4n has been at use at the office for a while, and I’ve taken it out on several shoots. The sound devices rig speaks for itself, and is included as a pure benchmark against which to measure the other recorders.

Lets start with the bottom line:

Price (via B&H)

Sony D50	$441
Tascam DR-100	$272
Zoom H4n	$299
SD 744t/sm81	$3193 (priced 702 instead of 744t)

The D50 is nearly 1.5x the price of the other two, though the price point for each of the handhelds is peanuts compared to the big boy Sound Devices rig.

I/O

	built in mics	mic in	line in	remote
Sony D50	stereo electret condenser	3.5mm stereo jack	3.5mm stereo jack	wired
Tascam DR-100	stereo electret condenser and stereo (pzm?) omni	stereo XLR	3.5mm stereo jack	optical (12 ft range)
Zoom H4n	stereo electret condenser	stereo Neutrick XLR or 1/4 inch	3.5mm stereo jack	wired
SD 744t/sm81	none	Stereo XLR		none

The D50 sorely misses XLR inputs, as the 3.5mm stereo jack lacks phantom power and is just about unusable in my experience. The DR-100 has adequate I/O, but the Zoom wins with its Neutrick combination jacks. The Sound Devices rig has 2 XLR inputs, but goes into specialty jacks quickly after that.

Battery Life

	battery system	battery life
Sony D50	4 AA batterys in a sled	incredible
Tascam DR-100	Proprietary Li-Ion battery with 2 AA battery backup	passable
Zoom H4n	2 AA batteries	poor
SD 744t/sm81	Sony InfoLithium	very good

I have not run a scientific battery life test on these devices, but after a few months of usage for each the battery life ratings are what I believe to be accurate. The bottom line here is that D50 is the single most battery efficient piece of electronic equipment I own. The factory batteries lasted literally weeks of heavy use initially, and at 24 bit 96k the batteries far outlast the storage capacity, usually by an order of 3 to 6x depending on if I’m driving headphones. The H4n is the other end of the spectrum, sucking down batteries quickly and feeling a bit underpowered considering the size and brightness of the LCD screen and the ability to roll on 4 channels simultaneously. The DR-100 uses a proprietary battery that charges via USB and lasts long enough to be ok during a medium length record session. The ability to seamlessly switch to the AA backup is a plus.

Storage

Sony D50	internal 4gigs of flash memory - expandable with memory stick
Tascam DR-100	SD card
Zoom H4n	SD card
SD 744t/sm81	internal hard drive, CF cards, DVD Ram, Firewire

The built in internal storage on the D50 is a nice touch IMO, but the implementation of memory stick as the expansion media is outdated and crappy. Not only is memory stick a dead format, but the device mounts both as separate drives for recording and data transfer. With that said, 4 gigs is plenty for most hand held recording type gigs, so its not exactly a deal-breaker. SD cards on the other two devices are more standard.

Mic Mounts

Sony D50	swivel mount from wide to X/Y, protective bars on top
Tascam DR-100	both mics straight ahead with speaker in between (pseudo binarual?)
Zoom H4n	fixed XY with variable pickup patterns
SD 744t/sm81	none

The D50 wins the mic mounting and versatility contest, which is important considering how much it relies on the built ins. The protective bars are both reassuring and useful for mounting wind protection, and the wide mic setup sounds very wide compared to the XY setup. The DR-100s unorthodox setup may make for stranger stereo imaging than the others.

External Switches

	transport	48v	hi pass	limiter	ext/int mics	pad	Hold
Sony D50	Y	N	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
Tascam DR-100	Y	Y	N	Y	Y	Y	Y
Zoom H4n	Y	N	N	N	Y	N	Y
SD 744t/sm81	Y	N	N	N	N	N	N

While the DR-100 has more external switches than the D50 does, the D50 has more that are of use to a field recordist that is looking to adjust record settings quickly. The H4n relies more heavily on the menu system, and compensates by having multiple ways to navigate the menu and the largest LCD screen of the three. I give the edge here to the D50, but not by a wide margin.

