Oade Brothers Modded Edirol R-44 Portable Recorder Review and Shoot-Out with Clips

[Nityananda_SCSM]

Anyone have some thoughts on the limiters on the R-44? Here is the email I got from Edirol about them:

"Thank you for your interest in our line of EDRIOL audio field recorders. The R-44's limiter is analog and digital mixed like the R-4Pro. When you turn on the limiter, analog gain goes automatically -12dB down for prevention of digital distortion and after that passes through the digital limiter. After that the signal level goes +12dB back up again for matching total signal level.

The limiter threshold is -10 dB relative to digital full scale.

Best regards,"

Are they useful? I kind of need limiters, so I was thinking of buying a Fostex Fr2-le or MixPre with a r-09. But I'd rather have 4 channels so....

[BuzzClunk]

Hi Nityananda, I use my R-44 for location film work and pretty much always keep the limiters on. I find them pretty useful when you get un-expected bangs etc. I do find that they take a long time to return to normal level after being triggered though. And also they don't seem to respond evenly across the frequency range. By which I mean that with a fairly quite signal I can still seem to trigger them with a bit of low frequency noise. It is a bit weird.

Still in terms of use they are useful and you can have them un-linked, linked as stereo pairs or linked as a quad. Useful for preserving stereo fields.

I didn't know they worked like that though. Very interesting.

[Ozpeter]

You can do the same by recording in 24 bits and simply reducing the level of the analog knob by 12dB (below the expected level) then doing any necessary digital limiting in post production. I can see no point in using a digital limiting stage during recording and then writing the result unchangeably to the recording media, unless you have no DAW for post-processing.

[springer]

Sorry for the bit off topic direction of this question, but twice now I have had my stock R44 give me the "SD Card Slow" message which actually chops out part of the recording. This was at 24/96 using all 4 channels. I formatted the card before starting too which has cleared up problems several times. Current SD is level 6 so speed should be good...

I will try a Edirol "approved" SD card but until then has anyone else experienced this frustration? I would like to get out of 16/44 land whenever I want/need.

Thanks!

[NorseHorse]

Very interesting. =(

Can you tell use more about the circumstances? I've record four tracks of 24/48 for two hours straight with no hiccups. I've recorded four tracks of 24/96 for two hours, but with occasional pauses (not stops though).

I've learned not to hit Record-Pause (to preview the levels) and then STOP later having not actually recorded anything onto a blank card. It creates some sort of card error that only goes away when I clear the card on a computer. As long as you record something (even a second) onto the card, this doesn't happen.

I only record in 24-bits and frequently with 4-tracks. I don't hesitate to use it all the time.

[springer]

Hey Norse - well it has only happened twice but only at 24/96 and 4 channels. I always format the card before use. The first time it happened I think it was because I didn't format...

I remember Doug Oade (back when I had one of his PMD660) telling me that audio recorders require a different kind of speed than cameras - this was with compact flash. He said something like the "Ultra or Extreme" type faster cards were not good for writing long streams of audio data??? But I cannot find his email for further details.

I am fine with 16/44 in the mean time as this unit really shines on preamps and AD.

[BuzzClunk]

Originally Posted by Ozpeter

You can do the same by recording in 24 bits and simply reducing the level of the analog knob by 12dB (below the expected level) then doing any necessary digital limiting in post production. I can see no point in using a digital limiting stage during recording and then writing the result unchangeably to the recording media, unless you have no DAW for post-processing.

I have had to do audio mixes for video on audio recorded at 24 bits, and the biggest problem by leaving enough room so it doesn't clip on unexpected bangs is that you have to boost the gain on every track so that you have some sort of waveform that you can see. I prefer just to record it strongly with the limiter so I definitely have something I can edit with. Any bang would probably go through a compressor in the daw anyways. If I was doing a musical recording I would switch them off and go for highest fidelity.

[bombdiggity]

Thanks much for this great discussion. It was exactly what I was looking for after seeing a mention of the R-4, then the R-44 (so thanks also to Google for eventually pointing me here).

Since I'm looking for something simple and ultra-portable for a decadial upgrade the R-44 (or maybe R-4 if budget were no object) seems ideal. I'm still recording (very occasionally) on an Oade modded M-1 purchased from them in the days when that was leading edge. That has obviously been through quite a bit and I was pursuaded their mod was an improvement. The results have always been good. With circumstances and uses changing I'm now looking to step up the activity and equipment and dive into the new era. Seems this may be the way that is intended.

