This is a review reposted from a private list serve with permission
of the author who is in radio production / news.
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Howdy from the bleeding edge of recording technology-
I've had a Microtrack 24/96 for about 5 days now, and can offer these
preliminary observations-
I like the ultra small size, but am a little put off by the overall
cheap plastic feel of the machine. Remember the Sony walkman style DAT
recorders? How solid and wrapped in metal they felt, and how in
comparison a consumer grade cassette walkman felt like a plastic toy?
The microtrack has the plastic toy feel to it.
That being said, I'm very happy with the recordings it makes so far.
The little stereo electret mic it ships with sounds great to me, very
clean. When I plugged an RE-50 in via the 1/8" plug it sounded a little
hissy, definitely broadcastable, but I would probably use another mic
if given the choice - I haven't tried plugging the RE 50 into the 1/4"
jacks yet, which have a higher gain, I'll letcha know on that.
I have, however, recorded with a couple of different Audio Technica
shotguns, and they sound good. The AT 4701a runs on the phantom power
the Microtrack provides (unfortunately the generally crappy
documentation that comes with the machine and is available on the
website doesn't say if its 48v power or what) and sounds nice and rich,
my other AT shotgun, which has an onboard AA battery also sounds good,
with a very faint hiss and slightly flatter response.
Here's a big bummer - ads for the machine says it records stereo and
mono - so far, it only records in stereo, the website promises updated
firmware "in the future" that will allow mono recording, so the 1gig
cards I have for the machine have only 1:38 capacity instead of 3 hours
plus. So, when I plug my mono mics into the machine, they sound fine
while monitoring via headphones, but when I get back to the studio and
dump them in via the USB cable (which is easy and fast) they appear in
ProTools as 2 track recordings and sound horrible, like they were
recorded at -50db or something. But if I delete one of the two tracks,
the remaining track sounds fine. I find this bizarre.
It would seem easier to just record with the supplied stereo electret
mic, which I'll probably end up doing a lot, especially indoors. A
problem there, though, is that although you can make recording level
adjustments on the fly, it makes an audible click, the machine is very
prone to handling noise when using the supplied electret. Plug in to an
outboard mic, however, and those problems go away.
RE: updates to the unit's firmware - I guess I like the idea that you
can go to the company website and download updates periodically,
meaning the machine is upgradable, but when I went to the site they so
far only offer a beta version of the update. Normally I don't do beta,
but the site says the beta fixes several known bugs with the firmware
the machine shipped with, so my options are: stick with the known bugs
of what I've got, or download a potential fix with unknown bugs of its
own - I chose the beta and I'll drop the list a line if I notice any
problems.
I'm also not totally convinced that the record level meters in the
display window totally coincide with reality. I've watched my levels
peak against the wall regularly while the audio sounds fine monitoring
via the headphones, and the red clip lights located just the below the
display didn't light up. As near as I can tell, those recordings
sounded fine back in the studio. When the red clip lights do light,
however, the recordings were overmodulated.
That's about all I can say about the microtrack for now. We also have
Marantz PMD 670s and 660s here (so nice to work for a station with an
equipment budget!), and I don't know that the Microtrack is necessarily
better or worse than those. I generally like the capabilities of the
670, but its controls seem unnecessarily complicated. The 660 is a lot
more portable, but your only battery option is 4 AAs, which don't seem
to last particularly long, I sure wish the 660 had the removable
rechargable option the bigger 670 does. Using commercially available
rechargable AAs doesn't seem like a good option at this point - one,
they're not as reliable and easy to use as the rechargable that comes
with the 670.
RE: the microtrack battery - it's internal and rechargable, iPod style,
which I'm going to say is kind of lame. What if I want/need to carry an
extra battery? If I'm out in the filed recording all day and the
Microtrack battery only lasts (alledgely) 2-3 hours, I'm hosed. Also,
the Microtrack is warantied for 1 year, but the battery only has a 90
day warranty, which does not inspire confidence, and that warranty only
covers parts, not labor, so if my battery does crap out, I'm supposed
to send the unit back along with $75 - lame....
I guess bottom line is that the Microtrack is fun to play with and can
yield some good recordings, but I wouldn't recommend it as the only
recorder in your bag, I think it has the potential to be a great
machine in later versions if Microtrack is willing to improve it here
and there.
looking forward to the days when flash recorders are beyond the
bleeding edge....
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