Best Portable Digirecorder For Rehearsal?

[RobB]

Looking for suggestions for a good quality, portable digital/flash recorder to do quick/dirty live recordings of band practices. Tascam/Zoom-type stereo recorders, if that helps. I've been snooping around on MF, Sweetwater, Amazon, etc., but can't find a consensus on any particular model. Would like to keep it under $250, so any suggestions will be helpful.

TIA, RB.

[Feynman]

I believe I've had most of them by now, and it just depends on what you want out of it. Even the cheap stuff sounds really good. If you'd like to also work as an audio interface to your computer, the Zooms (among others) tend to do that. If you are very picky about sound, there are subtle differences among them.

You really can't go wrong - most of the differences lie in features (metal vs plastic bodies, XLR mic inputs with phantom power, number of simultaneous channels, surround, midside, whatnot...).

For your budget, if you don't care about use as an audio interface or more than two channels, I like the Sony PCM-M10. One reason is that it sounds great, and the other is that the battery life is extremely good. It's also nice quality.

The $99 stuff is fantastic really. Don't overanalyze it. That's what I do, and look where that gets me.

[RobB]

Picky about sound in that it has to be able to handle a loud 3-piece band without getting all splatty. May want to dump the 2 channels into logic later for some simple overdubs, but really looking for good quality notepad.

[Feynman]

They will have capabilities for automatic gain control, low cuts, limiters, etc., and the ability to monitor the levels easily enough. You'll just need some tweaking /practice at first to find out good placement and level setting.

I don't know which do and don't, but a few of them create safety tracks that may be 20dB lower than your main settings in case of complete overload. It seems like I had a Tascam that had that, but I don't think you will have any issues with most of them anyway.

They're all splendid little machines.

[Feynman]

If you ever imagine connecting external mics, I think the Zoom H4N is the most popular one out there. It's a nice unit too.

[alantig]

+1 for the Zoom H4N. Good sound, sensitive mics. I've recorded live stuff where I've had to turn the input level ridiculously low because the kick and snare were overdriving it. And I've stuck it on a mic stand in front of me and recorded acoustic guitar with it. I'm even thinking of getting one of the newer Zoom video cameras that records like this.

[tomteriffic]

+1 for the Zoom H4N for the above reasons and the ability to use external mics in either 2 or 4 channel mode. And the imaging on the 2 attached mics is uncanny.