Preamp dial

Sony D50	continuous side mount-protected
Tascam DR-100	continuous side mount-split
Zoom H4n	up and down arrows-splittable with latest firmware
SD 744t/sm81	continuous front mount-split and recessable

The way that a recordist interfaces with a preamp is an important part of a device, and here we have less a clear winner than we do a clear loser. The DR-100’s ability to recess channels by splitting the preamp knob is a clear advantage over the D50, but the feel of the D50’s smooth metal knob really deserves points over the plastic counterparts of the competition. The H4n’s up and down arrows are functional, but

completely inadequate when one needs to make quick preamp adjustments in the heat of recording.

Most distinctive features

Sony D50	swivel mics, battery life, metal construction, quality components
Tascam DR-100	split preamp knob, extended battery life
Zoom H4n	4 channel record mode, neutrick dual mode xlr inputs
SD 744t/sm81	build quality, meters, preamps, AD converters, I/O

So based on pure stats and functionality the decision still depends entirely on how you plan to use it. Here’s how I would break it down:

Sony PCM D50:

Excellent build quality, just the right switches built into the chassis, swivel mics and a great preamp mean that this is a perfect candidate to always have by your side as a stand alone recording system. External mics are a no-go so more specialized applications like foley and voiceover recording should go to a different device, but this device is hard to beat for spur of the moment or low profile ambiances, music, crowds and other close or medium distance stereo sound sources.

Battery life means you can plant this device in a location and roll while waiting for audio to develop minutes and hours later.

Tascam DR-100

This device is a workhorse when used in conjunction with external mics, and can make a great lightweight capture device for DSLR filming, VO recording, moving vehicle recording, etc - especially when recessing one channel for safety in critical situations. The built in mics aren’t as solid as the other devices, but are usable if in need.

Construction is plastic but solid and navigation is quicky and easy.

Zoom H4n

The 4 channel record mode makes this the only device that can record both a board feed (thorugh the line in) and the

audience response (through the built in mics) of a live show. This is a functionality that the DR-100 lacks, and I’ve had great success using the H4n in that context. The built in mics are very good on their own right, though they don’t quite reach the level of quality of the Sony (while being better than those on the DR-100).

This device has become the industry standard for DSLR video shooters, though I’d still personally recommend the DR-100 over the H4n for that specific purpose both because of the recessed channel function, battery life, and preamp quality.

This is not to say the H4n has poor preamps, because it does not. Its just that the DR-100s are that much better.

Poor battery life and capacity are the biggest issues here.

So that’s how these things do on paper. In part 2 we’ll do a listening test that focuses on the built in mics. Stay tuned!

boiling water = radio static

While cooking some spaghetti for dinner today I added some salt to the noodles and oil and got some pretty intense crackling going on due to the millions of tiny tiny bubbles.

I had my recorder in arms reach, so I parked it up close and recorded a few minutes. When I brought it in to catalogue I started varispeeding the sound, and realized just how much it sounds exactly like pure unmoving tv or radio static, even at very slow pitches:

That's pretty useful! Bring on the lo-fi.

a tiny antique film camera

A few weeks back I went to the camera show in Grapevine looking for both camera equipment and anything interesting sounding. While I largely passed on the stuff that I'd actually want to shoot footage with, I did find this little treasure to record - and at a bargain price of $20!

What you're looking at there is a B and H Filmo Sportster 8mm film camera. It has a manual crank, a thick metal casing, an a million little noises to record.

While I did manage to get tons of coverage while recording it today, I'd like to focus on one specific usage that I get tons of mileage out of these kinds of things for: UI and small servos.

Now this particular device doesn't have any electronic parts, but it still made tons of very clean servo sounding noises regardless - especially since I was able to drag the switch you hold down to make the film spin and get a cool scraping noise. When highpassed, and pitched around it can be pretty convincing, while remaining very natural and organic sounding.

In this sample the first half is as recorded and the second half is severely highpassed. I tend to use these types of noises with a little flange for sci fi servos and UI sounds pretty frequently.