[Ozpeter]

For more discussion about the r-44 at incredible length, see EDIROL R-44 (PART IV) and the threads before it.

[JonesH]

I just wanted to add that it seems as if Edirol has done their homework. When the unit runs out of batteries and shuts down, it stops the recording and closes the files before shutting down. Nice, so we don't end up with unreadable files.

It happened to me yesterday, and the files were OK. So I've only tested it once, but...

[NorseHorse]

Thank you for that update. Good to know.

I would like to chime in again to express my continuing appreciation for the reliability of the R44, as well as Doug Oade's customer service -- which was key when my R44s were stolen in March.

Since I hope Edirol is reading this thread, I would like to make the follow request:

-- Please repurpose the LEVEL knob! Anybody who has the slightest clue what they are doing does not need a digital level knob. Monitoring is much more important. Please change the LEVEL knobs to control PAN in real-time. When I'm monitoring, I should be able to adjust the panning on the fly. I shouldn't have to guess how a spot mic which should be [center] will sit in the mix. Most of your users use the R44 for audio capture, correct? Well spend more time making sure we can hear what we are recording! We shouldn't have to resort to this:

Tetramic?

A firmware update to address this would be amazing.

Or now that I'm really thinking... Only once the pan is easy would the level knob be helpful (cause then you'd have all the tools to really adjust the mix). Perhaps try taking a cue from the Zoom R16. It functions like a mixer while also recording the tracks pre-fader. You can play with the faders, and it doesn't effect the sound to tape. It also has pan that is easily changed: press the PAN button, select the track, turn the dial. Piece of cake and I imagine it could be implemented on the R44, leaving the level knob to act as a fader (though not effecting the sound to tape).

[Unrealworld82]

Not a remote guy myself, but I live in the same city as Oade Bros. They used to run a hi-fi/pro-audio shop here in town. I was sad to see it closed. Nice to see them still working with audio... I was actually in a band that rented a rehearsal space in the back of the building for a while. Good memories, good people.

[cyrano]

Great thread! Thanks a lot!

[Ozpeter]

Indeed, NorseHorse, proper panned and balanced monitoring for the R-44 is badly needed. I got Naiant to build me a monitoring mixer just for that purpose, which sits beneath the R-44, having simple pan and level controls on each channel, fed from the channel outputs, to two headphone outputs and a line output, plus switchable monitoring feed from a backup stereo recorder.

[Tommy-boy]

Originally Posted by NorseHorse

Thank you for that update. Good to know.

I would like to chime in again to express my continuing appreciation for the reliability of the R44, as well as Doug Oade's customer service -- which was key when my R44s were stolen in March.

Since I hope Edirol is reading this thread, I would like to make the follow request:

-- Please repurpose the LEVEL knob! Anybody who has the slightest clue what they are doing does not need a digital level knob. Monitoring is much more important. Please change the LEVEL knobs to control PAN in real-time. When I'm monitoring, I should be able to adjust the panning on the fly. I shouldn't have to guess how a spot mic which should be [center] will sit in the mix. Most of your users use the R44 for audio capture, correct? Well spend more time making sure we can hear what we are recording! We shouldn't have to resort to this:

Tetramic?

A firmware update to address this would be amazing.

Or now that I'm really thinking... Only once the pan is easy would the level knob be helpful (cause then you'd have all the tools to really adjust the mix). Perhaps try taking a cue from the Zoom R16. It functions like a mixer while also recording the tracks pre-fader. You can play with the faders, and it doesn't effect the sound to tape. It also has pan that is easily changed: press the PAN button, select the track, turn the dial. Piece of cake and I imagine it could be implemented on the R44, leaving the level knob to act as a fader (though not effecting the sound to tape).

I'd like to see that too. And I'd like to add that the m-s functionality should be monitor only, not run to the card. That would eliminate another outboard rack mixer I use so that I can hear the m-s decoded to l-r while I'm in the field.

Side comment - do you like the Zoom units? converters and pres decent?

[cfoxv1980]

Im trying to decided between the both of them , anyone know whats better??

[Slam]

Originally Posted by cfoxv1980

Im trying to decided between the both of them , anyone know whats better??

Me too. Anybody got an opinion?

[springer]

As an update to my earlier problem...
Has been solved with new SD cards. Was using ADATA and had several recordings with devastating failures. Bought some Transcend 8GB cards and have yet to have any failures. Will attempt 24/96 (2 stereos tracks) soon as I have been wary to go back to that setting. And the files are so big for what you get...
Update after Wednesday

I find the R44 to be an excellent unit and have gotten great recordings out of it.