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Re: [Nature Recordists] Re: MOTU Traveler. Was "Mic arrays and M/S=

To:
Subject: Re: [Nature Recordists] Re: MOTU Traveler. Was "Mic arrays and M/S=
From: James Shatto <>
behaviour"


I started off on a laptop.  Took entirely too long to setup.  Plus you had =
to
tear down and setup again if you changed rooms.  Battery life sucked.  And=

you're not likely to even be able to see the LCD in direct sunlight.  But m=
ainly
that you couldn't press record until the laptop booted and the audio applic=
ation
launched.  Lead me almost instantly to a field recorder setup.  15 seconds =
from
the time the mic stand hits the ground, I'm recording.  Factor in unlevel g=
round
where a laptop is highly likely to slide off of a surface and go crashing t=
o the
ground...  Or just rain and other environmental conditions.

The one thing I did like, was that within 30 minutes of hitting stop, I cou=
ld
have an optical media disc in hand of the content to play in the car on the=
 way
home.  Not really ideal as no one wants to wait for you to burn a disc.  An=
d
modern car stereos have ipod and other inputs now.

- James

--- On Sat, 9/4/10, Scott Fraser <> wrote:

> From: Scott Fraser <>
> Subject: [Nature Recordists] Re: MOTU Traveler. Was "Mic arrays and M/S
>behaviour"
> To: 
> Date: Saturday, September 4, 2010, 9:42 AM
> <<To have a computer as part of
> the gear is an attractive idea as it
> can be a tool
> to sort thingsout, therefore organize the recordings on
> set, plus the
> whole lot
> of things a computer can do other than being a recording
> media. But I
> suppose
> that the mechanical HD=E2=80=99s aren=E2=80=99t sturdy enough for
> outdoor adventures>>
>
> I occasionally use the internal laptop drive for recording
> & even at
> 5400 rpm it has provided no problems. For more ambitious
> track counts
> an external bus powered FireWire 7200 rpm drive has been as
> robust as
> I ever need. The kind of location situation where I would
> be reluctant
> to trust a mechanical drive, i.e. recording during run
> & gun over the
> shoulder documentary style sound gathering, is one where a
> laptop
> would not be applicable anyway. The internal & external
> drives I rely
> on for multitrack concert playback with the string quartet
> I tour with
> are subjected to approximately 150 flights & baggage
> handlings per
> year & have always performed flawlessly. My
> understanding is that in a
> hard drive, upon powering down, the head & its servo
> are locked down
> magnetically & thus don't flop around during any
> 'normal' handling.
>
> << and the ones equipped with SSD Hard drives are
> still too expensive
> for me at the moment. >>
>
> According to the laws of consumer computer capability vs
> pricing, this
> will be changing rapidly in the near future. I think in a
> few years
> the fact that we relied on spinning disks with physically
> moving
> playback heads will be seen as impossibly quaint. Like
> wired
> telephones with mechanically ringing brass bells.
>
> Scott Fraser
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> "While a picture is worth a thousand words, a
> sound is worth a thousand pictures." R. Murray Schafer via
> Bernie Krause
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>     
>
>
>














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