Tascam DR-10CS - where have you been all my life.

[Clive McLaughlin]

This thing is tiny, has screw jack connectors, records a safety track, has a very good belt clip.

How did I not know about this??

The style these days is for grooms to wear fitted suits and increasingly I've come across resistance to putting even my small Sony recorders into pockets.

This is exactly what I've been looking for!

Tascam DR-10CS Review & Comparison - Little DARling alternative - YouTube

[Matthias Claflin]

Looks like a brilliant little device. Trying to figure out why they aren't available in the US though... Anyone have any idea?

[Clive McLaughlin]

I think I heard something about a patent dispute.

I know JuicedLink announced the very similar Little DAR-Ling way last year at some show, but for some reason, it has yet to make it to market.

[Peter Rush]

I have one on order from GAK - i'll use it for the groom and still use my little sonys for my other lavs - great little device :)

[Phil Stanley]

I purchased 2 and used them for the first time at a wedding last sunday and was most impressed. The safety track records at 6DB less than the main track which is a nice touch

[Michael Silverman]

I saw these announced last year and was very excited about them, but I then saw that before they were even released they were discontinued in the US. I did quite a bit of research and it looks like Zaxcom sued Tascam for patent infringement and Tascam had to stop selling them in the US. Zaxcom has a similar device but it's over $1000.

I ordered mine from this company and they arrived in Virginia within a week:

Tascam DR 10CS Micro Linear PCM Recorder For Sennheiser Lavalier Microphones at Juno Records

These have made audio during ceremonies SO much easier for me. I was using two Sennheiser G3s and while the audio quality was decent, I often had dropouts while using both transmitters at once. Tascam includes a rubber belt so that I can strap the DR10CS to the G3 transmitter, and this way I've got 3 audio tracks to work with in post:

Track 1 is the main audio track from the Tascam
Track 2 is the safety track at -12db
Track 3 is the audio from the G3 sent to my camera

The quality of the Tascam tracks is much better than the G3 audio because there's no loss of quality due to wireless transmission. Also, there are no dropouts or interference issues.

It's usually been unnecessary for me to even use the G3 system because the quality is worse, but I like to have an audio track that I can monitor through my camera during the ceremony. Overall they've been one of the best audio purchases I've made and I wish they had come out when I first started shooting weddings!

[Art Varga]

Originally Posted by Phil Stanley

I purchased 2 and used them for the first time at a wedding last sunday and was most impressed. The safety track records at 6DB less than the main track which is a nice touch

Also used mine for the first time last weekend. So small and light I decided to mic up the bride during the morning prep. I used it with a Sennheiser ME2 lav and got great results.

Art

[Peter Rush]

Originally Posted by Clive McLaughlin

This thing is tiny, has screw jack connectors, records a safety track, has a very good belt clip.

How did I not know about this??

The style these days is for grooms to wear fitted suits and increasingly I've come across resistance to putting even my small Sony recorders into pockets.

This is exactly what I've been looking for!

Clive mine arrived today and will be using it for a wedding next week - Clive are you using full manual levels for general vows use?

[Art Varga]

Peter - I've used mine for two weddings so far and have had it on auto which seems to work fine. I found myself using the safety track in post so I have some headroom to work with.

Art

[Peter Rush]

...well having read the manual (rare for me) It seems there is no true 'manual' level setting, just 3 choices of microphone gain, auto (on or off) and limiter (on or off) I can't quite see how the auto level works in conjuction with the 3 preset mic gains vs the limiter - lots of experimenting!

It's a great little unit though - Ideally I'd like another 3 but I'll stick to the one - this will be for the groom

[Michael Silverman]

I have one for the officiant and I set it to "mid gain" which tends to work well since they often speak pretty loud. I put another one on the groom and put in on "hi gain" so that the main track picks up the bride at a decent level and the safety track picks up the groom's audio at a good level as well. It's nice not having to worry about audio during the ceremony :)

[Noa Put]

It's nice not having to worry about audio during the ceremony

That depends, the batteries could die, the recorder could malfunction, it's never a failsafe solution. Even if you have a way to monitor the sound from that tascam, if it dies mid ceremony you have no way to do anything about it anyway. A back up at a second soundsource, like a soundspeaker, is always your best friend. :)

[Michael Silverman]

Originally Posted by Noa Put

That depends, the batteries could die, the recorder could malfunction, it's never a failsafe solution. Even if you have a way to monitor the sound from that tascam, if it dies mid ceremony you have no way to do anything about it anyway. A back up at a second soundsource, like a soundspeaker, is always your best friend. :)

Hi Noa, I mentioned in an earlier post on this thread that along with two DR10CS recorders I have my two Sennheiser G3 systems which send the same audio to my camera:

Track 1 is the main audio track from the Tascam
Track 2 is the safety track at -12db
Track 3 is the audio from the G3 sent to my camera

So for both the groom and the officiant I have three separate tracks and these run into multiple devices so that even if one of the micro sd cards in a recorder were to fail, I would still have backup audio running to my camera from the G3 system.

Of course there are always things that can wrong with any audio or video setup, but I feel much more confident in this setup than any other one that I've tried and the quality from the DR10CS is much better than I've ever gotten by placing a mic near a PA speaker.

[Noa Put]

I didn"t read that far back about your Sennheiser G3 back up and thought you where referring to the tascam as only "safe" option together with the safety track. Without a extra backup solution you would never be safe but I see you have covered that part.

[David Banner]

Originally Posted by Michael Silverman

I saw these announced last year and was very excited about them, but I then saw that before they were even released they were discontinued in the US. I did quite a bit of research and it looks like Zaxcom sued Tascam for patent infringement and Tascam had to stop selling them in the US. Zaxcom has a similar device but it's over $1000.

I ordered mine from this company and they arrived in Virginia within a week:

Tascam DR 10CS Micro Linear PCM Recorder For Sennheiser Lavalier Microphones at Juno Records

These have made audio during ceremonies SO much easier for me. I was using two Sennheiser G3s and while the audio quality was decent, I often had dropouts while using both transmitters at once. Tascam includes a rubber belt so that I can strap the DR10CS to the G3 transmitter, and this way I've got 3 audio tracks to work with in post:

Track 1 is the main audio track from the Tascam
Track 2 is the safety track at -12db
Track 3 is the audio from the G3 sent to my camera

The quality of the Tascam tracks is much better than the G3 audio because there's no loss of quality due to wireless transmission. Also, there are no dropouts or interference issues.

It's usually been unnecessary for me to even use the G3 system because the quality is worse, but I like to have an audio track that I can monitor through my camera during the ceremony. Overall they've been one of the best audio purchases I've made and I wish they had come out when I first started shooting weddings!

Thank you. I just ordered one from there, too!