The mp3 compression on soundcloud doesn't handle pure high end all that well, but you get the idea.

The other thing this camera had loads of was mechanical latch and click sounds. In many ways it sounded like gun foley, but I can also use this kind of thing for high tech sounding buttons and clicks with the same highpass technique.

Its a little ironic that I'm dreaming up all of these high tech sounds given the source, but in the end no one cares what the thing looked like when you recorded it.

Here's a little demo of the clicks and latches using the same superhighpass filter and with the same soundcloud limitations.



All in all it was well worth the purchase, especially when you add in future foley possibilities with weapons and other mechanical devices.

downtime

So we've just wrapped an incredibly busy period at work marked by the elections in November. The political world keeps us very busy on its cycle, and the wave kind of creeps up on you until you just stop for a moment and marvel at how buried you are.

When you come out of a busy cycle like this you tend to uncover your eyes, look around and realize how much of your normal routine you've neglected or delayed. In my case that meant that I had a big backload of sfx that needed editing and cataloging, as well as a few personal video projects that needed editing.

With those done and some breathing room in between now and my next big busy time I'm finding myself in a period of downtime, which was refreshing for a couple of weeks but is now starting to make me antsy, so I'm starting to dream up some new sound design projects to keep me sharp and busy.

The problem of course, is that by nature I run at these things all at once and tend to not just sit down with one until I finish it. Without a client and a deadline I tend to be more scattered.

So, my upcoming projects include:

• recording more sound-infused timelapses like this one:

• composing an actual video edit in collaboration with my co-worker Brad Dale, who has written some incredible music based on some of the stuff that I've shot
• doing more electrostatic recordings with my new trusty guitar pickup rig
• doing more contact mic recording
• continuing to scout remote locations for potential car, fire and gunshot recordings
• doing a shootout on some portable recorders for the blog
• blogging more in general

Now, in a few weeks we should be getting our next film, Benavides Born, into the house so that should sate my appetite for intense creative projects. But between now and then, we'll see...

Alliance Airshow recordings

So I'm keeping the promise I've made to the zero people following this zombie blog to start posting more and specifically to start posting about recording more.

I'd like to start off by sharing some recordings made on Halloween at the Alliance Air Show in Ft Worth. I went with my sister and family and took some recording gear, but I was going into the situation pretty blindly. My main goal was to get some good aircraft recordings of whatever I could, and I brought a rig that would be able to isolate the aircrafts from the noisy backgrounds while being as portable as possible.

What I didn't anticipate was the total and complete coverage of the PA announcers throughout the entire airstrip who were talking through was a series of horns scattered across the entire perimiter. The PA wasn't loud especially - it was just ubiquitous, so there were no clean spots in the entire area to record from, and the PA guys really never stopped describing the action.

Despite that, I came back with some useable stuff and ended up very happy with my first real

test of the new DR-100 I picked up a few weeks ago. I was able to move about in a dense crowd with ease because I was only carrying a micstand and the handheld recorder.

F22 Raptor air rips and hovers by Rcoronado

zombie blog

So, I've been ignoring this blog for a LONG time now, and I think its time for that to end.

With the recent explosion of development in the sound designer community, I think its high time I get back in this thing and do it with a renewed focus.

so, redesign coming - sound designer focus coming, and good things to follow after that.

that is all.

-Rene

Asian Film Festival of Dallas - a week in review

The 2009 AFFD is over, and I'm glad I participated as much as I did. In fact, I wish I could have seen more that I ended up seeing.

The event was held at the Magnolia, which ended up being a great venue. Parking is always a little tight in the West Village and you could cut the snobbery with a knife on the way in the door, but once inside I was consistently greeted with an upbeat crowd of film enthusiasts who were genuinely having a good time. It also helped that the Magnolia has a bar, since the festival was primarily sponsored by Chang Beer, and it sure is nice to watch a movie with a beer in your hand.

When I learned that the festival was coming to town and saw the awesome trailer that they put together, I spent a little time at the website deciding which films I was going to make it into a priority to see.

