Hi there, this is going to be a review in progress, I just bought the Edirol R44 and I thought you might like some info on it from a users experience. Since It just arrived last week I do not have field experience at this time the info is spare. That's why a review in progress; every time I have more useful info I'll post it in this tread!

So for now, unpacked it,wow, very light in weight! And small, A bit more than half a Sound Devices 552 or similar. The weight might come in handy for the purpose I bought it; as a small companion for a Canon 7D, even solo Run and gun (oh yes...). Downside of this is that there is no compatible Portabrace or like yet. So I have the improvise a bit on that part for now.

Takes 2/3 seconds to booth up and when booted, you can record immediately. On the net someone mentioned that every time you booth (from a different power source, AKA new batteries) all settings are lost. Not with this one here, maybe a firmware update or so? The casing is made of hard plastic en does feel build very wel. Knobs are easy to use as well. Menu structure is okay, a bit to deep in my opinion.

So an easy Pro an Cons here:

Pro's:
- Small, lightweight
- Switchable Phantom on all channels individually
- Both input/record potmeter in one, works good
- 2x stereo, 4x mono, 1x4 channel and more flavors in WAV selectable.
- Going strong and long on cheap IKEA Alkaline batteries (testing at this moment with 1 boom on phantom + 2 radio transmitters and it's recorded 1,5 hours already with the batt sign halfway).
- limiters work well, as far as I can tell for now, at least with my singing 3 year old ;-)

Con's:
- Metering readout; Small, used to SD type of leds.
- Menu access on top. Like to have it all on the front, but have to find out how much you use it in the field though.
- THE BIGGEST: NO AUDIO WHEN YOU STOP RECORDING. To hear some input you have to put it in rec-pause (or recording). Not that handy.
- So i've you record, and press pause, not stop, it doesn't make a new file. Stopping is almost not an option since previous point.


That's for now. I've got my first shoot with it this tuesday. a TV Documentary shot with the Canon 7D. I'm gonna be the dedicated sound guy, so we're a full team (cameraman, sound guy and director, oh, and the subjects.. ;-)).

The setup: The Edirol R44 with a Rode NTG3 on a boom (wired) and 2 Sennheiser G2 sets. on the 7D where gonna plugin a Sennheiser reciever as well, so whe can have a perfect match for Plural Eyes wich we're gonna use in post.

I'll keep you posted on how it went and to make this review more completed!

I used that on a reality show. Very nice mixer and I used it for sit down mixing no run and gun. I mainly used the power supply because it eats up battery power tremendously. If you check out the shows on my page(link below) those two shows used the Edirol R-44. Great sound especially if you know what you are doing. No ADR needed on either show. You can hear the quality once you watch it. But definitely a nice machine. I wish you the best of luck with it. I'm going to be getting a Fostex PD606 soon.



Nicole

Thanks Nicole, That's a beast the 606! Can you post the link to your site, it's not in your previous post.

Oooppss sorry. The link is below.

Reality Show
C.C. Productions - Reality TV Shows (http://ccproductions803.webs.com/apps/videos/channels/show/1099032-reality-tv-shows-)


TV Show-I boom on this show but the recorder used was still the Edirol R44
C.C. Productions - TV Shows (http://ccproductions803.webs.com/apps/videos/channels/show/1099015-tv-shows-)


Nicole

So, first day today with the R44 today, here the thoughts:

- When in action operation is quite okay. Since i'm a left handy, I operate the mixer with my right so I can see the metering very well.
- Batteries are ran out quickly, had to replace them during lunch brake
- On/off button on the top is a pain in the rear, especially considering the point mentioning above.
- limiter is good.

tomorrow another day with the gear, with a lot of outside shooting, keep you posted...

I warned you about the batteries. They will eat them up. I use power supply when possible.


Nicole

The limiter is all digital, right? Seems pretty useless to me.
I don't have the R-44 but the R-4 and I like the clarity of the preamps - but not the noise level which is a little too high for my taste. The R-44 should be better in this respect.

