Has anyone used the Edirol R-4 (www.edirol.com). It looks like a sound recordists wet dream!

The specifications are stunning. I'm thinking of adding it to my kit and this will allow me to greatly improve my audio capability. In most situations (Wedding, Events & Corporate work) I'm usually recording direct to my cameras (Sony DSR-500s). This will however give me much more flexibility. It looks like I will be able to pump most things into the Edirol including mics, radios and line feeds from a mixer, thus allowing me to roam with camera more effectively without having to worry about audio most of the time or having to mix audio levels in-camera.

The only real downside as far as I can see is that it does not have a 'professional' battery system but runs off AAs.

Has anyone used on, know of any reviews or can comment?

Any info would be appreciated.

Just wondering , how will you achieve accurate audio sync, say at your wedding event, recording separate audio and video? Maybe i missed something.
Rob Dunford
UK

He can always use a slate and let the camera roll for a full hour (until the tape is done)

then stop the r-4, change the tape, then start the r-4 start the camera and slate again after the tape change is made, and roll for another full hour.

For me...thats too much.

I need Synch

if I cant have synch...

then FREE RUN timecode will be just fine. Alas, the R-4 doesn't even do that! not good.

If thats the case, I would rather buy TWO marantz pmd670's then a single R-4....all adds up to the same price.

- ShannonRawls

I could use slate to synch, but I currently don't bother.

I use minidisc and two cameras right now and simply synch them when I drop them onto the timeline; little extra work but it's not hard. The tape in the camera are 3 hour tapes BTW, so no real need to re-synch, except when starting a new file at the reception venue. I always let one camera roll continously during speeches etc.

BTW how does the marantz synch, there is no facility that I can see? The R-4 has synch issues it's true. However there is something described as 'L-terminal' which seems to be for linking to a camera for synch any idea what that is? If it's Lanc then my PD cameras will synch to it.

I admit the R-4s not perfect, but in its defence, it has much higher sampling frequency (24bit 96-kHz) and much larger recording time capacity you also have the ability to edit on-board. 16bit 48Khz is the max on the Marantz and with that you don't get a lot of recording time without buying big flash or PCMCIA microdrives which will add a bit to the cost, making it a bit more than 1/2 the price of the Edirol.

I also want to do gigs and record all the night so the capacity is an issue for me, I don't want to be changing cards every hour or so.