Alternative When Not Recording Audio with RED.

[Luis Ortiz]

In instances when I have to record audio away from camera, what's a good sound tool to use that serves as both recorder and mixer? Include price range if possible.

Thanks in advance.

[Randall Nott]

I use an Edirol R-4. It will work as both a 4 channel mixer and recorder, but works better behind a mixer because of the mediocre pre-amps. The pre-amps are supposedly better on the newer R-4 Pro, but it also costs twice as much. There are also companies like Oade Brothers that will do preamp mods on them. Also only works about three hours on fresh batteries. If I've got AC power I'll drag along my Mackie Onyx; that's a decent combo.

[Philippe Vandendriessche]

As a professional I use professional equipment.

Aaton Cantar-X 8 track portable recorder with mixer. 12500 EUR
http://www.aaton.com/products/sound/cantar/index.php

I'm location sound mixer.

[Luis Ortiz]

I use an Edirol R-4. It will work as both a 4 channel mixer and recorder, but works better behind a mixer because of the mediocre pre-amps. The pre-amps are supposedly better on the newer R-4 Pro, but it also costs twice as much. There are also companies like Oade Brothers that will do preamp mods on them. Also only works about three hours on fresh batteries. If I've got AC power I'll drag along my Mackie Onyx; that's a decent combo.

Very good.

Thanks for your input. I see the Edirol R-4 Pro costs around $2,000.

[Randall Nott]

Well, my next $20,000 is going into a RED rather than a Cantar. Pretty awesome deck though, Phillipe; thanks for the link to check it out.

The R-4 is kind of the low end for what will still get the job done. R-4 pro adds the better pre-amps, a bigger drive, and SMPTE time code. If you don't need SMPTE, you can find the modded R-4 for around 1300. If you've got more budget than that, check out the Marantz 670.

If you've got around four thousand, you can't go wrong with the Sound Devices 744T. That will probably be my next step up.