I power my setup with a nano-phosphate battery pack I built using A123 Systems cells. It's the yellow block on the left side of the Pelican case. They're balance-charged with a Cellpro charger. This technology, by the way, comes from the radio-control helicopter industry.

The battery pack also powers a pair of Audio-Technica ATW-1800 wireless receivers for four independent channels of audio. Runs 4 hours at a stretch.

Thanks Dean, I'm looking into these solutions at this point. Today I had a shoot where I had to change the batteries 2 times. It was okay but not that handy since I do not have a proper bag for it so the batt compartment is not that reachable... Since all by equipment is on Sony's V mount batteries i'm thinking of that as a solution.

Dean, what's your further audio setup and what for? The pic is making me curious!

So an update on my findings with the R 44 up until now:

I now had 3 days with it in combination with the Canon 7D. First off all the weight, As mentioned before, it's so light, with the very long days we had that came in very handy. Again, battery life not long, until now not that big a problem.

Overall very happy with it as a run and gun ENG style mixer/recorder. If someone has some questions I'm happy to answer them!

Vincent...

The audio setup is used whenever I go out on boats and cover a few anglers simultaneously. The whole thing can be closed up and remain weatherproof. There's a short two-foot mast that supports four whip antennas. The AT wireless units have proven to be extremely reliable with virtually zero dropouts in the years I've used them.

The camera also has an on-camera mic which provides some backup audio as well as a way of providing a precise sync reference. The camera is set to time-of-day timecode and so is the R-44.

I use SequenceLiner in Final Cut Pro to correlate the hundreds of video clips with the uninterrupted audio clips (the recorder is running constantly). While the initial sync isn't perfect, it isn't hard to manually align them in post, especially if I remember to get a "slate" every so often.

Having the audio recorder running all the time is also very useful in getting those off-the-cuff comments that happen unexpectedly. Especially when a fish gets hooked up. The shouting that happens is one of those dramatic, exciting moments that makes the difference in the final show.

When I made the battery pack I wanted to confirm the proper input voltage range for the R-44. I went through the manual thoroughly and couldn't find the info I needed. After about an hour I looked at the recorder and there was the info I was looking for, right next to the external power port!

Here's a segment in which the recorder system was used. There were four people on the boat. Each person was on a discrete channel.

Hi Ho Silvers, Part 1 (http://hawaiigoesfishing.com/shelter2009_silver1.html)

Dean,

I really like the clarity of your video encoding. Anything special that you did for that?

Oh, and excellent sound. I can hear the water dripping off the crab pots as they are being brought in to the boat. Brilliant.

Andrew

Andrew...

The clip was done with Adobe Flash encoder using two-pass VBR encoding. It might be H.264.

The audio of the crab pots being brought in was just an on-camera mic. It's an Audio-Technica AT-4051a. At distances up to about 7 or 8 feet, and in relatively quiet conditions, it can do a great job.

Thanks Dean, for the info. Especially the remarks about the AT wireless, witch is on my current wish list. Have you tried Plural Eyes for syncing? It's awesome: Singular Software (http://www.singularsoftware.com/pluraleyes.html)

So today I dug up an old cable with a D-tap on one end, made a powerplug for the R-44 out of it and connected it to a V mount battery from one of the cams here. As a test I'm recording now for more then 3 hours (1 phantom on, usual setup for me) already and the battery stills says it's fully charged! I think that's gonna be the setup for this moment I think.

Dean,

Looking at the "info" report on Applian FLV Player:

On2 VP6 codec, running at 29.97fps, data rate of 1500kps.

Could possibly be the data rate. :-D

Andrew

Update on the battery: 11 hours of recording and still going strong, battery just says half way! Definitely a winner. This is the one:

Globalmediapro Li65S Lithium ion Battery 65WH (http://www.globalmediapro.com/dp/A01F18/Globalmediapro-Li65S-Lithium-ion-Battery-65WH/)

Update on the battery: 11 hours of recording and still going strong, battery just says half way! Definitely a winner. This is the one:

Globalmediapro Li65S Lithium ion Battery 65WH (http://www.globalmediapro.com/dp/A01F18/Globalmediapro-Li65S-Lithium-ion-Battery-65WH/)

Wow. That'll outlast you! :-)

The pack I built is just over 30 watt-hours. But it's also powering the wireless receivers. The Li65S might be just a little too big to fit my own application but the price per watt is hard to beat. Thanks for the link!