After a few minutes of browsing around I was positive that I wanted to see IP man, Legend of the Mask and Ichi, and I was pretty sure I wanted to see The Beast Stalker, Between the Folds, Neko Ramen Taisho (Pussy Soup) and the animated short compilation. There were a few others that I had on a lower tier of interest, but since I knew I had to prioritize both for time and cost reasons (tickets were $9-12 each) I made sure to target the priority ones first. My only complete miss was on Legend of the Mask, which I managed to miss entirely.

The plot synopses are contained in the links above, so I won't rehash them. With that in mind, here are my thoughts on each in the order that I saw them.

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First up was The Beast Stalker.



Before the film started the hosts asked who was drinking a Chang beer. The one guy in the theater who had one raised it up and was awarded a sweet blue Chang soccer jersey. Immediately after the film everyone from theater rushed to the bar and bought out the supply of Chang in anticipation of the next film. I drank Chang for the rest of the week there. It wasn't bad.

This film set a very high bar for the rest of the festival. From my own attempts at writing a screenplay for a short, I know how difficult it is to make complex plot developments happen in a logical and believable way, and The Beast Stalker is a clinic in multiple parallel story lines. Its also shot, acted, and edited very very well.

The film centers on a single car crash with multiple heroes, villains, and innocents involved - but it really just uses that as a platform on which to build the characters and dramatic situations that propel it forward. Its funny because it never really felt as though the plot was twisting around as much as it felt like it was running in multiple parallel lines at high speed.

I came away from this one very impressed with every aspect, and I gave it a 5 out of 5 rating in the survey as we walked out the door.

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Day 2 started up with Neko Ramen Taisho



This is a film about a cat who makes ramen in a noodle house in Japan, and they passed out Ramen to everyone in the theater before the film started. The ramen had a cool touch in that it had a sticker on the package with the logo of the cat's ramen shop on it. I invited the wifey to go with, but she though it would be horrible and passed. Her loss.

The film's production style is cheesy because it uses a stuffed cat as the protagonist, but it comes off in a "this is a cheesy production style" kind of way - not in the "this is the best we can do" kind of way. Its just typical "Japan: WTF" kind of stuff. Good clean fun.

The only production thing they did that was a little distracting was the huge hand in the cat glove grabbing the scalpel or the chopsticks. The proportions were all wrong. I bought everything else though.

Surprisingly, the story was great. The tempo was quick, the jokes were funny, and the end result was a fun time had by all. The theater was not shy about laughing and yelling, which made for a great environment in which to watch this film. I rated it 4 out of 5.

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Next up was Ichi.



A story about a blind girl who kicks butt with a blade, I was very excited about this one going in.

Unfortunately, the projectionist was playing the film back about 10% too fast, and everyone sounded like chipmunks. The AFFD directors stopped the film and explained what was going on. He said that the theater could refund our ticket prices or we could continue to watch the film in high-speed. To my surprise about 90% of the theater said that they didn't even realize that the film was playing back too fast, and that they would stick it out then and there. I couldn't handle the idea of missing out on what I knew was a great sounding film, so I got up to leave. On my way out, the rep for film's sponsor Funimation handed me and a few others her card and said that if we emailed her our contact info that she could send us a screener DVD of the film. This made me feel much better, and I had emailed her from my phone before I reached the exit.

A few days later I received the DVD and watched the film in my living room.

While I really loved the concept and the technical execution of the film (top-shelf foly and sound design throughout) I had problems with the story and the villains. The story was really too full of holes, and left too much unexplained. People's actions werent really believeable given the events that happened in front of them.

My other problem was the with the villains. I felt that the executon of the main badguy (a kind of phantom of the opera gang leader) was far too much a charicature of what it could have been. It was a huge missed opportunity for some real darkness and evil, and the main villain came off as campy and cartoonish in an otherwise artful and serious context. Juxtaposed against the brilliant and subtle female protagonist, this shortcoming was even more glaring. I also didnt like the ending.

