>>I'm curious as to what stereo digital recording units others are using to record their live performance off the soundboard. I'm currently using a Sony Minidisk MZ-R70[snip] I'm thinking of a DAT recorder, like the Panasonic SV-3700 or SV-3800.<<
kris- forget about DAT. it sucks. don't get me wrong- they sound great when they're behaving themselves, but for reliability, especially on the move.... you're better off with the MD. if you can get hold of the blank media for them (which we in the UK have had to wait for until this week), there's a version of MD that can record 90 minutes uncompressed onto a 1Gb blank. it eats batteries though.
otherwise- if you can afford a DAT portable, chances are you could stretch to a reasonably portable CD recorder. I have a denon 1/2 width (midi hifi) unit that's served well in the rehearsal room. there's a "proper" pro portable machine by HHB for about £800 & I think marantz do a couple in this sort of price-range.
just my 2c worth.
oh, & if you use the line input of the sony, I'm pretty sure it's a fixed level rather than the agc that you get on the mic inputs. I may be wrong.... I have made albums from MD recordings too- they're pretty good at not recording the background noises, as atrac compression works by exploiting some psycho-acoustic effect that's the same as what y'r hearing does. so an album you know very well will sound weird on an MD- remixed, almost- but a live recording sounds like what you remember, with all the bar-noise & chair-scraping magically absent.
duncan.
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