Final update on the battery; 15 hours of recording, then the card was full, and I was out, but when I came home (about 5 hours later the R44 was still on and the battery gave me 1 LED...

I power my setup with a nano-phosphate battery pack I built using A123 Systems cells. It's the yellow block on the left side of the Pelican case. They're balance-charged with a Cellpro charger. This technology, by the way, comes from the radio-control helicopter industry.

The battery pack also powers a pair of Audio-Technica ATW-1800 wireless receivers for four independent channels of audio. Runs 4 hours at a stretch.

Very cool set up Dean. Can't imagine they'd ever let you in to an airport with it though, looks like a bomb!

Dean what wireless mics do you have?


Nicole

Dean what wireless mics do you have?

Nicole

It's the Audio-Technica ATW-1800. Each receiver has two bodypacks. And I'm using the AT 899CW mics, not the stock mics.

Dean,

That's a cool set-up. On the AT899c lav, do you find yourself using the vampire clip much or something else out of the included accessory kit?

Guy...

I haven't used the vampire clip.

I shoot a lot of people wearing t-shirts and modified the standard alligator clip to hold the mic capsule about an inch below the shirt's knit collar. The only thing showing is part of the clip.

Sometimes I'll tape the mic capsule under the edge of a piece of clothing, just out of sight.

I find the 899's vampire clip usually creates a noticeable lump under clothing. I use a cable clip vampire from a deceased Tram or Sonotrim.

Hey Vincent great posts. My setup for use is actually getting really close to your own, except I'm using the 5D MKII. I was originally using with DV/HDV gear. I'm lucky that I have been able to survive on batteries. More typically, I am able to just plug it into AC. However, I do like to be prepared. So you lost me at D-Tap. Do you have to modify a cable or were you able to use a cable meant for something else that happen to work with the battery and recorder? Battery power is the one area that I know nothing. Most other equipment I have been able to hold my own but this topic I go blank.

BTW Dean, stop scaring the children! That picture is more than just impressive. The right angle connectors alone look like they should be hooked up to scuba gear. We often make our own props from everyday gear that most people don't typically see. Your pack would easy make off as a bomb, seismic gear, or modern ghost busting equipment

Hello Vincent,
That's a great resource for batteries. I looked on the site and couldn't seem to find the mounting hardware to interface the battery to the gear. Its a V mount isn't it? Did you get that from somewhere else or is it on their site somewhere?
Thanks,
Bernie

Hi Bernie and Thomas, Yes, it's a V mount battery but I actually do not use the v-mount, but the D-tap connector output. An industries standard on pro- broadcast cams for accessories like camera lights. I made myself a cable for it, a bit like this pic shows:

http://www.proav.co.uk/Gallery/product/DSC_0344_webSuperSize.JPG


Off course you can use the V mount connector with a baseplate like this one for about 30 euro's:

Globalmediapro VLP-1 V-Lock Mount Plate (http://globalmediapro.com/dp/A02Q30/Globalmediapro-VLP-1-V-Lock-Mount-Plate/)

You do have to solder a connector on it which matches with the R44.

I decided to go with the first solution since it's less bulky.

Any of you guys or anybody here own a mixer/edirol combo if so what bag are you using and could you post a picture of your bad.


Thanks
Nicole

Since I´m really interested in the Edirol, I´d like to update this thread if possible: How are you guys getting along with the 44? I want to use it like an SD mixer as the sound solution for 5D shoots.
Did you find a good bag for the Edirol?

And does anyone know why the price of the unit went up about 100€? Did that happen in the US too?

Thanks guys!