I left the film feeling that I didnt really reach its potential, and would have rated it a 3.5 out of 5.

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Day 3 started with the animated film compilation.

I had pretty high hopes for this compilation as well, but ended up a little disappointed. The shorts ranged from really great to really terrible, and some of them seemed to not fit in at all. Subject matters ran the gamut from playful aliens to dark cannibalistic women, and there wasn't really much of a flow from one short to the other. The submissions were primarily student films, and as such the sound was often either very stripped down or even amateurish. Given that the medium is animation, sound is even more important to the storytelling than it would be in other contexts, so the level of audio production in these shorts was a little disappointing overall - with a few notable exceptions. Playback in the theater was also very loud for this series, which was pretty distracting given the source. This was the only film I saw where there was no applause from the theater at the conclusion, but that could be because they closed with the cannibals.

I rated it a 3 out of 5, and that was probably a little generous.

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The animations sucked my stamina a bit, but I decided to hang around for Between the Folds, a doc on origami.



Green Fuse Films did a very nice job putting this together. I was again a little disapponted with the sound in the theater because it was distorting a little in the speakers during playback, but that certainly wasn't the fault of the filmmakers. It also wasn't nearly the issue for a doc that it would have been for a sound-heavy kung fu production.

This documentary did what most docs should do: tell a tight, succint and interesting story while leaving the audience wanting just a little more. You wouldn't think that origami is interesting enough to watch for over an hour, but the filmmakers tell a compelling story about the art and science of it all. People from all walks of life devote hours to creating these incredibly complex and beautiful sculptures from a single sheet of uncut paper. Origami is different from most other forms of sculpture because it is not additive like plaster casting or model building, and it is not subtractive like cutting into stone or wood. It starts and ends as a single sheet of paper, and yet it has boundless opportunities.

The film seamlessly weaved the stories of the old Chineese innovators with the new M.I.T. geniuses - all creating origami for the love of the art and the advancement of mankind.

I rated it a 4 out of 5.

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On my last day I had the privilege of seeing IP Man, the first film that I had highlighted when planning my show interary weeks before the AFFD began.



I bought my ticket for this one right after Neko Ramen Taisho let out because they said that it was already selling out. Before the film began the line stretched out into the hall.

My friend and I were waiting in line and I turned to him.
"You want a beer?"
"There's beer!?"
"Hold my spot. I'll be right back."
I went and got a couple of Changs. When I arrived back in line, a girl in front of us noticed the beers.
"There's beer!? Listen, I don't know you but..."
I rolled my eyes.
"Hold my spot, I'll be right back."
I left and came back with another beer.

When we were seated in the theater we were all doing the wave and bouncing a beachball around. The girl from the line happened to be in the row with us. The AFFD board were busy thanking us and each other for a successful festival, and were handing each other gifts.

"You guys want another beer?"
I gave the thumbs up and she left. A few minutes she came back with a bucket filled with six Changs.

That just doesn't happen at Transformers man. Even IMAX.

We were then treated to what is probably the best Kung Fu movie I've ever seen.

Ip Man is spectacular for its basis in reality, its rock-solid story, its top-shelf aesthetic, and its mind blowing fight scenes.

My personal reviews can't do the film justice. Suffice it to say that I think this is a better film than House of Flying Daggers, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, anything Bruce Lee ever did, Kill Bill, and anythng Jackie Chan ever did.

And I love those movies. A lot.

I'll just post another fight scene and let it speak for itself.



The pure speed and the brutality of some of the blows in this film surpass anything I've ever seen in cinema before. My jaw was dropped to the degree that I regretted giving The Beast Stalker a 5 out of 5 earlier in the week because I wanted to rate this film higher. And I loved The Beast Stalker.

This was a great film. I'll leave it at that.

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The AFFD was great throughout. The vibe was cool, the films were solid, and the people were great. I'll definately be back next year.

As a side note, we saw the trailer for RoboGeisha a lot during this festival. It's on youtube. Don't look for it unless you...

Well, just don't look for it.